Election Policy Recommendations

Campaign finance reform: Give US born, non-felon, non-government employee, non-government contractor employee, non-cryptocurrency owner, non-financial bailout recipient adult citizens $120 once every two years, to donate anonymously, electronically to campaigns of a) US political candidates having wealth and adjusted gross incomes below five times the national adult median, who do not belong to political parties and do not take annual donations above $800 from any entity or b) US political parties not taking annual donations greater than $800 from any single entity and have neither candidates nor employees having gross incomes greater than five times the national adult median and or wealth greater than five times the national mean adult wealth.

Banning elected officials and political appointees from owning financial investments, except US cash, savings accounts, and checking accounts

Require political campaign contributions to be anonymous and electronic. Prohibit political campaigns from finding out the amounts of individual donations.

Ban campaign contributions from corporations.

Remove the campaign contributions box from tax forms.

Ban individuals owning more than $50,000 of government contractors' financial instruments from making political donations.

Prohibit entities seeking and or receiving government contracts exceeding $50,000 per year from making political donations.

Prohibit any cryptocurrency owning entity, anywhere in the world, from donating to US political entities. Prohibit any entity having investments greater than $10,000 in foreign and or multinational entities from donating to US primarily political entities.

Prohibit individuals, who had greater than $10,000 invested in foreign and or multinational entities, from holding political offices and or political appointments.

Ban government entities from providing money and services for political party primaries.

Require presentation of state or federal photo identification for in person voting. 

Ban current and former military personnel above the 0-4 rank from Federal elected positions and Federal political appointments, except at the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs. Prohibit current and former intelligence entity employees from government elected positions and political appointments, except at intelligence agencies.

Require states and local governments to publish and distribute publicly funded voters' guides, describing issues and candidates for each public election, giving roughly equal space to each local candidate.

Require candidates for federal and state legislatures to publish at least 12 example bills they will introduce once elected at least 200 days before the next legislative election.

Ban counting of ballots mailed from outside the United States. Ban counting of ballots without postmarks. Ban ballot harvesting, the collection and delivery of ballots by third parties rather than voters and postal workers. Ban convicted felons from voting and from every political office.

Grant first choice of Congressional committee assignment to the representative having the smallest sum of a) political funds raised in the past two years, b) non-governmental income in the past five years, and c) funds spent on their most recent congressional election. Grant second choice of committee assignment to the representative having the second lowest, etc.

Prohibit individuals born outside US states and territories from making US political donations.

Require all elected officials to comply with restrictions on ownership of certain financial instruments and unethical acts prior to taking office.

Ban the disbursement of government funds to political parties, political campaigns, and political candidates--along with their first, second, and third degree relatives by biology and marriage--except as listed on this site.

Ban political donations to political parties, their employees, and their candidates between September 15th and July 15th.

Prohibit any US entity from donating more than $600 over a 60-year period to all organized foreign political entities combined, including donations disguised as sales or purchases or other transfers.

Ban government funding for political insignia, except current year government flags, uniforms, letterheads, publications, and vehicle identifiers.

Ban any individual's name from appearing more than once on a ballot.

Ban anyone with a history of mental illness hospitalization from running for political office.

Ban individuals who owed debts to foreign entities exceeding $3,600 in the past 60 years from political positions paying more per year than the local median annual household income per year.

Ban individuals who owed debts to foreign and or multinational entities exceeding $500,000 in the past 99 years from elected offices and or political appointments.

Ban mail-in voting, except during pandemic emergencies and or for individuals receiving monthly Federal payments for physical disabilities. Require mail-in ballots to be postmarked at least nine working days prior to election days.

Require ballot listed judicial and legislative candidates to have lived in the areas they plan to serve for at least a lifetime total of 12 years.

Ban entities from paying voters to vote or not vote.

Prohibit former employees of Federal intelligence agencies and their first degree relatives from holding Federal elected offices.

Prohibit political campaigns from transferring campaign contributions to entities employing, run by or owned by candidates--plus first, second, and third degree relatives of candidates.

Make 99 years hard labor the mandatory minimum sentence for illegal election fraud involving more than five ballots in a single election.

Broaden the definition of lobbying to include conversations with and gifts to elected politicians, political candidates, and political appointees from corporate and nonprofit executives and board members.

Prohibit corporate and nonprofit board members from donating to politicians and political campaigns.

Require write-in candidate capable ballots for all government elected offices.

Ban individuals filing for bankruptcy, receiving student loan forgiveness, and or getting financial asset bailouts from elected offices and political appointments for the rest of their lives.

Ban chief decision makers of bankruptcy filing businesses and or bailout receiving businesses from elected offices and political appointments for the rest of their lives.

Prohibit members of government employee unions from elected offices and political appointments.

Require ballet listed candidates for legislatures, the presidency, and the vice presidency to pass multiple choice civil service exams in ethics,  macroeconomics, psychometrics, epidemiology, informal logic, human genetics, grand strategy, antitrust reasoning, and anti-corruption practices. Require similar exams for regulators. Examples of correct answers: 

1. the probability of a fair coin landing heads three times in a row is 12.5 percent.
2. Hamilton's Rule is irrelevant to most public policy issues. 
3. The best conclusion on an issue has the greatest weight of good premises supporting it. 
4. Fallacious premises should not be given weight for or against a conclusion. 
5. A short-term, well targeted stimulus at least equal to seven percent of GDP should be the policy response to a shortfall in demand equaling seven percent of GDP. 
6. Invoking envy is an irrelevant circumstantial ad hominem attack, except when envy itself is the issue being argued. 
7. Intelligence is currently mostly a genetic correlation, plus a little for iodine supplementation, minus some for aging and brain injuries. 
8. A reason why taxes on negative externalities are often better than command and control solutions is that politicians have terrible track records of picking future technologies and specific solutions. 
9. The expected value of an outcome is the probability of an outcome times the value of the outcome. 
10. Egoists take over groups. Altruism and mutualism survive because groups of altruists and mutualists splinter from groups being taken over by egoists. 
11. Altruism towards some often causes greater overall harms to others, especially future generations. 
12. Ethics should mostly focus on producing beneficial long-term consequences. 
13. R naught varies with situations.

Require political appointees to the state and defense departments to pass multiple choice civil service exams on ethics, informal logic, military strategy, and grand strategy. Examples of correct answers: 

1. achieving ethical political goals, while avoiding war, is better.
2. Avoid situations where enemies easily destroy forces piecemeal and with overwhelming mass and destructiveness. 
3. Sending a supply convoy to the Philippines on April 5, 1942 would have been an example of reinforcing defeat, negative expected value, and failure to ignore sunk costs.
4. Minimize enemies. Better to fight enemies one at a time or not at all.
5. Maximize positive expected value allies. Minimize negative expected value fake allies.
6. Avoid tit-for-tat rhetorical grandstanding against foreign groups you have no worthwhile influence over.

Prohibit anyone employed as a violent mercenary from voting in US elections.

Prohibit elected officials and election candidates from using apps that auto delete text messages and or emails after reading.

Require winning candidates in judicial, legislative, and executive elections to quit other money earning activities, except interest earned by bank and credit union accounts, upon taking office.

Prohibit judges, jurors, and defendants, along with their first through third-degree relatives, from giving gifts to prosecutors and donations to the political campaigns of prosecutors.

Prohibit lawyers, plaintiffs, and defendants, along with their first through third-degree relatives, from giving gifts to judges and donations to the political campaigns of judges.

Prohibit candidates for political offices from running for more than one office at a time.

Eliminate straight-ticket check boxes from ballots.

Require judges to run as independents. Prohibit judges and judicial candidates from publicly endorsing political candidates other than themselves. Prohibit judges and judicial candidates from donating to political campaigns. Prohibit judges from knowingly hearing cases involving their first through fourth degree relatives, along with knowingly hearing cases involving plaintiffs and defendants the judges have socialized with for more than two minutes. Prohibit judges from making decisions based on religious rules during trials and hearings. Prohibit judges committing the acts in the previous two sentences from holding current and future elected offices.

Prohibit elected officials and political appointees from holding more than one office at a time.

Prohibit employees of and or investors in foreign and or multinational entities from voting in US elections.

JT Fournier, last updated April 14, 2024