Pay Per Vote: the Wave of the Future?

[newthinking]

Cut Out the Political Middlemen!
Pay Per Vote: the Wave of the Future?
by H. BRUCE FRANKLIN

American voters don’t come cheap. Seven billion dollars were spent on the 2012 election to influence the 117 million people who turned out to vote. That’s about $60 per voter. What an inefficient and costly system! How archaic!

Think of the many terrific advantages in skipping the middlemen and paying each voter directly. Two are obvious: It would be much cheaper for the donors. It would vastly increase the voter participation rate. Imagine all those stay-at-homes who would be happy to earn, say, $25 for just taking a quick trip to the local poll. At $25 per voter, that would save the donors more than three billion dollars.

And the remaining four billion dollars spent on the election would go directly to the people, especially folks who really need it, instead of to the media and the politicians. Although this would be just a modest step toward directly decreasing inequality, it would be adding a significant addition to consumer purchasing power, thus stimulating the economy and creating jobs.

Besides the obvious savings, donors would not have to keep giving money to politicians in between campaigns, and expensive lobbying would be a thing of the past. Ideally, elected representatives and other officials would wear the logos of the corporations or individuals whose funds had bought their election.

Eliminating election advertising would be a boon to the quality of media content. Since the money would not be going directly to the politicians, they could be honest—in fact would have to be honest—about whom they really represent. Thus dishonesty and bogus promises would no longer be the hallmark of our political culture.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/26/pay-per-vote-the-wave-of-the-future/