Selecting Leaders, Discussion (1)

An Election Commission conducts the process. It names the participants of each group and supplies the groups with the text of pending ordinances and a synopsis of the budget appropriate to the group. In addition, on request, it makes the full budget available and supplies the text of any existing ordinances. This insures a careful examination of public matters and encourages a thorough discussion of partisan views on matters of public concern.

For convenience, we refer to each iteration as a "Level", such that Level 1 is the initial grouping of the entire electorate, Level 2 is the grouping of the selections made at Level 1, and so forth. The entire electorate participates at level 1 giving everyone an equal opportunity to advance to succeeding levels.

• As the process advances through the levels, the amount of time the participants spend together increases. At level 1, groups may meet for a few minutes, over a back-yard fence, so-to-speak, but that would not be adequate at higher levels. As the levels advance, the participants need more time to evaluate those they are grouped with. They also need transportation and facilities for meeting and voting. These are mechanical details.




• The public has a tendency to think of elections in terms of just a few offices: a congressional seat, a senate race, and so forth. There are, however, a large number of elected officials who fill township, county, state and federal offices. The structure outlined here provides qualified candidates for those offices, as follows:

  
  

  At a predefined level (determined by the number of offices to be filled), the two candidates not selected to advance to the next level move into a parallel process leading to selection for offices; first in the local, then the county, then the state, and, finally, the national governments.