People don't vote (less than 40% in that election). Make voting mandatory, like in Australia (or at least make it a national holiday), and require a certain amount of real political coverage in the media -- politicians would then better reflect the needs of the people.
> Cap political donations
> Reduce allotted time for campaigning to something like 2 months, and maybe have it publicly funded like Australia
> Use open source congressional redistricting algorithms
> Eliminate First Past the Post
> Eliminate straight ticket voting
All pretty nice ideas that mostly everyone that isn't in power can get behind
As well as a tradition of placing limits on free speech when appropriate.
Which is a larger threat to our country? Democratically elected officials not supporting the views of those that elected them? Or capping the amount of influence a single group can financially have?
I do want to say that public funding also comes with its issues. Its the way most parties in Argentina fund themselves and because all of them do, all parties get to put their hand of the State coffers during elections. So much, they made an electoral reform to have another round of elections, just to be able to spend more money on pork.
There is no solution to funding political parties that wont screw someone. Its yet another example of diminishing the scope of government so they just steal less of it.
Want to get more people voting there are a few things that need to change
1. End First past the post... Anything is better, IRV, Alternative Vote, something else.
2. End 2 Party Gerrymandering, Parties should not have any control over distracting at all Should follow some other function like Zip Code, or Taxing Jurisdiction, or some other government function, not just for voting
3. Implement the Wyoming Rule for for congress
4. Pipe Dream... Put the federal government back into constitutional limits and reverse Wikard v Filburn or pass a law that renders it void
1-3 would do alot, #4 would do the most good
Election reform, (not election finance ) is needed but too many people focus on the money, the money is just a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem. Solve the underlying systemic issue with the voting process and the money becomes pointless and will dry up on its own
If you can't get people to voluntarily participate in democracy then you have a failed implementation of it.
Furthermore, the ability to not vote is a powerful and necessary option, as it's hard for those in power to imply that they have a mandate if <10% of the population actually participated in it.
I don't know what mandatory voting accomplishes except giving those in power the ability to say, "Tut tut! No complaining! You got your vote, after all."
What it does completely deal with is the voter registration question.
"Require" and "free press" don't go together unfortunately.