My email and cell phone, and I assume yours, have been burning up with candidates desperate for money: money before the media casually assesses the viability of their campaigns based on total receipts at quarterly reports, instead of emphasizing all that is wrong with this system. The show will go on with or without our contributions. The money we don’t contribute will be happily provided by special interests, until we become mere spectators to a political sport, or worse, remain victims of a system that does not represent the values of the majority. Even the Federalist Society-6 on our United States Supreme Court has been captured by money, and the personal luxury each enjoys on account of it, while demonstrating to the rest of us through their rulings that precedence is a kindly, but obsolete legal principle.

There exists, however, a mechanism, used in other states and myriad municipalities, to minimize money’s influence among the elected. SB 445, voter owned elections, is a system in which registered voters receive a voucher each can contribute to candidates of their choice. It’s a publicly owned, transparent system, funded with public dollars, unlike the current system which includes untraceable dollars influencing elections. Voter owned elections provides benefits that include an increase in voter participation, greater opportunities for non-wealthy candidates to run viable campaigns, requires candidates to directly engage with supporters and, importantly, leads to policy more in line with our values. Follow SB 445 at opendemocracyaction.org.

Bob Perry

Strafford