PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION REFORM
Salvaging the Original Intentions of the Founding Fathers
through Modern Electronic Technology
V. The National Nominating Debates
The National Nominating Debates, will present two candidates to square-off with the incumbent president and vice-president. The format will be the same as the National Primary Debates, as seen here:
The contest will be held in mid-November, in the week before Thanksgiving. There will be two one-hour debates per evening. The Tuesday debate will be on domestic issues. The Wednesday debate will be on foreign affairs. On Thursday, the F.E.C. will announce the preferential vote totals. The TWO debaters with the highest scores will go on to the last debate and the final election of the president and vice-president1.
The vote in the nominating debates cannot be used to elect the president and vice-president because there are still too many candidates to choose from. If there are more than two candidates the chances are increased that no one of them will receive a majority of votes.
At times when four of the most prominent people of the nation are in the field, the odds are that all four would receive many votes. One candidate could win with only a small plurality of votes, such as 26%. But that kind of victory could end up frustrating the hopes of nearly three-fourths of the electorate. In a democracy, elected officials should have the support of the majority. To govern effectively the president should have as much popular support as possible. President Lincoln once said that without popular support a president can do nothing, but with it he can do anything.
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1. In the years when the incumbent president has served two terms and is not eligible to take office again, under the 22nd Amendment, the nominating debates will be between the vice-president and one challenger. That challenger will be determined by a single one-hour and twenty-minute debate between the two winners of the Regional Run-Offs. Forty minutes of free debate can be on domestic issues, and another forty minutes on foreign affairs. This debate can be held on one Tuesday evening in the last week of October. If neither president nor vice-president will be available for office, the two Regional Run-Off winners will face-off in the December Presidential Election Debates.
THE PRESIDENTIAL LITERACY TEST THE STATE ELECTION DEBATES THE REGIONAL RUNOFFS
THE NATIONAL NOMINATING DEBATES THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DEBATES