To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate

Amend the constitution to give the power of elections to the people

The President and Congress shall bring to a vote an amendment to the constitution with the following provisions. While the provisions below will need to be rewritten for proper legal standing, the spirit and intent of the provisions shall not be changed.

Section 1: Election of the President and Vice President.

1) The electoral college shall be abolished. The President and Vice President shall be elected by the direct vote of the people.

2) Votes for President and Vice President shall be cast separately.

Section 2: The house of representatives.

1) The number of representatives for each state shall be the number of whole multiples of the population of the smallest state as determined by the latest census.

2) The districts for the representatives of the states, for both federal and state congressional districts, shall be created by utilizing the most appropriate technology for automatically apportioning geographic regions to equally distribute the population of the state.
2a)The only factors which may be considered in calculating regions are geopolitical boundaries, public roadways, naturally forming breaks such as rivers, and population count with no demographic modifiers.
2b) Should a starting point be required for the process, the state capital building shall be that starting point.
2c) Should additional points be needed, a non-political group of geographic experts shall be convened once to determine the most appropriate, non-moving, geographic points to create the most efficient calculations.
2d) Should this amendment be ratified more than 2 years before the next census, automated redistricting shall happen once before the next election and once after each census thereafter.

3) The District of Columbia shall have exactly one Representative in the House of Representatives who shall have all rights and responsibilities as the Representatives of the individual states.

Section 3: Voting rights.

1) No citizen, who shall be at least eighteen years of age by the end of the calendar year of the election, and who is not incarcerated at the time of the election, shall be denied the right to vote for any reason.
1a) No state may require any greater form of identification to vote than is required for the government service which requires the least form of identification.
1b) All forms of government issued identification must be accepted as valid identification to vote.

Section 4: General elections

1) Elections shall be held on the first consecutive Saturday and Sunday in the month of November.
1a) Polling places shall be open no less than 12 hours on each day.
1b) Every citizen who arrives at the place of polling prior to the time of closing shall be allowed to cast a vote.
1c) Each state shall be required to ensure that each place of polling has equal per capita voting resources and facilities access.

2) Voters shall be allowed to, but not required to, vote for more than one candidate for each position, in order of preference.
2a) Each candidate may only be voted for once.
2b) The winner shall be determined when one candidate has at least 50% + 1 votes or all votes have been counted and the candidate with the highest total shall be the winner.
2c) Votes shall be counted one order of preference at a time (e.g. all first choice votes) until a winner is determined. Each consecutive order or preference shall only be counted if a winner has not been determined by the previous totals. Votes at each order or preference shall count as one divided by the level of the vote (e.g. 2nd place votes count as ½).

Why is this important?

The first words of the constitution are “We the People of the United States”. Not “We the Parties”, “We the Politicians”, or “We the Politically connected”. Since the founding of this country, those with power have worked tirelessly to take the power from the people. Our democracy is not representative. It has never been truly representative of all of the people. The current dysfunction within the federal and state governments, punctuated by the federal government shutdown, and the inequality within society show just how far we have gotten from the people.

It is time for a revolution. A revolution of thought. A revolution of process. In order to divest power from the few and giving it to the people, we must start with the election process. The time has come to make our democracy truly representative of all of the people. Political parties and politicians must no longer be able to manipulate the election process for self gain. A true democracy stands on the simple principle of one person, one vote, no exceptions.

The purpose of this petition is to give the power of the vote and elections unequivocally and irrevocably to the people

(A detailed explanation of each piece of this petition can be found here: http://www.bowlofmice.com/2013/10/we-the-people/ )