In 1993, I ran for Dayton City Commission for the first time. That was the year Mike Turner first got elected, the start of his climb to Congress, where he’s sat for over 22 years.
As a marketing guy, I thought my 11×17, double-sided broadside packed with real solutions would engage voters. I was wrong.
I quickly learned how hard the system works to keep outsiders out. Petition challenges. Amateur graphologists combing over signatures. Endorsements handed out in back rooms. I didn’t lose because voters rejected my ideas. I lost because the system was built to block anyone not already anointed.
They call it the Board of Elections. In reality, it’s a Board of Selections.
Coronations, Not Contests
National politics isn’t any different. Hillary Clinton in 2016. Joe Biden in 2020. Kamala Harris elevated without facing a real primary. By the time voters in Ohio get to weigh in, the coronation is already over.
If primaries aren’t held nationwide, on the same day, with ranked-choice voting, it’s a farce. But ranked choice only works if voters are actually informed, and right now, there’s no system for that.
Democrats call themselves the party of democracy. But their process looks more like theater. And every time they rig the stage, they bleed legitimacy.
I saw it again in August, filming a local party meeting. A woman in her sixties stood up, not a precinct captain, just a citizen, and asked how she could help organize young people who know Trump is a danger. Party leaders talked over her, shut her down, and adjourned the meeting. She walked out bewildered and deflated.
That’s not democracy. That’s exclusion.
The VP Fix
There’s another flaw in our system: picking a vice president.
Right now, whoever wins the nomination gets to pick their running mate like a sidekick, often more about “insurance” than governance. George W. Bush had Dick Cheney. Donald Trump picked Mike Pence and later cheered when a mob wanted him hanged.
That’s not stability. That’s roulette. And, the people aren’t even invited to the table.
A better way: whoever wins first place in ranked-choice voting should have to pick their VP from among the next three finishers. That guarantees broader legitimacy, forces coalition-building, and gives voters a real say in who’s number one and number two.
The $15 Billion Farce
The U.S. now spends over $15 billion every presidential cycle on campaigns.
On what?
- TV ads and attack mailers nobody trusts.
- Duplicated armies of ground workers.
- Consultants pocketing millions.
- Voter databases that both parties buy and resell, over and over, instead of investing once in a shared, verified platform.
Meanwhile, countries like the UK run entire elections in six weeks. Here, candidates spend half their terms campaigning and fundraising.
And as someone who runs an ad agency that has helped political campaigns, I can tell you: the hoops candidates jump through are absurd. They have to:
- Recruit a treasurer.
- File for an EIN.
- Open a bank account.
- Get gouged by ActBlue or WinRed just to process donations.
- Hire a web designer.
- Buy media.
- Create logos, collateral, and yard signs.
It all gets reinvented, expensively, every cycle. No private business would tolerate this level of waste.
And the collateral damage is real. Campaign ads flood the airwaves in the fourth quarter, competing with small businesses, retailers, and nonprofits for ad slots. October should be when businesses are making their year. Instead, campaigns drive up prices, crowd out local voices, and drain the economic engine.
And unlike every other industry, campaigns don’t even have to follow truth-in-advertising laws. Soap companies can’t lie. Politicians can, and they do.
The Solution: OKDemocracy
We don’t need more ads. We need a verified voter information system that works like a public utility.
Call it OKDemocracy, modeled after the old OKCupid dating site, which didn’t just show pictures. It asked questions, measured priorities, and matched people on values. There is a stripped down version of this called I Stand With online, but it’s only for presidential campaigns and not verified.
Here’s how it would work:
- Candidate profiles: biography, issue positions, and answers to a standardized bank of 100+ questions.
- Nuance allowed: candidates explain their answers so voters know why they stand where they do.
- Voter questionnaires: voters answer the same questions, ranking both their positions and how much each matters.
- Mandatory accountability: voters can submit questions. The ones ranked most important, by the most voters, become mandatory for candidates to answer. No dodging.
- Real choice: voters can exclude candidates they don’t want, and reorder the rest. No more “lesser of two evils.”
- Campaign content hub: speeches, ads, and videos all live on the candidate’s page, side by side with opponents’.
And because this is more than an information system:
- Verified donors only. If voters must register, so should donors. Every contribution comes from a verified account, with large donors disclosing the breadth of their holdings.
- Real-time transparency. Donations show up instantly, searchable for conflicts of interest.
- Campaign debit cards. Candidates spend with platform-issued cards; every dollar is logged in real time.
- Payroll integration. Campaign staff are hired, paid, and reported inside the system. No off-books deals.
- No more FEC headaches. Reports are generated automatically in real time, eliminating most filing burdens and endless campaign finance debates.
- Turnkey campaigns. Think of it as a nonprofit, open-source version of NationBuilder or CiviCRM — everything from branding to compliance handled, giving independents and outsiders the same infrastructure insiders take for granted.
This isn’t just a tool. It’s a new operating system for democracy.
Phase Two: Tracking Votes
Campaigns are only half the story. Once candidates win, there’s no universal way to track whether they actually vote the way they promised.
Local councils, school boards, and legislatures use dozens of incompatible tools. Many use a proprietary system called BoardDocs and if you stop paying, your data disappears.
What’s needed is an open-source, government-maintained, ADA-compliant meeting management platform that logs every vote in real time, and connects directly to OKDemocracy. That way, voters can hold leaders accountable not just for what they say, but for what they do.
Better Than What We’ve Got
Half-steps already exist. Sites like Ballotpedia or iSideWith help voters understand candidates. But they aren’t verified, don’t provide answers straight from the candidates, and don’t integrate donations, payroll, or accountability.
OKDemocracy would.
It would replace waste with efficiency, secrecy with transparency, coronations with contests.
Why It Matters
With OKDemocracy, we could:
- Save billions every cycle.
- Level the playing field for independents and outsiders.
- End the need for shady PACs and endless mailers.
- Make campaign finance reform obsolete.
- Give voters the power to demand real answers.
- Open the door to more voices and choices.
- Create our first legitimate national primaries.
And it would end campaigns as the political equivalent of panhandling. (I made that point in 2012 by filming myself literally panhandling “my way to Congress.” It wasn’t satire. It was the truth.)
The Principle at Stake
I’ve been called a crank, a ninja, and worse. I’ve run and lost more campaigns than I can count. But I keep fighting because democracy only works if people believe it’s theirs.
Right now, too many Americans don’t. Almost half don’t vote. In Ohio, 71% aren’t aligned with either party.
Until we fix the machinery, Boards of Elections will keep acting like Boards of Selections. And democracy will keep looking like theater instead of truth.
It doesn’t have to. If we can build platforms that match people with partners, surely we can build one that matches people with leaders.
A Call to Action
I submitted this idea to the New York Times, Politico, The Atlantic, and The Guardian US. All passed. Maybe because they thrive on political theater, it sells ads.
So now I’m publishing it here. The only way this idea will spread is with your help. Share it. Talk about it. Send it to your favorite influencer, whether Robert Reich or Joe Rogan.
This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about restoring trust in democracy itself.
OKDemocracy isn’t just an idea. It’s the blueprint for the democracy America deserves.
You can follow and support the development of this idea at ModernPolicy.org
This was the central theme of the book I started to write in 2015, before getting kicked in the teeth by my fathers death, my office manager embezeling (and going un-prosecuted), then my mothers care, her death, Covid, and life in general. Lately, I’ve been writing legal briefs more than I ever planned to in the Foley Quo Warranto case. Maybe, soon, I’ll get back to the book, but in the meantime, this is the “big idea.” Tell me what you think in the comments.
Song: Swipe Right For Democracy- by David Esrati
As usual, David gives us lots of novel and solid ideas on the state of American culture, politics, and governance, with a swipe right on the dating scene. In the words of John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, an English Catholic historian who wrote to a bishop in 1887 on the dangers of concentrated authority, Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”. In that same letter, Lord Action also said, “The inflexible integrity of the moral code is, to me, the secret of the authority, the dignity, the utility of history. If we may debase the currency [that is, set aside the integrity with which historians should judge the past] for the sake of genius, or success, or rank, or reputation, we may debase it for the sake of a man’s influence, of his religion, of his party, of the good cause which prospers by his credit and suffers by his disgrace. Then history ceases to be a science, an arbiter of controversy, a guide of the wanderer, the upholder of . . . [high moral standards. Then history] serves where it ought to reign; and it serves the worst better than the purest.” Those words echo loud and clear throughout America and the world today. I have to wonder if humans just want to lord over others in their sphere, no matter the time, place, or circumstance, often to our own detriment. I recently said to others in my circle that intellectual property, data, DNA, water, energy production, and soil to space ownership will be much of what we fight over in the future, but privacy and the rule of law remain the twin touchstones of our time. Despite suffering periods of apathy, I still have faith in voters. What I truly feel confident about is that Americans won’t be denied for long to keep their long held rights to live in peace, harmony, with adequate means, free to speak, assemble, be secure in their homes, free to prosper and thrive, irrespective what the current tinpot dictator-in-training says or does. He will be bounced out of… Read more »
David,
I am very very impressed.
Even if I have questions about a detail or two, you have clearly put so much thought into this that I expect you already have well thought out answers for each one.
That’s been my impression of you since I first began following your posts probably more than two decades ago. The amount of clear thinking, and effort, you devote to everything is both impressive and admirable.
If I were still working, I would use your printing services, enhanced by your advice, for every possible project.
Fred
@Fred, thanks for the kind words.
This has been top of my mind since about 2012. I set up The Modern Policy Institute to try to fund building it. But, running a non-profit that’s going head to head with the election industrial complex- or doing advertising that I love and pays the bills- left me no-real choice.
I’d love to get this in front of the DNC- or think tanks- but- so far, no luck. So please, spread the word.
David. Very interesting. This is the big picture and in your book you will need to give the details. One chapter will need to show the details of the laws that will need to be approved to accomplish this vision — getting a majority of votes in the House and 60 votes in the Senate and a presidential signature. The chapter will need to show the wording of the needed Constitutional amendments. Regardless of the merit of your proposal, nobody will donate money if the proposal is deemed impossible to accomplish, and what you are suggesting to me seems impossible. You have a big challenge to gain support from citizens, like me, who dearly want positive change in our democracy and political system. A suggestion for you to consider is to offer a plan that requires zero legislation or amendments.