End Election Buying
What We're Up Against
What matters in politics is who you serve. Right now our political system is a rigged game that serves the wealthy. It doesn’t have to be this way.
We will change the rules.
Our Plan
- Ban corporate lobbyists from participating in campaigns.
- Institute a lifetime ban on former legislators, state office holders and judges from becoming lobbyists. It should also be illegal to be a lobbyist and a legislator at the same time.
- Cap dark money and demand transparency. Cap maximum expenditures by 501c4 and other “dark money” or third party groups to $5,000 per election cycle, per race.
- Institute a lobbying tax.
You shouldn’t have to be rich to serve your state.
- Cap maximum campaign donations for statewide races at $500 per cycle, per race.
- End self-funding. Pass a law so that no candidate for office can loan more than $1,000 to their own campaign and pass a constitutional amendment capping a self-funding contribution to $1,000.
- Double the number of polling places during early voting; expand the number of polling places by 50% on election day
- Institute same-day registration
- Install vote-by-mail as an option
- Reinstitute paper ballots for all elections
- Make general election day a holiday; move primary election day to a Saturday or West Virginia Day
- Put forward proposals that permit Ranked Choice Voting and Fusion Voting. This will allow people to vote third party without “throwing away their vote”
- Repeal the Voter ID law, and implement and expand automatic voter registration
- Establish an accessible, fact-checked, on-line voter guide. This will include print, audio, and braille versions available in libraries.
Restore voting rights for every West Virginia citizen, and make driver’s licenses available to every citizen, 18 and older.
Establish a non-partisan office to draw the lines for electoral districts moving forward.
No one politician or slate of candidates can win this plan alone. We need you.
If you have an idea for how to make this plan stronger, or if you would like to lend a hand to win it, contact our co-chair Stephen Smith at stephen@wvcantwait.com.