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“The Executive Power shall be vested in a President…

He shall hold his Office as follows:”

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https://jackcharbonneau.com/2018/04/30/how-should-the-constitutional-amendment-read/

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“Sec 1.2 shall be UNDONE…” Why? Because this is what we aim to CHANGE. “Each State shall appoint… a Number of Electors…” The Electors are the people who elect our President, not The People. We VOTE to choose who our Electors will be. They decide who will be our President.

At one time it was believed this was for our National Security, but the Supreme Court has ruled that is not the case. Electors may only vote for the candidate the VOTERS decide… so the question becomes:

Why do we still have Electors if they are unable to vote their conscience?

They are now an unnecessary, redundant step in the process…
It’s time we created a replacement for this antiquated electoral system.

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“Sec 1.3 shall be UNDONE and written as follows…” This is the section that describes the process by which the Electors will choose our President. IF we choose to undo the Electoral College, this section of our Constitution becomes a BLANK SLATE. How do we choose our President? More to the POINT… how do we choose our Presidential Candidates?

That is currently UNDEFINED.

What should our Government LOOK like? What do we want our Government to BE? Should MONEY decide who is allowed to seek The Office as it currently does, or should IDEAS rule the day…

In an OPEN and HONEST debate, the best ideas always rise to the TOP.

We must re-envision the contest we call our Presidential Election, from the Primary to the General. We have the power to make it exactly as it should be…

A Battle Royale of the MINDS.

We, The People, create the platform and supply the resources necessary to elevate the candidates… not the other way around. We’ve created this Office for OUR BENEFIT. Let us fully define what it is we want this “Application Process” to be, for every candidate.

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“Sec 1.3 Each of the Several States shall select, by ballot of eligible voters… an eligible candidate for President.”

Fifty Presidential Candidates. As our Nation grows, more candidates will be added. Candidates as diverse as each and every State, representing their State’s interests and presenting solutions born of their life experience. Selected as the best candidate to represent their State, and chosen via a State-run Primary Election in which EVERY United States Citizen residing in that State is eligible to VOTE.

Every Citizen 16 years of age and older.

This should not be a goal to be realized in the future. This must be the base-line, our starting point. Every Citizen. Every Election. This is what we are fighting to secure. If someone suggests we must disenfranchise a certain set of the electorate for any reason, we must fight TOOTH and NAIL to preserve their Right…

As if I were losing my Right to VOTE.

More participation equals BETTER GOVERNANCE, and when you defend the Rights of others… you defend those Rights for yourself.

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The balance between States’ Rights and Federal Authority must always be considered. We benefit greatly from the individual States running an election free from undue Federal burdens. Under the umbrella of the Federal Government, the State Governments provide a secondary line of defense against BAD ACTORS attempting to subvert our elections.

Therefore, we should seek to build on this strength and include it as a vital piece of our new system. If we think of it in terms of a Government Contract seeking production of a product… the Federal Government will create the specifications of the desired product and demand that it be produced in strict adherence to a specific set of conditions.

Statewide Primary Elections will produce ONE candidate from each State. Each individual will have been fully vetted by every citizen within their State BEFORE they step on to the National Stage, where they will be scrutinized once again by every citizen in the country in our Federal Primary Elections.

Every citizen. Every election. Multiple ballots, ensuring The People are fully informed at every step of the process. Placing our National Security in the hands of The People. DIRECTLY.

No middleman. No partisan filters. No select group of elects. No elite nobles to stand guard and “protect” what they deem worthy of protecting.

OPEN, HONEST, and TRANSPARENT. We are the balance upon which the entire EXPERIMENT is judged! Whomever stands victorious at the end of this process will have done so with the full backing of the MAJORITY of this Nation.

Let there be NO DOUBT!

And that is how we will ensure January 6, 2021, will NEVER happen again.

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I believe in the 1st Amendment. Being a musician, I value having the ability to utilize EVERY tool in my toolbox when I create something new.

When I was younger, I would write in the form of Shakespearean Sonnets. The limiting structure and rhyme scheme forces the mind to streamline its thoughts, weeding out any unnecessary WORDS and getting straight to the POINT.

Within these constraints it’s possible to create perfection… every word, necessary to convey a feeling or an image… I think that’s why I find Twitter so fascinating. Always attempting to compose perfection.

I see WORDS as if they were COLORS… what image am I trying to PAINT in the minds of whomever will HEAR them?

No words should be taboo. No thoughts should be outcast. How can we find what’s ACCEPTABLE, if we are not allowed to LEARN what is not.

Banning thoughts and words is like banning the color RED… how can we create the images necessary to learn what evil looks like if we banish all the colors of the NIGHT? Without proper context, how will we recognize the beauty that comes from the return of the LIGHT?

HATE SPEECH is a different story. Hate speech that incites anger and motivates people to violence has NO PLACE in our society. Everyone should have the right to express their opinions, except for when those opinions advocate for violence or cause harm to others.

We cannot censor our way out of our problems. Misinformation must be addressed HEAD-ON. Like a fungus in a dark, wet room… it will spread if it’s ignored.

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As individuals, we make decisions about what we believe to be TRUE based on all of the information we’ve gathered throughout our lives. Based on that limited perspective, we will eventually be in-error. We will make the wrong decisions based on limited data or a lack of up-to-date information.

But as the years pass, our cumulative knowledge grows… as does our accuracy.

As a Nation, we have over 200 YEARS of accumulated knowledge. As an Institution, our Union has erred. Today, those errors are OUR TREASURE. Because we can LEARN from our mistakes.

No idea should be seen as so outrageous that it cannot stand as a guardrail for our PUBLIC DEBATES. ‘This is the third rail… This is what we will not tolerate…’ Because we can SEE it. We can describe it. We can point to it when it’s on FULL DISPLAY.

And if it must continue to be so, that some people will only learn things the hard way, and they will continue to cling to ideas that are WRONG; then we must LISTEN to what they are saying. It is their RIGHT to be WRONG… and it is our DUTY to show them why they are so.

And it’s the DUTY of the United States Government to ensure all of this happens SAFELY.

Our Government takes in information from many sources throughout the World. As they consume new information, they deem some intel as “SECRET” or “CLASSIFIED”, in order to gain a strategic advantage against our adversaries or to protect our National Interests.

And even then, some of that classified information makes its way out into the public. Intrepid reporters engaged in old-fashioned, shoe-leather journalism, regularly beat our intelligence gathering communities to the story, essentially doing their job for them.

It is in the interest of Our Government to evaluate the veracity of new information on a daily basis and make an overall determination as to what is FACT and what is FICTION. I believe it is in the interest of every United States Citizen to know what the opinion of our Federal Government is on any information they see fit to evaluate.

Not to censor or to stifle dissenting opinions, but to share more broadly what their official opinion is. Like the labels Twitter attached to the former President’s Tweets in the final days of his tenure, or the information box YouTube attaches to videos that deal with disputed facts and fringe subjects… like fake moon landings or JFK conspiracy theories.

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“The integrity and security of Our Intellectual Debates shall be overseen by the Secret Service, with full Congressional oversight and direction.“

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As a unified entity, our Government must make conclusions as to the veracity of available information. It should be done so in a CLEAR and PRECISE way so that everyone knows exactly what their opinion is, and we can take that into consideration when determining what is TRUTH in our everyday lives.

I believe this task should fall on the shoulders of the United States Secret Service… but there are many, MANY corrective steps that must be taken before that HONOR can be bestowed upon them.

I believe they are deserving of the chance to make amends… because we entrust them with protecting one of our most sacred institutions. We NEED them to function properly.

Let us rededicate our efforts to ensuring it is so.

-JC