Is fixing the impact of money on politics as simple as giving everyone $100?
The latest edition of Planet Money takes a look at the fascinating attempt in Seattle to even-up the impact of money on politics. The solution tried? To give everyone an equal sum in ‘democracy vouchers’ which can be given to political campaigns and cashed in by them.
The hope was that this would both get far more people involved in backing campaigns, deepening their involvement in democracy, and also provide a way for those without access to the big sums of money to effectively mobilise grassroots support instead.
Here’s how it worked out:
Graphic credit: Javier Zarracina/Vox
A similar idea was floated in Liberal Democrat News years ago by a professor whose name escapes me. As and when I have time I’ll try to track him and it down and give you the details. If anyone has a better filing system than mine and knows the details perhaps they could publish them
This could easily have an unintended benefit – If you donate to a campaign you are likely to feel part of it, thus be more likely to vote: like paying voters to vote/caring about the outcome… If the small donations were sufficient, they could add up to a balance towards those large individual contributions ‘buying’ the campaign.