This blog site is dedicated to the unknown Good Samaritan who on Sunday, August 4, 2019 stopped when they saw me lying on the sidewalk next to my bike and saved my life from a heart attack by giving me CPR until the ambulance arrived. I also want to thank the Sarasota County Rescue #1 and the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. This blog site on voting and elections is what I’m doing with the life you gave back to me. I hope you approve.

Democracy works best when all of the peoples’ voices are heard at the ballot box, not just some of the people and all of the people vote in fair elections after studying the candidates and the important issues. Someday we will have a 90% voter turnout in a presidential election, not just of registered voters, but of all U.S. citizens.

To see my blog posts on the Electoral College, the “All U.S. Citizens Should Vote” amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing the right of all U.S. citizens to vote and other voting and election topics go to the main menu on the top left of this page and click on blog posts.

To leave comments (both positive and negative) to my blog posts enter your name, and email address and press the “Post Comment” button at the end of my blog posts or email me at: AllUSCitizensShouldVote@yahoo.com.

Note: This blog site is supposed to be about idealistic democracy and not about partisan politics. But our democracy will always be a mixture of idealistic democracy and partisan politics. It was true at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and it’s still true about my blog site as well as Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court today. I hope you find my blog site is more about idealistic democracy than about partisan politics. 

To become a regular follower of my blog posts and be notified by email when a new blog is posted click on “Leave a Reply” at the bottom of the blog post or add your email address and press the “Follow” button.

Steve Scott,          
Blogger on Voting and Elections          
Sarasota, Florida   
November 25, 2025

“Getting more informed people to vote in fair elections.”­

 

These following voting changes will improve our democracy;                     

 

 

 

• by William Peters

A. The Electoral College was a great idea when it was created by our Founding Fathers in 1787. But the country has changed a lot in 250 years and it’s not such a great idea today. We should adopt the National Popular Vote Compact to elect our president by direct popular vote using Ranked Choice Voting until a constitutional amendment can be passed replacing the Electoral College with a simple direct popular vote, the same way we hold every other election in the country. Whoever gets the most votes for president becomes our next president. That’s the way democracy should be.

 

Symone Says Ranked Choice Voting is Da Bomb!

Rank the following five presidential candidates in order of your preference 1-5 on your ballot. The candidates are in order by last name.

__Andrew Jackson – Libertarian Party

__John Kennedy – Democratic Party

__Ralph Nader – Green Party

__Ross Perot – Forward Party

__Ronald Reagan – Republican Party

B. Ranked Choice Voting will insure that elected officials will always win by at least 50% of the vote thereby avoiding the situation when Hitler won an election in 1932 in Germany by only 37% of the vote.

 

 

 

 

And it will do it without having to have a second run-off election.

   It will also help people who don’t like either major political party (a.k.a. Independents) have a better voice in elections but without lessening the stability we now have with a two party system. With Ranked Choice Voting voters who don’t like either major party candidate can have their voice heard by voting for a Third Party candidate that they like better as their #1 choice without “throwing their vote away”. If they choose the “lessor of two evils” as their 2nd or 3rd choice, and their first choice doesn’t win, their vote can still have an effect on which of the two major political party candidates wins the election. 

   With Ranked Choice Voting, candidates will solicit 3rd party voters for their 2nd or 3rd choice votes. That way Independents who vote for 3rd party candidates as their first choice can still have some influence on the party platform of the major party winner even if their preferred Third Party candidate doesn’t win.

   Ranked Choice Voting should be implemented in all 52 states for voting for president and members of Congress, as is now done in the states of Maine and Alaska.

C. We should add the “All U.S. Citizens Should Vote.” Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing the right to vote for all U.S. citizens, no exceptions. The right to vote should be one of those unalienable rights, along with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that Thomas Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 when our country was born.

The following categories of U.S. citizens currently do not have the right to vote and this should be changed;

1. Statehood for Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. They’re U.S. citizens too. (Residents of D.C. can vote for President but they have no voting representation in the U.S. House or Senate.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. U.S. Citizens in the U.S. territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa in the Pacific and in the American Virgin Islands in the Caribbean should have the right to vote for President in the general election. (They can already vote for president in the primaries.) The votes of U.S. citizens in the Pacific islands of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa would be added to the vote totals of Hawaii. The votes of U.S. citizens of the American Virgin Islands in the Caribbean would be added to the vote totals of Florida. Just because these U.S. citizens live in U.S. territories instead of states shouldn’t prevent them from voting for President. See The Not-Quite States of America by Doug Mack.

3. Let all U.S. citizen felons on parole, probation and in prison vote. We can’t say  “All U.S. Citizens Should Vote.” unless felons even in prison have the right to vote too. If Maine, Vermont and D.C. can do it, so can the rest of the country.

4. Some U.S. citizens are disenfranchised if they don’t register to vote up to 30 days prior to an election. We should have same day Election Day voter registration and voting by provisional ballot in all 52 states.

5. Vote by Mail should be available for all voters in all 52 states. Not everyone is able to vote in person on Election Day. 

6. Many U.S. citizens can’t vote simply because they failed to register to vote or they moved and failed to notify the elections office. Auto pre-register voters at age 16 in high school (with an opt out).  Auto update voter addresses when the Post Office receives a permanent change of address. 

7. Legal guardians, including spouses and other relatives, will be able to vote by proxy for their adult U.S. citizen handicapped wards under a court order based on their ward’s living wills, stated voting preferences, or party registrations. If their wards are not registered, their legal guardians will not be able to vote for their wards unless ordered by the court. If their wards are registered as Independents the court will appoint a “trusted independent counsel” to advise the Legal Guardian how to vote for their wards. U.S. citizens with mental disabilities under legal guardianship should have their voices heard at the ballot box too.

8. Let parents/guardians vote by proxy for their U.S. citizen children under age 18. Children may not be capable of making intelligent voting decisions themselves (neither are some adults), but if they’re U.S. citizens they deserve to have their voices heard on Election Day too.

9. Require “Green Card” immigrants to become citizens after five years so they can vote, except if their original country will not allow dual citizenship. It’s not good for a democracy when millions of people who live here, work here, pay taxes and call this their home but can’t vote because they’re not U.S. citizens.

 

“Trump, without evidence, accuses Obama of ‘treason’ President Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Tulsa on June 20, 2020.”
(June 22, 2020 Reuters)

 

Trump committed treason and will try again. He must be barred from running

10. Citizens should never have their citizenship taken away for any reason, even for treason. It would be too easy for corrupt governments to use this loophole to disenfranchise voters who disagree with them simply by taking away their citizenship.

D. We should pass the “2/3 is enough” amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Founding Fathers recognized in 1787 when they wrote the Constitution that changing the Constitution by amendment by a simple majority vote was too easy. But they made it too hard by requiring approval by 3/4 of the state legislatures to pass an amendment.  2/3 is the “Goldie Locks” amount: not too easy, not too hard but just right. 

   We require 2/3 of both houses of Congress to pass a constitutional amendment, 2/3 of both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto, 2/3 of the Senate to approve foreign treaties and 2/3 of the original 13 states to ratify the original Constitution.

New Hampshire was the 9th state to ratify our present Constitution on June  21, 1788 thereby making it the law of the land. We should change the Constitution to allow passage of any new amendment to the Constitution by 2/3 of the state legislatures too. 

E. Technically this is not a voting change but we should make this change too by passing a congressional law and signed by the president. Add these words from the Declaration of Independence from 1776 to the bottom three white lines of our flag. 

 

 

 

 

 

These words by Thomas Jefferson from the Declaration of Independence signify what are the greatest advantages of our democracy: the political equality of all citizens in our country and the unalienable rights that all our citizens enjoy including the right to vote. And to continue these advantages of our democracy, “All U.S. Citizens Should Vote.”

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them…too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it….But I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind…and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances; institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.”  Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Samuel Kercheval, June 12, 1816. 

Who is Steve Scott?
Our democracy has worked well for almost 250 years.  I’m spending my retirement years promoting the “All U.S. Citizens Should Vote.” amendment to the U.S. Constitution to help make our democracy even better for the next 250 years.

I have been blogging on voting and elections since 2019 on my blog site, AllUSCitizensShouldVote.com with a focus on improving our democracy, not politics.

I have also written 48 Letters to the Editor on various topics published in local Florida newspapers. I may not have the talent to write a 300 page book but I have learned how to write a mean 200-300 word Letter to the Editor. 

Personal Background: Born in South Portland, Maine in 1951. B.A. Economics from the University of Maine and a M.A. in Labor Economics from the University of New Hampshire. Spent 30 years in Boston as an accountant/bookkeeper for small nonprofit organizations. I also worked for the World Affairs Council of Boston and produced a slide show and video for schools, “Everyday Life in the Soviet Union, The Story of a Moscow Teenager” in 1986 seen by 25,000 students in the greater Boston area. At age 50 I had a midlife career change and became a male nanny. Served three years on the Aircraft Carrier Independence CV-62 (1972-75) as an Engineering Officer and made two cruises to the Mediterranean and spent 17 years in the Naval Reserves in Boston preparing to organize merchant ship convoys in future wars. LCDR, U.S. Navy Reserves (retired). I have been registering new voters since 2007. I have been retired in Sarasota, Florida since 2012 and working to improve our democracy ever since when not enjoying the warm Florida sunshine and Sarasota’s great seafood restaurants. My favorite book: Rescue in Denmark, how occupied Denmark rose as a nation to save the Danish Jews from Nazi extermination. My favorite quotes: “You don’t have to win, but you do have to try.” by Steve Scott, “Never doubt that a small group of [committed] citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” by Margaret Mead author of Coming of Age in Samoa, 1928 and, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” by Winston Churchill Prime Minister of Great Britain during WW II. 

Steve Scott-Blogger on Voting & Elections