On the hit television show Star Search, contestants compete against
each other in singing, comic routines and modeling. Each performer does
his or her act, after which a panel of judges scores their performance on a
scale of one to five. Then the viewers may use the Internet to cast their
vote.
And vote they do! In a recent episode, over a million people called in
to vote for the winning contestants. This number is staggering
considering the limited number of people with Internet access and the low
percentage of people who vote in real elections.
Could this format show us the way to get people to vote?
We should have politicians appear on television and compete as well.
The candidate of one party could choose a topic and speak on it for five
minutes. A panel of judges from all ideological perspectives could offer
their critiques and award points on a scale of one to five based on the
speaker's grasp of the subject, depth of argument and persuasiveness.
Voters would then call a 1-800 number funded by the government and score the
speech on a scale of 1 to 20. The voters' average score would then be
added to the judges to get a final score of up to 40 points.
To control judge bias, voters would also have the option to vote off any of
the judges. Any judge receiving a vote of no confidence from a majority
of callers would be disqualified from judging again.
To elicit maximum response from the voters, the political star contests
could be shown on weeknights. The potential audience is there - in the
season finale of one of Star Search's competitors, American Idol,
over thirty million people watched!
While the votes would not be official, they would serve to stimulate voter
interest in issues and candidates. Political parties could choose their
spokespersons and the voters, in turn, could express their preferences.
The elected officials could get a good understanding of whether interested
voters support the war against Iraq, for example.
Also, third parties would have an opportunity to discuss their platforms and
get much needed publicity. It would be easy to incorporate them by having
the politicians compete in three heats, one for Democrats, one for Republicans
and one for third parties.
People in the United States have voted less and less in recent years.
A change in how the public learns of political matters and about differences in
opinion can only help. Let's turn politics into a show and watch the
stars come out!