A Rapidly Closing Window

A new primary is possible. It would take one week, a fraction of the usual cost, and require zero local coordination. It’s been done at the State level already. Democracy is still an option.

In short: mail every registered Democrat and independent a unique code they can use to vote online. Mail costs 50¢ per address and takes 5-7 days to arrive. Existing voter registration lists are readily available from every state. Mail-in ballot fraud is very hard and very rare.

We could have a totally open campaign process for the next three weeks, then run a nationwide primary August 11-17th. No need to guess who the voters want, we can just ask everyone. Three weeks is short, but enough time for meaningful trial by fire of the many good options.

Added bonus: if you set up the system right, it's way more auditable than normal mail-in ballots. People will be able to verify the results themselves afterwards: that they were counted, and that no votes were manufactured. Lack of this has Caused Arguments in the past…

Oh and also, you never put your secret vote in an envelope with your name on it. What we're proposing is fully privacy-preserving.

There exists a platform, SIV.org, which has already implemented what we're talking about, and has been battle tested in real Utah elections. More details about how their system compares to traditional elections: https://docs.siv.org/compare

More precise cost estimate: 333M people * 77% are adults * 69% are registered * 2/3 are Dem/Ind * 50¢ per mailer = $59M. Compute and personal costs are trivial in comparison. No need for a fleet of election workers. Not worried about marketing, media will cover it plenty. If cost is an issue, we could do this in swing states only. $5.3M for PA+WI+GA, another $5M to add MI+NC+AZ (the top 6 by @NateSilver538 's "chance of tipping" estimates). Less democratic but perhaps maximizes the chances of beating Trump anyway.

We've been running this site as a low-budget proof of concept, but this proposal is the primary we’ve really wanted all along. Everything is in place and we’re 100% sure this would work.

We have in our hands the ability to run secure nationwide elections for less than 1/10th the usual cost, but we're not sure the Democratic establishment realizes this is an option. (Heck, one rich donor could do this unilaterally if they wanted to)

Originally appeared as a Tweet, and we haven't written a longform version yet.