Any aspiring Futurolists out there? Politically, where do we go from here?

How can we make the political process meaningful once again - where the candidate best qualified, actually gets elected into office.

My suggestion is:

All ballot papers should have (on the left) the candidates, and on the right, a random list of issues that all of them stand for.

And in order for a vote to be VALID, not only do you put an X next to the candidate you're voting for, but you'd also be required to correctly identify (from the list on the right) where that candidate stands on, say, 5 important issues.

Surely, it's not too much to ask, that you demonstrate that you understand what the person you're voting for actually represents?

And then, perhaps we can stop voting for people based on their looks, or how they give speeches, or how much money they had to fund their campaign and TAKE THE POWER AWAY FROM THE MEDIA....and more importantly GET VOTERS THINKING...STOP LAZY POLITICS..

If you have any ideas on how we can make the election process better, please do share :-)

noble idea but in practicality, it wouldn't pass muster...and don't call us "surely"...

Not too bad an idea. An extension of this would be to put he really big issues on the ballot paper and allow voters to accept or reject them on polling day.

you drive me crazy in your yellow sillouette! Have you no shame?!

Personally, I'd ban politicians and the media (In relation to elections, not in general) from talking about the following issues for 4 week before the elections 9for both local and national elections):

1) Gun ownership
2) Religion (including publicly aligning themselves with any specific religious views)
3) Israel
4) Terrorism
5) Abortion
6) Immigration

I'd also force the Republicans and Democrats to field two CREDIBLE candidates.

For example, If Obama and Clinton were both fighting to be president at the same time then they would have to compete for both Republic and and Democrat votes. It would see them concentrating on many more issues.