UNDERSTANDING UVOTE

1.0 INTRODUCTION
2.0 UVOTE PARTICIPATION OPTIONS
3.0 ISSUE, SOLUTION AND AMENDMENT DEFINITION STATEMENTS
4.0 RESULTS OF UWSA SANTA CLARA CO CHAPTER VOTES

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

UVOTE is a structured process aimed at:

Enabling citizens to present clearly articulated political issues which they feel are conditions of disharmony in American society.

Enabling citizens to present clearly articulated candidate solutions which are their recommended prescriptions for action to mitigate or ideally remove the disharmony defined by the political issue in question.

Enabling citizens to briefly comment on the issues and solutions to provide additional intellectual depth to enable their fellow citizens to make more informed votes.

Enabling citizens to vote on their perception of the relative priority of each issue on a scale of 1 (totally unimportant) to 10 (an issue of primary national importance).

Enabling citizens to vote on their perception of the relative effectiveness of each solution to an issue on a scale of 1 (very ineffective or even harmful) to 10 (extremely effective at resolving the issue).

Providing citizens with both overall voting results on the relative importance and effectiveness of all the issues and solutions in the data base as well as providing detailed voting information on each issue and solution.

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2.0 UVOTE PARTICIPATION OPTIONS

THERE ARE SIX WAYS YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN UVOTE.
1) You may READ and REVIEW the ISSUES, SOLUTIONS and AMENDMENTS (generically called TOPICS) in the UVOTE database.
2) You may READ the comments that REGISTERED UVOTERS have made on each of the UVOTE TOPICS. Each comment shows the date of the comment and the name and Email address of the commenter.
3) You may REVIEW the VOTING Results on each UVOTE TOPIC. We plan to add more options to this section in the coming months to provide a more in-depth understanding of American citizen's VOTES.
If you are a US citizen over 18 and have registered as a UVOTER ( You are given the opportunity to register at the start of the ISSUE section.), you may also:
4) Comment on any TOPIC. These are structured comments of 40 words or less that begin with:
a) I feel this ISSUE is IMPORTANT/UNIMPORTANT because:
b) I feel this SOLUTION is EFFECTIVE/INEFFECTIVE because:
c) I feel this SOLUTION AMENDMENT is EFFECTIVE/INEFFECTIVE because:
5) VOTE on any topic.
a) On ISSUES you vote on their level of national IMPORTANCE on a scale of 1 (unimportant) to 10 (very important).
b) On SOLUTIONS you vote on their EFFECTIVENESS on a scale of 1 ( very ineffective) to 10 (very effective).
6) PROPOSE new ISSUES, SOLUTIONS or SOLUTION AMENDMENTS. You will be presented with a form to enter your proposal. This form will be Emailed to the UVOTE Webmaster who will work with you to install your proposal in the UVOTE data base. This proposal process is fully discussed in the next subsection.

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3.0 ISSUE, SOLUTION AND AMENDMENT DEFINITION STATEMENTS

The heart of UVOTE is its data base of issues and solutions. The initial data base contains 30 issues and 96 solutions developed by our UWSA Santa Clara Co. chapter. Any registered UVOTER (any US citizen 18 years or older can register) can propose additional issues and solutions. The procedure for doing this is as follows:
STEP 1: REGISTERED UVOTER PROPOSES

A NEW ISSUE BY FILLING OUT AN ISSUE STATEMENT. Each issue statement defines the condition of disharmony which provides the call to action via potential solutions.

A SOLUTION TO AN EXISTING ISSUE BY FILLING OUT A SOLUTION DEFINITION. Each solution must address a specific issue and each solution definition contains a justification statement that closes the loop by explaining how the action proposed by the solution will help resolve the issue.

AN AMENDMENT OF AN EXISTING SOLUTION BY FILLING OUT A SOLUTION AMENDMENT DEFINITION. UVOTE includes one level of solution amendments to provide additional understanding on the preferences of American citizens on the best approaches to resolve political issues.
As an example of this issue/solution/amendment process, please first review the text of issue#402.1 "Payment in Full Voucher" Public Choice Education.
Solution 402.1 is silent on several topics (such as teacher credentials and religious education just to mention two) that are of public concern relative to public funding of private education. Someone may wish to propose an amendment that all voucher school teachers be licensed. Citizens could then vote on the both the effectiveness (scale of 1-10) of solution 402.1 as written and the effectiveness of solution 402.1-A1 which incorporates the teacher credential amendment into the basic solution. We can then compare the votes on the basic solution to the votes on the amended solution to determine the publics' preferences for voucher education.

STEP 2: UWSA SANTA CLARA CO MEMBERS REVIEW INPUT, ASSIGN A NUMBER AND ENTER NEW ISSUE OR SOLUTION INTO THE UVOTE DATA BASE.
STEP 3: ANYONE CAN NOW READ THE NEW ISSUE OR SOLUTION AND REGISTERED UVOTERS CAN ALSO COMMENT AND VOTE.
REVIEW PROCESS: UWSA SCC wants UVOTE to present the widest possible range of political options to the American people. However UWSA SCC retains editorial control over the content of proposed issues and solutions. If questions arise UWSA SCC will work with the author in an attempt to resolve any problems so that the issue or solution can be added to the UVOTE data base.
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THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL PRESENTS THE TABLES REFERENCED EARLIER IN THIS SECTION

NEW POLITICAL ISSUE DEFINITION LOGIC
A POLITICAL ISSUE IS A
CONDITION OF DISHARMONY

WHAT CONDITIONS CURRENTLY EXIST

WHAT CONDITIONS SHOULD EXIST

WHY PREFERRED CONDITION IS BETTER FOR AMERICA

1) POLITICAL ISSUE TITLE:______________
ISSUE DESCRIPTION
2)PRESENT CONDITION: _
__

3A) IDEAL CONDITION: _
_
___
OR
3B) DIRECTION OF IMPROVEMENT: _
_

ISSUE JUSTIFICATION
4) WHY IDEAL CONDITION OR DIRECTION OF IMPROVEMENT IS BETTER FOR AMERICA:

______________
CONTRIBUTOR:John J. Jones jones@aol.com
(automatically added from your registration info)
OK, SUBMIT THIS PROPOSAL
SKIP IT
RETURN TO DISCUSSION
.

NEW POLITICAL SOLUTION DEFINITION LOGIC
A POLITICAL SOLUTION IS A
PRESCRIPTION FOR ACTION

WHAT ISSUE(S) DOES THIS SOLUTION ADDRESS ?
(SEPARATE STATEMENT FOR EACH ISSUE)

WHAT SPECIFIC ACTION IS RECOMMENDED ?

HOW DOES THIS ACTION MOVE AMERICA TOWARD THE PREFERRED CONDITION ?

PARENT ISSUE NUMBER AND TITLE (Added by Server)
SOLUTION TITLE: __________
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SOLUTION:

JUSTIFICATION: (HOW DOES SOLUTION HELP RESOLVE ISSUE)
_
_
_
_
___________________________
CONTRIBUTOR:John J. Jones jones@aol.com
(automatically added from your registration info)
OK, SUBMIT THIS PROPOSAL
SKIP IT
RETURN TO DISCUSSION
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BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The United States will offer a publically funded, but privately run system of secondary education with equal expenditures for all students. Participating schools must not discriminate on the basis of race, creed or sex in their admissions programs. However schools may have ability based admissions and offer special programs oriented towards different segments of the student population. These admissions standards shall be publically documented and open to public review. Public funding will be based on student enrollment and each participating school must agree to accept said public funding as payment in full for all educational services provided. Schools will administer a state provided standard test annually to all students. A public agency will annually rate each school in key academic areas and publish the standard test results by school and grade. However parents shall be totally free to send their students to the schools of their choice.
JUSTIFICATION: The monopoly of large publically run secondary education has prevented students and parents from exercising their voices as educational consumers. The result has been a lowest common denominator of mediocrity with seniority based teaching, minimal educational innovation, breakdown of discipline in the classrooms and degrees that are simply attendance certificates. Socialism doesn't work in industry and it doesn't work in education either. As a society we must fund equal educational opportunities for all students, but we must let the private sector competitively deliver those services.
AUTHOR: UWSA Santa Clara Co. EMAIL: humphrey@aimnet.com RETURN TO DISCUSSION

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