Clean Elections
A clean election is a system of taxpayer-financed political campaigns. Candidates that qualify by collecting a prescribed number of signatures and $5 contributions from registered voters in their district can agree to not raise or spend any private money during the primary and general elections. Instead, a set amount of funding for the candidate's campaign is provided from the state budget. If the candidate is outspent by an opponent running a privately funded campaign, the state will provide more funding to the "clean" candidate in order to match the amount spent by the opponent, up to some multiple of the original funding.
Clean elections have been implemented in Maine and Arizona on a statewide level, as well as in Portland, Oregon on the municipal level, and elsewhere. Proponents of clean elections, including those involved in Clean Elections Rhode Island, believe that Clean Elections result in increased voter turnout, political transparency, and diversity of candidates, including fuller representation of women and minorities.
Read more about this topic: Clean Elections Rhode Island
Famous quotes containing the words clean and/or elections:
“Books are the best things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In my public statements I have earnestly urged that there rested upon government many responsibilities which affect the moral and spiritual welfare of our people. The participation of women in elections has produced a keener realization of the importance of these questions and has contributed to higher national ideals. Moreover, it is through them that our national ideals are ingrained in our children.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)