Government on a Neighboring Planet

72:9.1Al­though can­di­dates for all pub­lic of­fices are re­stricted to grad­u­ates of the state, re­gional, or fed­eral schools of states­man­ship, the pro­gres­sive lead­ers of this na­tion dis­cov­ered a se­ri­ous weak­ness in their plan of uni­ver­sal suf­frage and about fifty years ago made con­sti­tu­tional pro­vi­sion for a mod­i­fied scheme of vot­ing which em­braces the fol­low­ing fea­tures:

72:9.21. Ev­ery man and woman of twenty years and over has one vote. Upon at­tain­ing this age, all cit­i­zens must ac­cept mem­ber­ship in two vot­ing groups: They will join the first in ac­cor­dance with their eco­nomic func­tion—in­dus­trial, pro­fes­sional, ag­ri­cul­tural, or trade; they will en­ter the sec­ond group ac­cord­ing to their po­lit­i­cal, philo­sophic, and so­cial in­cli­na­tions. All work­ers thus be­long to some eco­nomic fran­chise group, and these guilds, like the noneco­nomic as­so­ci­a­tions, are reg­u­lated much as is the na­tional gov­ern­ment with its three­fold di­vi­sion of pow­ers. Reg­is­tra­tion in these groups can­not be changed for twelve years.

72:9.32. Upon nom­i­na­tion by the state gov­er­nors or by the re­gional ex­ec­u­tives and by the man­date of the re­gional su­preme coun­cils, in­di­vid­u­als who have ren­dered great ser­vice to so­ci­ety, or who have demon­strated ex­traor­di­nary wis­dom in gov­ern­ment ser­vice, may have ad­di­tional votes con­ferred upon them not of­tener than ev­ery five years and not to ex­ceed nine such super­fran­chises. The max­i­mum suf­frage of any mul­ti­ple voter is ten. Sci­en­tists, in­ven­tors, teach­ers, philoso­phers, and spir­i­tual lead­ers are also thus rec­og­nized and hon­ored with aug­mented po­lit­i­cal power. These ad­vanced civic priv­i­leges are con­ferred by the state and re­gional su­preme coun­cils much as de­grees are be­stowed by the spe­cial col­leges, and the re­cip­i­ents are proud to at­tach the sym­bols of such civic rec­og­ni­tion, along with their other de­grees, to their lists of per­sonal achieve­ments.

72:9.43. All in­di­vid­u­als sen­tenced to com­pul­sory la­bor in the mines and all gov­ern­men­tal ser­vants sup­ported by tax funds are, for the pe­ri­ods of such ser­vices, dis­en­fran­chised. This does not ap­ply to aged per­sons who may be re­tired on pen­sions at sixty-five.

72:9.54. There are five brack­ets of suf­frage re­flect­ing the av­er­age yearly taxes paid for each half-decade pe­riod. Heavy tax­pay­ers are per­mit­ted ex­tra votes up to five. This grant is in­de­pen­dent of all other rec­og­ni­tion, but in no case can any per­son cast over ten bal­lots.

72:9.65. At the time this fran­chise plan was adopted, the ter­ri­to­rial method of vot­ing was aban­doned in fa­vor of the eco­nomic or func­tional sys­tem. All cit­i­zens now vote as mem­bers of in­dus­trial, so­cial, or pro­fes­sional groups, re­gard­less of their res­i­dence. Thus the elec­torate con­sists of so­lid­i­fied, uni­fied, and in­tel­li­gent groups who elect only their best mem­bers to po­si­tions of gov­ern­men­tal trust and re­spon­si­bil­ity. There is one ex­cep­tion to this scheme of func­tional or group suf­frage: The elec­tion of a fed­eral chief ex­ec­u­tive ev­ery six years is by na­tion-wide bal­lot, and no cit­i­zen casts over one vote.

72:9.7Thus, ex­cept in the elec­tion of the chief ex­ec­u­tive, suf­frage is ex­er­cised by eco­nomic, pro­fes­sional, in­tel­lec­tual, and so­cial group­ings of the cit­i­zenry. The ideal state is or­ganic, and ev­ery free and in­tel­li­gent group of cit­i­zens rep­re­sents a vi­tal and func­tion­ing or­gan within the larger gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­ism.

72:9.8The schools of states­man­ship have power to start pro­ceed­ings in the state courts look­ing to­ward the dis­en­fran­chise­ment of any de­fec­tive, idle, in­dif­fer­ent, or crim­i­nal in­di­vid­ual. These peo­ple rec­og­nize that, when fifty per cent of a na­tion is in­fe­rior or de­fec­tive and pos­sesses the bal­lot, such a na­tion is doomed. They be­lieve the dom­i­nance of medi­ocrity spells the down­fall of any na­tion. Vot­ing is com­pul­sory, heavy fines be­ing as­sessed against all who fail to cast their bal­lots.