So, what if the Ohio primary went first? Ohio perhaps better represents the U.S. than Iowa or New Hampshire does — it’s more diverse both geographically and racially, it has more people, and it has a better track record for picking winners (the voters in Ohio have been wrong in the presidential election only twice in past 104 years). Adaora and John talk about how our system got the way it is and then talk to some Ohio voters before running the whole thing by Dan Moulthrop, the host of WCPN’s The Sound of Ideas.

From Boiling Springs, PA - Mrs. Jan Kunkel’s fifth grade class present their election redesign ideas.

Mrs. Kunkel’s class made posters to go along with their election ideas. Watch this slideshow to get a sense of what’s on their minds.

Redesign With Mrs. Kunkel’s Class

Tova Andrea Wang is an expert on election reform and a democracy fellow at the Century Foundation. Be sure to check out her report on why the Iowa caucus system is undemocratic.

Roberto Lovato is a contributing associate editor with New America Media, a frequent contributor to The Nation and the author of the blog, Of America.

Voting is good for you, unless…

Daniel Tokaji is a law professor at Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law and the associate director of Election Law @ Moritz, which focuses on laws governing elections at all levels. He’s one of the authors of the non-partisan report, From Registrations to Recounts: The Election Ecosystems of Five Midwestern States.

Fannie M. Lewis is a member of the Cleveland City Council. She was featured as part of the short film, No Umbrella, about the 2004 election in one of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods. Here’s a preview:

Also, we hear redesign ideas from two students at Cleveland’s John Marshall High School - Jewel Dunner and Francisca Ong.

Charles Stewart is a political science professor at MIT. He’s studied elections for a long time and we talked to him about whether you can determine a margin of error for the general election. We asked him if there comes a point where the margin of error is close enough that the result is the same as flipping a coin.

We talked with Cleveland cartoonist Harvey Pekar about our idea that Ohio should go first.

Then, Los Angeles-based community leader and activist Joe Hicks explains why he believes our election systems isn’t so broken that it needs fixing.

And, Toledo based blogger, Lisa Renee Ward, says her favorite redesign is instant run-off voting. She blogs at: Glass City Jungle.

Take a look at Harvey Pekar’s Your Billion Dollar Comic Strip

Sandip Roy and Odette Keeley from New America Media have recently become American citizens. Their experience of voting in their native countries gives them some interesting suggestions for redesigning a process they will soon be taking part in for the first time, a U.S. presidential election.

And, we have a quick redesign idea from Jonathan Lykes. He’s a senior at Shaw High School in East Cleveland.

Mary Ann Giordano is a deputy political editor at The New York Times. She’s learned a thing or two about how the pressure on candidates to compete in Iowa and New Hampshire can change their campaigns. She says this year’s Super Tuesday (February 5, 2008) when more than 20 states will hold their primary, is the biggest redesign idea already underway.