In your opinion, what is the most urgently needed electoral reform in America today?

[Frodo]

Complete move to a public campaign finance system. For years I opposed this out of fear that unsavory people would get money, but frankly nothing has been more unsavory then the influence of money in terms of distorting our politics and the will of the voters. It is far more consequential then the Senate or electoral college, which so many have raised as an issue in this thread yet the only mention I see of money is in context of limiting fundraising to within a year before the election.

Get all independent money, self-funding and donations out of politics, give a capped amount to each candidate that way everyone has an equal amount to make their case to the voters. No one can say their free speech has been impinged if everyone has equal access to the resources to get their message out.

Would doing so create another federal expenditure in the budget?  As such, it would have to be proportional, and a cut off would have to be made to determine who is a viable recipient of such monies. Then there is the issue of advertising costs.  If the ad companies know, beforehand, how deep the pockets of candidates are they can maximize charges albeit at the taxpayers expense.  Each year there could very well be an inflation adjustment, which means the expenditure may or may not stay proportional.  Or, do you force the ad companies to run ads at a fixed rate, even though expenditures could vary well fluctuate over time?  I think there is peril in moving to this system that needs addressed.  Luckily we have other countries to examine when considering it. 

I rather like out sourcing the problem to the market, I'd rather set limits of how far in advance people can advertise and raise money (and for how long),  how much they can give, and ensuring we can trace who donates to whom and how much.  It isn't perfect, and special interests take hold, but as voters we can expose ties and attempt to hold candidates accountable in that regard. 

That was my position for a long time, but at this stage I don't think it would be enough.

The first hurdle for my proposal is that it likely requires a constitutional amendment and then beyond that there are various methods of funding you could look at it, but at the end of the day I wouldn't treat the possibility of appropriation as a deal breaker, since it is the cost of doing democracy like spending money on voting ballot paper or so forth and yes I realize the amount is much larger.

It is already in motion, though it has a long ways to go yet:

https://wolf-pac.com/the_solution/

[Frodo]

Getting rid of the electoral college would be a good start, and moving to a direct popular vote for President and Vice-President, like we have already done for our senators.  It is an anachronism that we have long outgrown as our democracy has matured over the past couple of centuries.