Luzerne County’s elections director is in a heap of hurt. Marisa Crispell took a “junket” to Las Vegas last year, courtesy of Election Systems & Software, according to Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasqualie. The vendor subsequently was awarded the sale of a $325,000 electronic poll book system to Crispell’s county.

DePasquale detailed the “outrageous” transaction Wednesday and said his office is launching a statewide investigation into how counties select voting machines and equipment.

If we’re willing to take a big-picture view of the political landscape, we have to admit the true reason why there’s so much money in politics: simply stated, it’s because there’s so much money in government. School district budgets routinely exceed $100 million; counties top $200 million; Pennsylvania’s budget exceeds $32 billion. That’s serious money to push around — especially under the rules of a political game that was set up more than 225 years ago.

Conditions change. In more recent decades, the Cold War era and public education taught us the options: Socialism, communism, liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, progressivism and, most recently, globalism and nationalism.

These are generally regarded as economic more than political systems — although it’s undeniable each has its political adherents and underpinnings. The labels, after all, should clue us in about the contents before we’ve bought the product, not after.

We’re not certain yet about suggesting a bias as a new outlook gains popularity. Assigned the label voluntaryism, its growing ranks of followers say its time has come.

According to the Voluntaryist website (voluntaryist.com), “Voluntaryism is the doctrine that all relations among people should be by mutual consent, or not at all. It represents a means, an end, and an insight. Voluntaryism does not argue for the specific form that voluntary arrangements will take; only that force be abandoned so that individuals in society may flourish.”

For example, if you want to drive on a modern highway, pay a toll to the company that financed and built the highway — you can afford it because you won’t be forced to pay gasoline tax.

Voluntaryists believe that the goal of an all-voluntary society must be sought voluntarily. “People cannot be coerced into freedom. Hence, the use of the free market, education, persuasion, and non-violent resistance [are] the primary ways to change people’s ideas about the state,” the Voluntaryist says. “The voluntaryist insight — that all tyranny and government are grounded upon popular acceptance — explains why voluntary means are sufficient to attain that end.”

What would this type of system look like today?

- There would be no state or federal departments of education — and by the way, the federal department did not exist before the Carter administration.

- Health care would be the domain of the medical community, not government. Huge, bloated and expensive financial-regulatory administrations would disappear.

- Charity would no longer be assigned to the departments of agriculture and human services. It would return to the church and community social organizations.

- Defense would be decidedly more mercenary, more customized, exceedingly high-tech and less expensive than government-sanctioned military.

Ultimately, elected representatives would have far fewer decisions and responsibilities, would receive far less pay and would deal with budgets amounting a fraction of the tax dollars they handle now. The incentive and opportunity to tempt election officials with a junket would no longer exist. Under voluntaryism, it simply wouldn’t pay to rig an election, or even to rig the sale of voter equipment. There would be no point if you couldn’t make a buck doing it.