Direct elections: A threat to America!
Why are Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP so terrified of a national popular vote?
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/direct_elections_a_threat_to_america/singleton/
An interesting read for those of us who give a damn about democracy. In addition to Gerrymandering, another proven way to make more votes count for your side is to keep voters from voting for the other side. Having read the article, though, I still remain convinced that my desire to create a substantial poll tax (http://sol-system.com/koxenrider/bok/PollTax.html) is still worth pursuing because there are too many idiot voters on all sides and make their election decision based on sheeple-targeted lies. I believe (perhaps wrongly) that that a more educated electorate (which naturally means restricting those who can vote, since our population is full of morons who are happy they are ignorant (including most of our Presidential candidates!)) would lead to a better government since the voters would be less likely to vote for people who are clearly pathological liars (which is all our current system attracts (well, corrupt pathological liars, that is)).
However, if we are going to stick with our idiotic voting system where all votes are created equal, then efforts like those mentioned in the article should be aggressively combated. It flabbergasts me that we have elected officials happy to go publicly on-record promoting things in direct violation of our Constitution, but I guess since so many have been so successful for so long, it is clear the sheeple won’t hold them accountable.
The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.
The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.
Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution– “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.
The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state’s electoral votes.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and frequently have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.
kohler, it sure seems like you are fixated on this subject, everywhere I look you say exactly the same thing. I am glad, at least, that you were able find my blog, but it seems like you should consider taking life a bit easier and not being so obsessed.