EVERY ELIGIBLE PERSON in the United States should vote. Every vote does matter….and ought to count in every election.
Let’s talk about the pros and cons of the Electoral College, shall we?
PROs:
There aren’t any.
CONs:
Crapaduck! Where to start?
As a former history major and a reader of all genres of historical literature, I thought I knew a thing or three about the hows, whys, and soforths of the Electoral College. For example, I “knew” the Electoral College was originally set up to be quasi-independent to make sure the “unwashed masses” didn’t vote for a simpleton or a would-be king.
According to a History Channel blurb, a little more than a decade after the end of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress considered several ways to elect a president. These included selection by Congress, by the governors of the states, by the state legislatures, by a special group of Members of Congress chosen by lot, and by direct popular vote.
When a consensus could not be reached, a committee devised the electoral college system in its original form. It sought to reconcile differing state and federal interests, provide a degree of popular participation in the election, give the less populous states some additional leverage in the process by providing “senatorial” electors, preserve the presidency as independent of Congress, and generally insulate the election process from political manipulation.
Oh, yes, the original intent was good. After more than 23 decades, “original intent” means less than a politician’s promise 10 days before election.
The electors are expected to vote the wishes of the voters but are not required to do so. The rub is from a section of the law creating the body allowing the states to choose the way the college members are supposed to vote; some require all electoral college votes to go to the statewide winner, while votes in two states (Maine and Nebraska) are allotted as percentage of the votes received by individual candidates.
See where the basic problem lies?
IN STATES WHERE all electoral votes go to the overall vote-getter, regardless of how close the race is, the votes of those who voted for the ‘loser” simply do not count. For example, if Candidate A gets 49.9 percent of the votes in 48 states, and Candidate B gets 50.1 percent… Candidate B gets 100 percent of the Electoral College delegates.
That was never the intent of our forefathers, who, almost to a man, asserted that every vote was important.
Furthermore, notwithstanding the founders’ intent and efforts, the electoral college system almost never functioned as they intended, but, as with so many constitutional provisions, the document prescribed only the system’s basic elements, leaving ample room for development…or as has been the case, manipulation.
As our socialist republic evolved, so did the electoral college system, and, by the late 19thCentury, an incredible range of constitutional, federal, and state legal and political elements of the contemporary system were in place.
You know how it works…the system doesn’t work to suit one party or the other and changes, shifts, and reasons are employed to fix it and make it “right”… and “right” is subjective.
While there have been electors who took the Constitution’s directive of being independent to heart and refused to follow the lead of their voting constituents as gospel (one each in 1948, 1956, 1960,1968, 1976, 1988 and 2000), no such action has ever affected a presidential election outcome.
In the 48 states that are winner-take-all in that situation, the minority of voters percent are basically disfranchised.
Bottom line: Every vote should count without exception. We all know the majority of the East and West Coast states are liberal and the country tends to be more conservative in central and southern parts of the county.
To make sure each vote counts every time, every election, the only way to ensure that happens is by mandating that members of the electoral college shall vote as a percentage of the popular vote for each candidate or by overall national popular vote totals.
So, let’s start talking to our elected officials and get ‘er done!
George Smith views the world from the back porch Bedspring Ridge, a dogtrot house he built in Sutton, Arkansas on old family land on a spot where his great-grandfather’s house once stood. There he lives and opines with his wife BobbieJean and a rescue dog, “Li’l Dawg.” A former newspaper reporter, editor and publisher, he has a master’s degree in business, is a retired director for a global technology company, has been a business owner, student of government and the behavior of politicians. He has been a college instructor, national motivational speaker, community development and festival development consultant and is a published author.