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| No | 37% | 164 votes | Total: 449 votes | |
| Yes | 63% | 285 votes |
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Add to FavoritesWe were taught how to eat, dress ourselves, and proper conduct at home and at large when we were young. Now we are elderly (some of us). Are those instructions of yore to be jettisoned because they are "antiquated"? Society would not be enhanced. In fact it would be nearer a perfect turmoil than it already is.
The ABA was not around when the Founders researched the histories of many forms of government. They correctly concluded that Democracy would not serve for American government. It would degenerate into mob rule. "Some of my best friends" are attorneys. But I would not rely on many of them to understand American History. Their motivations for becoming lawyers are various, of course; but a perpetuation of first principles does not appear to have been their strongest reason for joining the bar. Few lawyers are bristling with ardor to become mouthpieces for the Constitution. Hillary Clinton declared for "Popular Vote" over the Electoral College in the recent months. She is a lawyer. But I wonder what that old defender of Constitutional principles, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, would have to say about that.
One of the prominent signers of the United States Constitution was Benjamin Franklin. The following may be an apocryphal story; but it goes like this: Question: "Oh, Mr. Franklin, what sort of a government did you gentlemen give us?" Answer: A Republic, madam; if you can keep it."
A Republic? Yes, and the guarantee that each state government would be and remain a Republic. Different states had differing size, social and economic interests, populations, and so forth. Yet out of these many states was to be formed one nation. Hence "E Pluribus Unum". Earlier, Franklin is supposed to have said, "If we don't hang together, we may each hang separately."
A Republic would provide the opportunity for American Liberty. Liberty means Freedom with Responsibility. Yet Freedom can include the impulse to be totally unrestrained. This tendency, since the adoption of the Constitution, has ever searched for "wiggle room". The Electoral College is misunderstood, largely because it is no longer explained in depth to the public. We were one-room schooled on its meaning and implications. I'm not certain that today's youngsters receive such tutelage.
Our elections have less accountability year to year. Methods and eligibility are diverse and more lax as time goes by. Early voting periods make Election Day just the day of completion and tally.. Many votes have been cast beforehand, and often seem to be known in some quarters. The abolition of the Electoral College leads to the final mockery of Liberty. Totalitarianism thrives on mob rule. Let's keep the Electoral College.
Learn more about this author, Marcus Emery.
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Yes
The Electoral College, like almost everything that stands between the voter and our nation's policy, should be abolished. (In case you're wondering, the one check I would want to see on direct democracy would be a solid ban on the creation of referendums based in bigotry, hatred, and other vile -isms. So vote on where your taxes go, on labor laws, on how much we should spend on this that, or the other, but no voting that all left-handed people must be confined in left-handed reeducation camps until they become right-handed. Just get over your childhood fear of an elbow hitting you in your ribs at the dinner table, already!)
It's bad enough that our choices have always been narrowed down to two rich white guys who promised the most goodies to the world's richest corporations (wink wink nudge nudge can't promise anything really, that would be illegal but...you take care of me, and...chuckle). At least this year, maybe racism and sexism will take a long-overdue pounding, but I'll believe in miracles when they happen.
Then we get to wonder if those friendly voting machines are going to count our votes accurately. Do the Democrats have their own voting machine company buddies yet, or at least their own hackers?
Then there are the third parties. Who? Yeah. Those guys. The ones you never hear about, because they didn't make enough rich corporations happy, so they're lucky to have a dozen commercials on the air, and of course they're banned from the debates. Heaven forbid they actually be allowed to ask or answer a question outside the narrow strip of center-right that candidates from both of the major parties stick so carefully to.
Back to the electoral college. Just one of many gripes I have about our political system, in case I was being too quiet and reserved for you to pick up on my discontent. What is this relic still hanging around for? We've got yo-yos in Congress foaming at the mouth, eager to alter the Constitution to protect us from two grown adults cavorting in same-sex matrimony and a Supreme Court so happy to ignore the Bill of Rights that it pats the US government on the head and says it's okay to violate the Constitutional rights of a US citizen, since they've since ceased said violations (after two years of holding a man without charges, representation, and protection against cruel and unusual punishment), but we can't get rid of this stinking Electoral College?
Even if you're willing to overlook seemingly random electronic voting errors that without exception favored one candidate, the right of the people to choose their President in 2000 was ignored in favor of an outdated traditional junk system that prevents a Republican in, say, California and a Democrat in say, Texas, from having a vote, since his or her vote will never find it's way to the final count, by virtue of his or her living in a state with a majority of voters who prefer the other candidate. Good luck to supporters of third parties, despite attempts at vote swapping state-to-state (an attempt to enfranchise that brought howls from all sides of the Twoparty franchise), voters who favor third parties are even more out of luck than the luckless lone Democrat or Republican.
Why do we keep this system around? Is it because we inherently distrust people who live crammed together in big cities and packed into tiny states? Does having elbow room and a bit of pasture make you a saner voter than does dodging your fellow human beings in Queens on your way to your walk-up apartment? Do we Americans fear New Yorkers and Californians so much we're willing to advocate their continued disenfranchisement via watered-down vote power?
Does living in a big state with less people in it make you more American than living a few blocks from the Statue of Liberty? How about if you live near the White House? How many citizen points do you get to slap down on your ballot for living in DC? That ought to be worth at least two New Yorkers, a Californian, four Alaskans (since Alaska came late to the statehood thing anyway) and at least a Texan and a half, right? And why do Floridians get the power vote? Come on, can you really trust people who live in a state devoted to theme parks, with a heat index that would make a MENSA member drop twenty IQ points, even in November?
Learn more about this author, Lou Jones.
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