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he did cost Gore the election and see where that might lead us under a system of more candidates and more parties.

Candidate N gets on the ballots in the Solid South. Candidate B gets on the ballots in the more liberal, northeastern states. Candidate R gets on the ballots in Texas, California, Oregon, Washington, Utah and New Mexico. Candidate L gets on the ballots of the rust-belt states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois. And, then, we have our two, main party candidates.

When candidates N, B, R and L tally their electoral votes following the election, they each draw at least one or two of the largest electoral states out of the mix, with none of them getting enough to win. But, they draw away so many electoral votes that the major party candidates cannot get anywhere near a majority. The same goes for the popular votes. (This could even happen with a single, strong, independent candidate, but the multi-candidate scenario makes for more interesting possibilities.)

So, we move to the House of Representative where each state gets one vote to use among the three top Presidential candidates from the electoral process. The Senate uses the same process for the Vice President, but votes only for the two, top vote-getters from the electoral college. The confusion here would even move to the state level where all of a state's representatives vote for which candidate their single state vote will support. We would have mini-wars in the midst of the big war!

With our Congress split so evenly, we could see a 26-26 tie for the presidential race and the same for the vice presidential race. Stay with me because I am setting up a scenario that would revive the interests of many more millions of Americans in the election process!

Should this happen, Nancy Pelosi, or whoever is Speaker of the House at that time, would sit in as President of the United States until a majority could be reached.

This scenario goes on and on. We could have one scenario in which a winning Vice President would select from among the three, highest electoral-college Presidential candidates. Wouldn't that find its way to the Supreme Court?! It would be the most fun election in my long life-time and, I dare say, in the history of our Republic. We would need more lawyers than we already have in this country-and that is plenty!

The election would dominate the news for months, maybe even pushing Paris Hilton to the second page. People would be glued to their TVs and computers to follow the daily progress in their own state and in the nation. Potential voters would begin to think they really could make a difference, maybe some even becoming activists.

So, the way to get people to vote is to get more people to run and get more viable parties involved. As long as we stay with the same old stale bread, we are never going to enjoy our sandwich!

Learn more about this author, Doctor Bob.
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