In my last post I said that most alternatives to the Winner Take All system of electoral college voting methods for selecting the electoral college voters have been shot down by the courts with most of the cases going all the way to the Supreme Court. For that reason in most of my lifetime all of the states had chosen the winner take all approach. So why not just play it safe rather than be sorry because your wham doozle new way for divvying up the votes is just going to get shut down by the courts? Invariably the reason they all got shut down was because just one party created the new wham-doozle system. Two elections ago they lost and then in the last election they prevailed. So they hurriedly have been working since they have become the top power to forever establish it in their favor.
That has changed and quite recently. This method called the Congressional District Method was tested just once with the Supreme Court giving it the thumbs up. Here is one URL on it:
Congressional District Metnod
In case it disappears here is another one that is at present an archive and is thus even more liable to disappear too soon for my taste:
Congressional District Method at FairVote.org
Basically, Maine was the first to get fed up with the Winner Take All system. They were able to get the Congressional District Method and get it approved by the courts in time for the 1972 election. Nebraska followed suit almost two decades later. The first time they used the Congressional District Method was in the 1992 election.
Has it resulted in a split vote for either state? Yes. It has given a split vote in both Maine and Nebraska. In fact the one in Nebraska occurred in 2008 and was the first time since 1964 that any of Nebraska's Electoral College votes was for a party other than Republican. Can you imagine how disillusioning that is to non-Republicans who know their vote will never count for the highest elected office in the land? That doesn't apply to just the two major parties either. The minor parties will never have a chance of their President and Vice President candidates winning unless one of the two major parties ceases to exist (Federalist, then Whigs for example).
In my entire voting lifetime, my state's Electoral College voters have always been for the Republican party's candidates. I never voted for that party's candidates. Sometimes I voted for the Democrats, once for an Independent and other times for another minor political party's candidates. That means I always lost. Have you ever heard the advice "vote or else you have nobody else to blame but yourself"? I have but when your choice is guaranteed to always lose I will spit that advice right back in your face. And that is the problem with the Electoral College voting system. For millions of people who are not members of either the Democrats or Republicans their vote will never count. So why vote? Eventually, Libertarians and others just stop voting. There is an advantage to that. They will never be called up for jury duty. It is for that reason I oppose the automatic voter registration proposed by the Democrats. I also oppose the Republicans Jim Crow-like policies to prevent minorities from being registered and voting.
Would I approve of the Congressional District Method as a be all, end all solution? No. It would be better than what we have now and I would encourage all states to do it immediately. But please do it without gerrymandering of voting districts. At one time the Democrats were worst at doing that. But right now it seems the Republicans are the worst at that game. That condition can flop back and forth forever. That is the reason why the Congressional District Method is not a comprehensive solution.
The only solution that would be fair is a popular vote. If you want to cure the apathy and get rid of the ignorance of voters that is quickest and best way to do it. Addressing the negatives I will answer just a few questions / complaints:
1. But wouldn't that allow a larger state to have more clout and make smaller states meaningless? My anwwer is no and here are the reasons why. No state has voters all of just one party. But this really isn't a state issue as I see it. It is a voter issue from my point of view. Nobody wants to have their vote never count. Besides, haven't you heard many of the non-voters answers for why they aren't voting? It is because they don't like either of the two major parties.
2. This would break up our two party system. Guilty as charged. That is why the popular vote would need an amendment that would change the majority requirement from a set majority limit to a simple majority. I must warn that a popular vote will shatter both major parties. The first to come apart would be the Democrats losing the working class people to a Workers party. Most Republicans never did care about the working class. The Democrats haven't cared about worker rights for over 40 years now. Noam Chomsky agrees with me on that one. Similarly, the religious right would form their own party. There would be no more voting for an adulterer because the alternative from the other party is even less palatable. Greens would form their own party just like it is in Europe. We would need coalitions just like Merkel had to forge a government in Germany. The "party purity" message would be thrown to the scrap heap most of the time. The reason why is you would have to give a little to get a little rather than dictating to others what is going to be done. That didn't happen in England with its Brexit. What most people in the United States missed is that most Scottish people voted for a specific Scottish only party. Scotland doesn't want to leave the EU! Look forward to Scotland having yet another vote to leave the UK and become a separate country.
3. Will the Popular Vote get rid of all the problems that a Electoral College Vote has? I don't think so. If what you are after is a perfect voting system I don't believe there is one. All I am saying is that for what ever positives you are giving up with the Electoral College Vote you will be gaining even more positives with a Popular Vote that replaces it. Further, you will be eliminating lots of negatives that accompany an Electoral College system. It depends on your own personal preference whether you see more viable political parties is a positive or a negative. But if both of the present two parties are not to your liking what can you do. Many voters have finally got so angry and disillusioned with both of only two viable parties they finally just gave up and left. That is what we have right now. Is that a positive? I don't think so.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Selecting Electoral Voters
The creators of the Constitution of the United States didn't give much guidance in the orirginal Constitution of how things should be done. Because the Adams - Jefferson snafu and the fact that political parties started almost immediately the US Congress passed the XII amendment that spells it out a little more clearly. I would advise you read it first. It is too big and complicated for me to put it here. You may end up searching on the meaning but be aware that the finest legal minds have some problems in this area.
After that, give this search string (without the quotes) to your favorite search engine: "how the electoral college evolved". My general purpose search engine for years has been DuckDuckGo. It doesn't matter which search engine you use in one way. You will be overwhelmed by the copious amount of information. Be assured of one thing. My intention here is not to give the input of any political party. Learn it for yourself. Read as many URLs as you can. Be aware that some of your sources will be wrong in one way another. A dead give away that they are wrong is if they say that the present winner take all way of doing things by sending all of the electoral college voters from the political party that had the highest popular vote is the way things have always been done they are dead wrong. If they claim that present method is the only way then go some place else.
Why should you go some place else if they say it has always been winner take all? Because that is not the way it has always been done. Alternative methods have been created and invariably all of them end up being contested with most going all the to the United States Supreme Court. Some of them passed muster but many did not. What is the criterion that the Supreme Court uses most of the time? It is whether the method cheats and doesn't listen to the will of the people. If it is an undemocratic method then invariably the Supreme Court justices will judge it to be unconstitutional.
Although I have mentioned the number one method for choosing the electoral voters as being by State Party Convention I think I would be remiss if I let you believe that is the only it is done. It isn't, although 33 states do it that way. Here is that method and the other methods for doing it as of the year 2020:
Electoral Vote Map
Some of those methods of course are subject to faithless electors who change their vote from who they are pledged to vote. The 2016 election was worst with seven electors who did not act in good faith and voted for somebody they were not pledged to vote for. See the URL for how Maine and Nebraska cast their votes at 270towin for the footnote that gives this number of faithless voters. Will this continue to happen in the future? I don't know but it is a disturbing trend. What if lots of these Electoral College voters were induced with money to change their votes? If it was successful then the creators of the Consttitution would see the cabal they feated using a weakness in the Electoral College system way of voting the winner into power.
After that, give this search string (without the quotes) to your favorite search engine: "how the electoral college evolved". My general purpose search engine for years has been DuckDuckGo. It doesn't matter which search engine you use in one way. You will be overwhelmed by the copious amount of information. Be assured of one thing. My intention here is not to give the input of any political party. Learn it for yourself. Read as many URLs as you can. Be aware that some of your sources will be wrong in one way another. A dead give away that they are wrong is if they say that the present winner take all way of doing things by sending all of the electoral college voters from the political party that had the highest popular vote is the way things have always been done they are dead wrong. If they claim that present method is the only way then go some place else.
Why should you go some place else if they say it has always been winner take all? Because that is not the way it has always been done. Alternative methods have been created and invariably all of them end up being contested with most going all the to the United States Supreme Court. Some of them passed muster but many did not. What is the criterion that the Supreme Court uses most of the time? It is whether the method cheats and doesn't listen to the will of the people. If it is an undemocratic method then invariably the Supreme Court justices will judge it to be unconstitutional.
Although I have mentioned the number one method for choosing the electoral voters as being by State Party Convention I think I would be remiss if I let you believe that is the only it is done. It isn't, although 33 states do it that way. Here is that method and the other methods for doing it as of the year 2020:
Electoral Vote Map
Some of those methods of course are subject to faithless electors who change their vote from who they are pledged to vote. The 2016 election was worst with seven electors who did not act in good faith and voted for somebody they were not pledged to vote for. See the URL for how Maine and Nebraska cast their votes at 270towin for the footnote that gives this number of faithless voters. Will this continue to happen in the future? I don't know but it is a disturbing trend. What if lots of these Electoral College voters were induced with money to change their votes? If it was successful then the creators of the Consttitution would see the cabal they feated using a weakness in the Electoral College system way of voting the winner into power.
States Rights
Madison was the prime writer of the Consitution. Madison made no secret that he wanted just a popularly elected Legislative branch of government. That of course went over like a lead balloon with those sent to the Convention with the idea of just revising the Articles of Confederation. They were being asked for a central government to whom their state would cede some of their power to for its existence. Eroding it even further with states rights reduced even more by a Legislative body was like a slap in the face. What few lower populated states that were in favor of a Constitution there were, they were not in favor of a Legislature determined by population for their state either. They would be forever at the mercy of the more populated states.
During the discussions on this issue, no thought at all was given to political parties. If they had done that, they would have observed that the Electoral College which was the prime consideration would have the effect of reducing the number of political parties there would be. Even if it had been considered it would not have been viewed as bad thing. From that perspective they were mainly concerned whether or not that made an undemocratic cabal even more likely.
So the battles raged back and forth on this issue with the more populous states favoring a legislature that was created by the number of Representatives to be determined by population. The smaller states were joined by the slave holding states holding out for a yet to be determined number of Representatives but with fixed amount for each state. At least two, and some times three were considered with the idea of there being even more possibly considered. To make a long story short, they tentatively decided to have two per state but tabled the issue to look at other less controversial issues.
Eventually, they had to come back to the issue on how the President and Vice President were selected with the President having the most votes, and the Vice President having the next most votes. No discussion was even held about political parties. That is amazing since they were in a process that was already polarizing people on multiple issues. Eventually it was decided to have two Senators per state who were selected by the States legislative bodies. As a fig leaf to Madison and the others there would also be Representatives who were apportioned by population who were to be selected by popular vote.
Now, how are we going to select the President? That was what created the Electoral College system. Each state no matter how populous would get two Electoral College votes that matched their number of Senators. They would also get as many more Electoral College votes as they had Representatives (members of the House). The Constitution creators left it up to the states how to determine how the electoral college voters were selected. This was not an over-sight. They did it to preserve States rights.
During the discussions on this issue, no thought at all was given to political parties. If they had done that, they would have observed that the Electoral College which was the prime consideration would have the effect of reducing the number of political parties there would be. Even if it had been considered it would not have been viewed as bad thing. From that perspective they were mainly concerned whether or not that made an undemocratic cabal even more likely.
So the battles raged back and forth on this issue with the more populous states favoring a legislature that was created by the number of Representatives to be determined by population. The smaller states were joined by the slave holding states holding out for a yet to be determined number of Representatives but with fixed amount for each state. At least two, and some times three were considered with the idea of there being even more possibly considered. To make a long story short, they tentatively decided to have two per state but tabled the issue to look at other less controversial issues.
Eventually, they had to come back to the issue on how the President and Vice President were selected with the President having the most votes, and the Vice President having the next most votes. No discussion was even held about political parties. That is amazing since they were in a process that was already polarizing people on multiple issues. Eventually it was decided to have two Senators per state who were selected by the States legislative bodies. As a fig leaf to Madison and the others there would also be Representatives who were apportioned by population who were to be selected by popular vote.
Now, how are we going to select the President? That was what created the Electoral College system. Each state no matter how populous would get two Electoral College votes that matched their number of Senators. They would also get as many more Electoral College votes as they had Representatives (members of the House). The Constitution creators left it up to the states how to determine how the electoral college voters were selected. This was not an over-sight. They did it to preserve States rights.
How does three fifths of a person vote?
In the last post I let it be known that I could not find a reason for the Electoral College system in supporting documents. That didn't surprise me too much for the Anti-Federalist Papers because they were all in favor of keeping and just modifying the Articles of Confederation.
But I was surprised to find nothing in the Federalist Papers. So I sat down and read the entire Constitution itself, this time with the idea of looking for how the Electoral College system came about. I did not have to read very far when the biggest reason was staring me straight in the face.
In Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 we read: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the congress of the United States, ...".
Now how does three-fifths of a person vote for the President? The answer is that they cannot vote. The only way that you could achieve that was to have something like the Electoral College system.
Next we must consider who these three-fifths people are. The short answer is since indentured servants were counted in the whole count and Native Americans (Indians) were excluded, drum roll please - slaves. Did the slave owners want their slaves to vote? Hell No!
Did the XIII amendment kind of make this way of doing things obsolete? It did so only partially. The slaves were no longer slaves in the biggest sense of the word although their position in society was maintained by Jim Crow legislation at the state and local level. But the people didn't include a provision for abolishing in XIII amendment. Why not? Why have a popular vote for the President and Vice President when you can't even have a popular vote for the Senators to the United States congress? I am omitting for the moment that several more amendments were yet to be passed that refined how the Executive branch was selected and maintained including provisions for a President dying during term of office. The XIII amendment wasn't adopted until 1865.
The XV amendment was adopted to make sure the former slaves had the right to vote. It was adopted in 1870.
The XVI amendment gave the United States government the right to collect direct income taxes. It was proclaimed on 25 February 1913.
Finally, the XVII amendment gave everybody the right to vote for their United States Senators. It was proclaimed on 31 May, 1913. So we have a template to follow in making the President and Vice President of the United States also being selected as a pair by popular vote.
I said a pair in the last paragraph. Why did I say that? Well, the creators of the Constitution erroneously thought there would be no political parties. Boy were they wrong! Imagine Thomas Jefferson being saddled with the do nothing position of Vice President to John Adams of the other political party. That was rectified in amendment XII. It was adopted in 1804. So much for the infallibility of the Constitutional creators.
Are we through with the obstacles for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to replace the Electoral College. We have to look at another reason the Electoral College was used first.
But I was surprised to find nothing in the Federalist Papers. So I sat down and read the entire Constitution itself, this time with the idea of looking for how the Electoral College system came about. I did not have to read very far when the biggest reason was staring me straight in the face.
In Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 we read: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the congress of the United States, ...".
Now how does three-fifths of a person vote for the President? The answer is that they cannot vote. The only way that you could achieve that was to have something like the Electoral College system.
Next we must consider who these three-fifths people are. The short answer is since indentured servants were counted in the whole count and Native Americans (Indians) were excluded, drum roll please - slaves. Did the slave owners want their slaves to vote? Hell No!
Did the XIII amendment kind of make this way of doing things obsolete? It did so only partially. The slaves were no longer slaves in the biggest sense of the word although their position in society was maintained by Jim Crow legislation at the state and local level. But the people didn't include a provision for abolishing in XIII amendment. Why not? Why have a popular vote for the President and Vice President when you can't even have a popular vote for the Senators to the United States congress? I am omitting for the moment that several more amendments were yet to be passed that refined how the Executive branch was selected and maintained including provisions for a President dying during term of office. The XIII amendment wasn't adopted until 1865.
The XV amendment was adopted to make sure the former slaves had the right to vote. It was adopted in 1870.
The XVI amendment gave the United States government the right to collect direct income taxes. It was proclaimed on 25 February 1913.
Finally, the XVII amendment gave everybody the right to vote for their United States Senators. It was proclaimed on 31 May, 1913. So we have a template to follow in making the President and Vice President of the United States also being selected as a pair by popular vote.
I said a pair in the last paragraph. Why did I say that? Well, the creators of the Constitution erroneously thought there would be no political parties. Boy were they wrong! Imagine Thomas Jefferson being saddled with the do nothing position of Vice President to John Adams of the other political party. That was rectified in amendment XII. It was adopted in 1804. So much for the infallibility of the Constitutional creators.
Are we through with the obstacles for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to replace the Electoral College. We have to look at another reason the Electoral College was used first.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Raison d'Etre
I need to state at the outset that I am registered as an Independent. If you are a member of the Republican party and accept everything they say as gospel, stop right here. Go no farther. They are opposed to abandoning the Electoral College and replacing it with a Popular vote or anything else. That does not mean I am a Democrat. Read the last paragraph on this post and you will understand where I am I don't allow anybody to coerce me to suspend my highly tuned mind with three college degrees (one of them is in Mathematics) to let them do my thinking for me. I advise you the reader to do the same thing. My advice to you is to: Think as deeply and analytically as possibly for yourself. Invariably you are bound to have opinions on some things that make it almost impossible for you to be in complete and total agreement with any political party on everything they hold near and dear to their hearts. I mean really, are all people declaring themselves as Republican as racist as Donny Trump and his pals?
This blog is going to serve two purposes. First, people need to understand why the United States of America has the Electoral College system to elect the President Of The United States (POTUS). After all the Federalist Papers which were arguments in favor of adopting the Constitution and the Anti-Federalist Papers which were arguing for keeping the Articles of Confederation don't even discuss the situation. They did worry about cabals and both discussed that briefly.
Since 2016 we have a situation which is fairly close to being a cabal. In my opinion, just an opintion, we have a cabal of people who are racist. Thus, what ever the founding fathers did, their Electoral College does not protect you and I from what they feared most would happen - a cabal.
In my next two posts I will show why the Electoral College was created using the Constitution itself and the politics of the time, some of which no longer exist. There will be others because I am making an argument to abolish the Electoral College system and replace it with a popular vote. Please realize that there are positives and negatives with both systems.
I know that some people are going to ask, which are you, a Republican or a Democrat? The short simple sweet answer is neither. I was watching a TV program once and at the time had no proclivity for either of those parties. Who was speaking on that TV program? A Jew that somehow made it through the Nazi Holocaust of World War II Germany. He said: "We cannot all be leaders. But we should not be followers either. Think for yourself." I am registered as an Independent. I am doing my own thinking on this, not parroting some political party's views. I welcome the Democrats support on this issue and oppose the Republican's stance. But even if the Democrats dropped their support for abolishing the Electoral College it will not change my opinion one bit. I will say a little bit more on this issue at a later time. But I am constant on this issue - The Electoral College system needs to eventually be replaced by a popular vote. It would raise voter turnout for elections and purify both of the two major political parties. That does not mean that it is an all win situation though. There are bad things about a Popular Vote for the top Executive positions that I already know they exist. There are bound to be more problems than I don't know about yet.
This blog is going to serve two purposes. First, people need to understand why the United States of America has the Electoral College system to elect the President Of The United States (POTUS). After all the Federalist Papers which were arguments in favor of adopting the Constitution and the Anti-Federalist Papers which were arguing for keeping the Articles of Confederation don't even discuss the situation. They did worry about cabals and both discussed that briefly.
Since 2016 we have a situation which is fairly close to being a cabal. In my opinion, just an opintion, we have a cabal of people who are racist. Thus, what ever the founding fathers did, their Electoral College does not protect you and I from what they feared most would happen - a cabal.
In my next two posts I will show why the Electoral College was created using the Constitution itself and the politics of the time, some of which no longer exist. There will be others because I am making an argument to abolish the Electoral College system and replace it with a popular vote. Please realize that there are positives and negatives with both systems.
I know that some people are going to ask, which are you, a Republican or a Democrat? The short simple sweet answer is neither. I was watching a TV program once and at the time had no proclivity for either of those parties. Who was speaking on that TV program? A Jew that somehow made it through the Nazi Holocaust of World War II Germany. He said: "We cannot all be leaders. But we should not be followers either. Think for yourself." I am registered as an Independent. I am doing my own thinking on this, not parroting some political party's views. I welcome the Democrats support on this issue and oppose the Republican's stance. But even if the Democrats dropped their support for abolishing the Electoral College it will not change my opinion one bit. I will say a little bit more on this issue at a later time. But I am constant on this issue - The Electoral College system needs to eventually be replaced by a popular vote. It would raise voter turnout for elections and purify both of the two major political parties. That does not mean that it is an all win situation though. There are bad things about a Popular Vote for the top Executive positions that I already know they exist. There are bound to be more problems than I don't know about yet.
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