From
NM Politics.net - By Mary Helen Garcia - We live in the world’s greatest democracy, yet the U.S. Constitution does not provide for the popular vote of our president by all Americans. Bizarre as this may sound, it is true. The American people do not decide who their leader is – the Electoral College does. Article II of the constitution created the Electoral College and conferred to state legislatures the power to allocate their electoral votes. All but two states (Maine and Nebraska) have adopted the “winner-take-all” approach to allocating electoral votes. What this means is that all the electoral votes in a state (a number equal to the state’s representation in Congress, which in New Mexico totals five electoral votes: two for our two U.S. senators, and three for our three U.S. representatives) are allocated to the winner of the state presidential vote, regardless of the margin of victory. This creates a distorted election, which has on four occasions in U.S. history resulted in an individual being sworn into the office of president who did not win the national popular vote, but did manage to achieve a majority of votes in the Electoral College. The most recent occasion of this was in 2000. In four of 56 presidential elections, we have had a president in office who did not receive the most votes of the American people. This is an absurd result, particularly in this day and age. Our president should be elected on the basis of receiving more votes cast by the American people than any other candidate in the race.
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Time for a review of the Electoral College
From NM Politics.net - By Mary Helen Garcia - We live in the world’s greatest democracy, yet the U.S. Constitution does not provide for the popular vote of our president by all Americans. Bizarre as this may sound, it is true. The American people do not decide who their leader is – the Electoral College does. Article II of the constitution created the Electoral College and conferred to state legislatures the power to allocate their electoral votes. All but two states (Maine and Nebraska) have adopted the “winner-take-all” approach to allocating electoral votes. What this means is that all the electoral votes in a state (a number equal to the state’s representation in Congress, which in New Mexico totals five electoral votes: two for our two U.S. senators, and three for our three U.S. representatives) are allocated to the winner of the state presidential vote, regardless of the margin of victory. This creates a distorted election, which has on four occasions in U.S. history resulted in an individual being sworn into the office of president who did not win the national popular vote, but did manage to achieve a majority of votes in the Electoral College. The most recent occasion of this was in 2000. In four of 56 presidential elections, we have had a president in office who did not receive the most votes of the American people. This is an absurd result, particularly in this day and age. Our president should be elected on the basis of receiving more votes cast by the American people than any other candidate in the race. More News New Mexico
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2 comments:
Why should LA County, CA and New York City, NY decide who will lead the country? THAT'S why we have the electoral college. People who live in small towns have equal say on national policy.
You want to know why the Constitution does not allow for popular vote. Because the Framers were brilliant. The Framers knew what would happen if the people were involved in choosing the President. The People would behave as idiiots and choose people based upon popularity, demagogues, not based on leadership. The Framers discussed every facet from letting Congress to choose the president to letting the People choose. The Congress the Framers said was too interested and would choose a "good old boy". The average people were too ignorant and too easily swayed. So they opted fore a middle system that placed the power in the hands of a select few. Now the Framers failed to recognize that the select few would not always be as honorable as were most of the Framers. And the Framers failed to recognize, although Washington warned us, that the parties would take over and foul things up. And the parties did.
There should be no presidential bid, no "run for the office". The electors are supposed to be chosen and left to their own machinations in selecting the proper candidate. No party invovlement. No primaries. No billions in expenditures.
It's too bad we have more stupid people today then we had in the past, or maybe it just seems that way. Folks who speak out against the Electoral College simply prove their igorance of our system and their ignorance of human behavior. Almost no one knows anything about the presidential candidates. We ahve not lived with them, known them our entire lives. We have been spoon-fed a bunch of pablum about this and that in order to get us to "believe".
The President is not there to "represent: the people. We have the House of Representatives for that. The Senate too represents the people because some folks who thought they were smart, but who were really another batch of idiots, changed the Constitution. The Senate was created to represent each State NOT the people.
I wish all these folks who think they are intelligent actually were. Maybe then we'd have a fighting chance. But EVERY offer of change I've seen has been a fouled up effort bantered about by those ignorant of the past.
Better go read some George Santayana.
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