Hey - I Want my Vote for President to be Counted!

Hey - I Want my Vote for President to be Counted!

© David Burton 2010

The Constituion
 


     Part of Article 2 of the Constitution of the United States - The Executive Branch; Section 1 - The President, reads as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

     Part of Amendment 12 to the Constitution of the United States - Choosing the President, Vice-President (Ratified in 1804), reads as follows:

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;

The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.


     The politicians here in the People’s Democratic Republic of Massachusetts have just voted to make my vote in the presidential elections irrelevant. The overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts House of Representatives (140 Democrats and 19 Republicans) voted 113 to 35 to make Massachusetts a member of the Agreement Among the States to Elect the president by National Popular Vote. The also overwhelmingly Democratic State Senate (35 Democrats and 5 Republicans) voted in favor of this bill by a 28 to 9 majority and our staunchly Democratic Governor just signed this agreement which does an end-around of the Electoral College system devised by our founding fathers.

     This agreement would require the states that join the pact to cast all of their electoral votes for the presidential candidate who wins a majority of the national popular vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The other states that have already joined the agreement are: Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington.

     Nowhere in Article 2 or in Amendment 12 does the Constitution imply that the President is to be elected by a majority of the popular vote. Indeed, the framers of the Constitution specifically developed the Electoral College in order to avoid electing the President by a simple plurality.

     My Democratic legislators and my Democratic governor are attempting to disenfranchise me if I am a member of the minority. Under this agreement, my vote won’t count unless I join the majority. These politicians are still ticked off because George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, even though Al gore had more popular votes than President Bush. As a result of the actions of these politicians, if Massachusetts voters chose Presidential candidate ‘A’ by 99% to 1% margin and the national popular vote goes to candidate ‘B’ by a 50.1% to 49.9% margin, then the Massachusetts electoral votes will go to Candidate ‘B’ by a 100% to 0% margin. My vote and those of the rest of the 99% of Massachusetts voters would be totally negated. Our voice would not be heard. We would be effectively disenfranchised.

     As I understand it, the framers of the United States Constitution put in a lot of time and thought to coming up with a constitution that would protect the rights of both the individuals and the separate states. These men arrived at the concept of the Electoral College, as well as the concept of the 2-house legislature, as a well thought out compromise that empowered the individuals and, at the same time, gave some degree of power to the smaller states, such as Rhode Island. All states are considered equal in the sense that each state, no matter how large or small, is apportioned 2 senate seats. The individual is given equal rights by having the number of members in the House of Representatives determined by the population in each state, i.e., the states with the larger population receive more seats in the House. Also, the number of electors in the Electoral College is the sum of the number of senators and representative from each state. Even if a state had a miniscule population, it would still have at least 2 senators and 2 electors. The Agreement Among the States to Elect the president by National Popular Vote effectively undoes the work of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and silences the voices of those in the minority.

    If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! The process for electing the President of the United States has been working for over two hundred years and it is not broken!


 


  12 August 2010 {Article 91; Govt_19}    
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