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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!
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