Ha ha ha, to those of you who asked me if I'd ever taken U.S. History.
(I'm happy to know more than one person is reading my blog.)
However, I must've been sick the day my instructor explained that when Americans vote, they are voting for Presidential Electors who have signed a piece of paper stating that they WILL vote for a certain candidate, BUT that they don't have to.
That's a lot of power in the hands of 538 people.
Let me ask this: Why are Americans voting for President at all? Why aren't the presidential candidates holding meetings with members of the Electoral College, swaying them to their side, rather than spending tens of millions of dollars on national ad campaigns? It appears the only purpose of the popular vote in the presidential elections is to create a facade of legitimacy?
I know, you all are asking, "But John, have you forgotten the elections of 2000?" No, I haven't forgotten that farce. My understanding is that Bush won, based purely on the mathematical consequence of how many delegates are awarded to the president based on which states he won - that's why the popular vote didn't matter. Some states had larger populations, but were given only a limited number of electoral votes. But with my new understanding of the political process, when the Electoral College voted 41 days later, they didn't have to listen to the popular vote of the Floridian election. If the electors had decided to vote for Gore, I'm sure there may have been riots in the street for disregarding the Floridian popular vote, but legally, Americans would have had no recourse to change those electors' votes.
Only Michigan and Minnesota have state laws in place to render invalid the votes of faithless electors (those who don't vote as they agreed to, when they applied to become electors). In 22 other states, there are laws to punish the electors after the fact, but once the votes are cast, they can't be changed. If America keeps the Electoral College as an institution, we should impose a federal law rendering all faithless electors' votes invalid.* It will provide a greater sense of legitimacy.
(*Except in the case of when a candidate dies or becomes incapacitated between the time of the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, which has happened twice.)
3 comments:
Sure its a real democracy, not just a pure democracy, which would has never existed and is impossible.
In a true democracy wouldnt have any checks or balances, so the whim of the people at any one momument would carry the day.
Ancient Greece at the time of Socrates was pretty close, and their system was perhaps worse than ours.
I am glad that our system of democracy incorporates republican (not the US party, the poli sci theory) priniciples.
It upsets me that the 900 remaining super democratic delegates have the power to decide whether Obama or Clinton will be the next delegate irregardless of what 20 million democratic voters chose.
I agree that it is not an optimal solution, but democracy is all about compromise.
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