by Lori Suzanne Holetz
It really is that easy. I personally do not know why our government insists on making everything so complicated. Our country, as a whole, has far outgrown the electoral college. Originally created in 1786, when our country was pretty much limited to the Eastern Seaboard, it was created without vision or knowledge of the future expansion of our lands and populations. At this point, it has become a very biased system of vote counting.
“The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The term “electoral college” does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to “electors”, but not to the “electoral college”.” – NationalArchives.gov
In order to change this system, it would be necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment. “Over 700 proposals have been introduced to reform the system and the American Bar Association has defined the electoral college as “archaic” and “ambiguous”.” In addition, for at least the last two presidential elections, the outcome was determined before the votes of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii were even counted, due in some part to the time differences and regardless of any needed EC numbers. Essentially, that means our votes here on the West Coast and beyond end up not mattering at all. Voting becomes pointless for us and discouraging to say the least. Three public opinion polls since 1967 have demonstrated that Americans favor abolishing the EC by much more than 50 percent. America is speaking, but it falls on deaf ears. The system favors the political parties and their cohorts in the “upper echelon” of our working government in Washington DC.
In his commitment to the struggle of apartheid in South Africa, Nelson Mandela spoke about the cornerstone of a democratic and free society being “one person, one vote”, rendering full political freedom and independence. We can honor Mandela’s work by continuing to protect our right to vote, as it has been hard won.
In the recent past, we have seen shameless voter suppression tactics and unprecedented efforts to disenfranchise voters by preventing them from registering, voting, and having their votes counted. It’s time to take back our country and make our voices heard to the tune of ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE! It is only fair. Get out and VOTE!