“ELECTION TYRANNY”
by Tom DeWeese, ©2016, The DeWeese Report
(Jun. 16, 2016) — A campaign to eliminate the Electoral College and “let the people elect the president,” is gaining steam. A group called “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” started in 2006, has won commitments from eleven states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. These include, Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Massachusetts, California, New York, Hawaii and the District of Columbia. These states control 165 electoral votes. They only need states representing 105 more electoral votes to join and the Electoral College will be a thing of the past. Meanwhile, such legislation is under consideration in Missouri, Oklahoma and Arizona, to name a few. It could be a done deal by 2020.
When a state passes legislation to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, it pledges that all of that state’s electoral votes will be given to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote nationwide. These bills will take effect only when states with a majority of the electoral votes have passed similar legislation. States with electoral votes totaling 270 of the 538 electoral votes would have to pass NPV bills before the compact kicks in and any state’s bill could take effect.
As usual, it’s easy to get people to join this cause – yet another sound bite based on emotion rather than knowledge or logic. “Let the people decide.” “It’s the American way.” “It’s Democracy at work.” Yep, that’s why America was never set up as a democracy. Here’s another sound bite for you – “Democracy is a lynch mob.” Here’s another one – “Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.” Majority rule violates the rights of minorities. It’s not a good thing. Get the picture?
Our Founding Fathers went to a lot of trouble to give us a government that was fair, representing all the people in every state – to protect a minority of one against the will of a mob which isn’t too concerned about the rights of someone standing in their way. Hence the Electoral College.
The abolishment of the Electoral College would, in fact, establish an election tyranny giving control of the government to the massive population centers of the nation’s Northeastern sector, along with the area around Los Angeles. If these sections of the nation were to control the election of our nation’s leaders, the voice of the ranchers and farmers of the Mid and Far West would be lost, along with the values and virtues of the South. It would also mean the end of the Tenth Amendment and state sovereignty.
Throughout history, certain factions have challenged the legality of the Electoral College. Opponents point out that our President is actually elected by 538 virtually unknown people who are members of 51 small delegations in fifty States and the District of Columbia. Moreover, in most states the electors are not even bound to vote for the candidate that won the popular vote. In fact, many Constitutional scholars believe that’s just what the founders intended, 538 independent thinkers, bound to no one. There is reason and logic behind the idea.
Read the rest here.
The Electoral College was a good idea for checks and balances in 1789, when the US Constitution was framed-up and
opened to the public.
However, during all of the Constitution prostitution of the Soros-Pelosi-Obama Sedated Sedition 08-28-08- TODAY, we see that not one single Electoral College human participant resisted/challenged/identified Constitutionally-ineligible narrative British subject Soetoro-Obama before-during-after the 2008 general election, nor did any in this entrusted assembly of humans resist mob rule when Soetoro-Obama’s birth certificate was ruled a forgery as posted on tax-paid-for whitehouse.gov before-during-after the 2012 general election.
Our nation’s entire governmental structure has progressively collapsed upon its citizenry 08-28-08- TODAY, similar to both Towers on 9-11, and the Electoral College is amongst today’s fallen debris, is it not?
Candidates need to be educated and care about all of our states.
Support for a national popular vote is strong in rural states
None of the 10 most rural states (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) is a battleground state.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes does not enhance the influence of rural states, because the most rural states are not battleground states, and they are ignored. Their states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.
Of the Top Ten States by total agricultural receipts (by largest to smallest), which provided over half of the total of the U.S, Total Agricultural Receipts Ranked by State from StuffAboutStates.com which were surveyed recently, support for a national popular vote was CA – 70% (enacted the National Popular Vote), IA – 75%, NE – 67%, MN – 75%, IL (enacted), NC – 74%, WI – 71%, and FL – 78%.
Analysts already conclude that only the 2016 party winner of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire (with 86 electoral votes among them) is not a foregone conclusion. A handful of states will control the election.
States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.
Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution–
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .”
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote).
Source(s)?
Being a constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.
Guaranteeing the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes (as the National Popular Vote bill would) would not make us a pure democracy.
Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on all policy initiatives directly.
Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes used by 2 states, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by states of winner-take-all or district winner laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The “mob” in the current handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, gets disproportionate attention and influence, while the “mobs” of the vast majority of states are ignored.
In the 2012 presidential election, 1.3 million votes decided the winner in the ten states with the closest margins of victory.
One analyst is predicting two million voters in seven counties are going to determine who wins the presidency in 2016.
Analysts already conclude that only the 2016 party winner of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire (with 86 electoral votes among them) is not a foregone conclusion.