Posted on 12/29/2004 5:15:20 PM PST by CHARLITE
Amendment would provide for direct popular election
Dateline: December 27, 2004
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) has announced that she will introduce legislation to abolish the Electoral College system and provide for direct popular election of the President and Vice President when the Senate convenes for the 109th Congress in January.
“The Electoral College is an anachronism and the time has come to bring our democracy into the 21st Century,” Sen. Feinstein said in a press release. “During the founding years of the Republic, the Electoral College may have been a suitable system, but today it is flawed and amounts to national elections being decided in several battleground states.
“We need to have a serious, comprehensive debate on reforming the Electoral College.
"I will press for hearings in the Judiciary Committee on which I sit and ultimately a vote on the Senate floor, as occurred 25 years ago on this subject. My goal is simply to allow the popular will of the American people to be expressed every four years when we elect our President. Right now, that is not happening.”
In further denouncing the Electoral College system, Sen. Feinstein pointed out that under the current system for electing the President of the United States:
Candidates focus only on a handful of contested states and ignore the concerns of tens of millions of Americans living in other states.
A candidate can lose in 39 states, but still win the Presidency.
A candidate can lose the popular vote by more than 10 million votes, but still win the Presidency.
A candidate can win 20 million votes in the general election, but win zero electoral votes, as happened to Ross Perot in 1992.
In most states, the candidate who wins a state’s election, wins all of that state’s electoral votes, no matter the winning margin, which can disenfranchise those who supported the losing candidate.
A candidate can win a state’s vote, but an elector can refuse to represent the will of a majority of the voters in that state by voting arbitrarily for the losing candidate (this has reportedly happened 9 times since 1820).
Smaller states have a disproportionate advantage over larger states because of the two “constant” or “senatorial” electors assigned to each state.
A tie in the Electoral College is decided by a single vote from each state’s delegation in the House of Representatives, which would unfairly grant California’s 36 million residents equal status with Wyoming’s 500,000 residents.
In case of such a tie, House members are not bound to support the candidate who won their state’s election, which has the potential to further distort the will of the majority. “Sooner or later we will have a situation where there is a great disparity between the electoral vote winner and the popular vote winner. If the President and Vice President are elected by a direct popular vote of the American people, then every American’s vote will count the same regardless of whether they live in California, Maine, Ohio or Florida,” Sen. Feinstein said.
In the history of the country, there have been four instances of disputed elections where the President who was elected won the electoral vote, but lost the popular vote – John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and George W. Bush in 2000. According to some estimates there have been at least 22 instances where a similar scenario could have occurred in close elections.
“Our system is not undemocratic, but it is imperfect, and we have the power to do something about it,” Sen. Feinstein said. “It is no small feat to amend the Constitution as it has only been done only 27 times in the history of our great nation.”
Hmmm... The same person who wants to disarm the American People wants to tinker with the electoral system... Lemme think... NO!
But that is not what is happening. The "electors" in each state are selected by the winner's party in that state.
Let's, for sake of explanation, assume that Bush won the popular vote over Kerry by 60 million to 57 million.
Bush won the popular vote and the Electoral College will cast their votes to elect him very soon, I think (if they haven't already).
Now imagine that everybody in Kalifornia had drunk the liberal kool-aid and voted for Kerry. That would subtract from Bush and add to Kerry's popular vote about 45% of Kalifornia's voters. That would change the popular vote to approximately 55 million for Bush to 62 million for Kerry.
But there would be NO change in the Electoral College vote. The same Electors would be casting votes and Bush would become President. Our Nation's Founders did not want the President to be elected in such an unbalanced fashion. Five million extra Kalifornia liberal voters cannot dictate to the many red states in the Union. This is a good thing.
As I quoted in another posting, "democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting for what to have for dinner". Our Founders purposely constructed our government to prevent this. Only a corrupt educational system allows this to be an issue. Truly educated people should laugh in Feinstein's face.
I love when Democrats do this, because, for one thing, it unites all conservatives.
For another, it exposes the Democrats for their total hypocrisy when they swear to defend "the sacred Constitution" against, say, a Federal Marriage Amendment.
We need to go back to what the founders wanted.
stupid is as stupid does. do these libs really know that the constitution was established to control monsters like themselves that want to hijack the system?
I say we take that bet. They will wake up in 2008 in a daze when they lose the popular vote again despite their entrenchment in the blue states.
Then the whining will start again. Its one of lifes constants.
He looks terrible in that pic.
It will be the Hildabeast, without a doubt!!
No, actually they'd love it. Why? Because a few densely populated cities on both coasts will rule the nation forever more. Those cities are all that's left of the Left/Dem power base.
That and they want to abolish the nation period. They desire a maga-government of Leftists that would rule the world.
That sentence can be ended after the word "terrible."
We cannot rule out the destruction of our Republic while these rats are still in some forms of power.
IF -
Condi Rice can survive and thrive in the state department
having her on the ticket in 2008 could retake some of these urban fallujah centers we have in this country. We have got to retake the cities.
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