Posted on 10/06/2004 6:07:29 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
As much as we Americans like to brag about our democracy, it's still a work in progress. Not until the 1960s did the nation begin to honor its promise of full equality for all. And we're still stuck with a vestige of the Founding Fathers' disdain for the wisdom of the average citizen — the Electoral College.
Because of the college, not every vote counts in a presidential contest. If you're a Bush supporter in California or New York, your vote won't count. The same is true if you're a Kerry supporter in Georgia or Texas. That's because the majority of states award their electoral college votes on a winner-take-all basis. Sen. John Kerry is widely expected to get every electoral college vote in California, as President Bush will no doubt reap every electoral college vote from Texas.
So in a tight election like this one, the candidates ignore states — like Georgia — where either man shows a substantial lead, homing in, instead, on 16 to 20 "battleground" states where the polls show a dead heat. The result is a weird distortion where every hamlet in Pennsylvania is being trampled by presidential candidates and Secret Service agents and the whims of every Michigan voter taken into account.
While Atlanta — home to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, CNN and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — stands a greater chance of being the target of a terrorist attack than, say, Cincinnati, home of Procter & Gamble, the campaigns don't care. Bush and Kerry pander to Buckeyes.
Their inattention to Georgia is prompting a few college students who grew up here to vote in their adopted states. Robin Blusiewicz, a Westminster graduate who attends Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Andrea Jones that she will cast her vote for Kerry in Ohio.
"It just seemed like the smart thing to do," Blusiewicz said.
Robert Lee, a College Republican who grew up in Thomasville, has made a similar decision. He told Jones he would cast his vote in Florida, where he attends school. Why cast a vote here when Bush likely has every one of Georgia's 15 electoral votes sewn up?
If there was once a good reason for the existence of the Electoral College, it has long since disappeared. The nation is no longer a loose confederacy of strong states; it is a nation where citizens see themselves as Americans first and Georgians second, third or tenth. It's a union of highly mobile citizens, many of whom are likely to live in several states during their lifetimes. If the Electoral College was intended to protect the peculiar interests of states, that's no longer necessary. (Nor is it necessary to protect the presidency from the unwashed masses of regular voters.)
All the Electoral College does is set up the possibility that a president may be elected even though he did not receive the most popular votes. That has happened three times in American history — with Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and George W. Bush in 2000. With the nation so divided, it is likely to happen again over the next couple of decades. That tends to undermine Americans' faith in their elections process.
In November, Colorado's voters will decide whether to join Maine and Nebraska, the only two states which divvy up electoral college votes. The issue will come up for a vote because Colorado has a process that allows citizens to introduce ballot initiatives.
Georgia has no such process, and it is quite unlikely that the state Legislature would pass a bill to change the process for allocating electoral college votes. That would be the case whether Bush or Kerry won; partisans tend to stick with the system that benefited them.
A serious rethinking of the Electoral College will have to await the day when a president is elected by an overwhelming popular vote. With such a mandate, he (or she) might feel secure enough to institute a change long overdue.
Until then, those of us outside the "battleground" will have to settle for watching the presidential campaign on TV. We're unlikely to see any presidential candidates here in Georgia.
I guess she feels the 0.6% total vote count more for Gore is overwhelming.
I wasn't sure about the electorial college until I say the Bush vote by counties. (can someone post the map, I put mine somewhere for safe keeping).
With Cynthia's plan, it seems candidates would concentrate on population centers.
The same for the House of Reps - let's have a TRUE democracy, she says.
Horse Puckey.
Hey cynthia I've got a better one for you. One electorial vote per state. How about that one huh? More conservitive states than liberal ones? That wouldn't work for you would it?This is why the founding fathers where so much smarter than most of the people are now.
The commies are scared.
Cynthia, Socialism wont help.
She is an overeducated snob that looks at the Constitution as a quaint piece of paper framed by elitists secretly opposed to democracy. Naturally, her ideas to update that quaint document would favor her political beliefs because it is reality. Idiot.
The reason Georgia is out of play is because the Democratic party has become the party of the great unwashed 60's retreads, putting it far to the left of most of Georgia (just ask Zell Miller). In this way, the Electoral College gives Georgia more power, because its rejection of Woodstock-era leftism counts in the election instead of being diluted by the radical big cities. Just not the way Cindy-poo wants it.
A United STATE of America would surely serve the purposes of the globalists would it not? Why isn't this woman complaining about the Senate. My Senators represent only a fraction of the people represented by Barbara Boxer but their votes are weighted equally.
Living in Atlanta, I'm exposed to her moronic mutterings more than my sanity can handle. She's a natural byproduct of affirmative action, with an attitude.
In regards to Ms Tucker, the term “Sexual Intellectual” comes to mind.
Wrong again, Cynthia.
The "good reason" in 2000 was named Al Gore, Jr.
And that was a very good reason, indeed.
Small states would never see a Presidential candidate without the Electoral College system.
We are a Republic, not a democracy. If we were a democracy, blacks would have been denied the vote perhaps even now.
Idiot.
Well at least you are a little ahead of NC in purging your 'rats. And Melvin R. Watt is as bad as McKinney, just not such a kook
I will vote for Bush in Washington State full well knowing that the state will most likely go to Kerry. Do I feel disenfranchised? Do I think my vote won't count? Of course not. I take pride in the fact that I am allowed my say.
Heck, even if this were decided by popular vote, someone is going to win and someone is going to lose. Lots of voters won't get their way in the process.
This would disqualify the military.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.