The Electoral College Debate

Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seeking to represent New York's 14th Congressional District, has called for the abolition of the Electoral College. Her argument came on the heels of the Senate's confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She was lamenting the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, nominated by George W. Bush, and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, nominated by Donald Trump, were court appointments made by presidents who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College vote.

Hillary Clinton has long been a critic of the Electoral College. Just recently, she wrote in The Atlantic, "You won't be surprised to hear that I passionately believe it's time to abolish the Electoral College."

Subjecting presidential elections to the popular vote sounds eminently fair to Americans who have been miseducated by public schools and universities. Worse yet, the call to eliminate the Electoral College reflects an underlying contempt for our Constitution and its protections for personal liberty. Regarding miseducation, the founder of the Russian Communist Party, Vladimir Lenin, said, "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted." His immediate successor, Josef Stalin, added, "Education is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."

A large part of Americans' miseducation is the often heard claim that we are a democracy. The word "democracy" appears nowhere in the two most fundamental documents of our nation -- the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. In fact, our Constitution -- in Article 4, Section 4 -- guarantees "to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." The Founding Fathers had utter contempt for democracy. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, said that in a pure democracy, "there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual." At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Virginia Gov. Edmund Randolph said that "in tracing these evils to their origin, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy." John Adams wrote: "Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide." At the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton said: "We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty" is found not in "the extremes of democracy but in moderate governments. ... If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy."

For those too dense to understand these arguments, ask yourselves: Does the Pledge of Allegiance say "to the democracy for which it stands" or "to the republic for which it stands"? Did Julia Ward Howe make a mistake in titling her Civil War song "Battle Hymn of the Republic"? Should she have titled it "Battle Hymn of the Democracy"?

The Founders saw our nation as being composed of sovereign states that voluntarily sought to join a union under the condition that each state admitted would be coequal with every other state. The Electoral College method of choosing the president and vice president guarantees that each state, whether large or small in area or population, has some voice in selecting the nation's leaders. Were we to choose the president and vice president under a popular vote, the outcome of presidential races would always be decided by a few highly populated states. They would be states such as California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, which contain 134.3 million people, or 41 percent of our population. Presidential candidates could safely ignore the interests of the citizens of Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Delaware. Why? They have only 5.58 million Americans, or 1.7 percent of the U.S. population. We would no longer be a government "of the people"; instead, our government would be put in power by and accountable to the leaders and citizens of a few highly populated states.

Political satirist H.L. Mencken said, "The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic."

"This will probably last until the first Republican wins both the popular and the electoral vote. Maybe even as long as 2020."

George Bush won the popular and electoral vote in 2004 but it didn't matter. We're still talking about it. The modern Democrat is only concerned with power and any means by which they can acquire it (hook or crook) is fine with them. This is the culmination of the Clinton era. Do and say whatever it takes to get elected and consequences to the country be damned.

You are right.

Dusty Road, did you REALLY mean Florida? Even Bush won that one (despite algore trying to flip in post-election).

Didn’t mean it to sound that way, I was referring mainly to states with high liberal area’s. Here in Texas there would be certain districts lost to the dems but Cali, Oregon and other blue states will lose some to the republicans. With winner take all red districts in those states lose all representation.

If these clowns truly want to abolish the Electoral College there is a legislative mechanism by which this can be done.

It simply requires passage by 2/3 of the House and Senate plus ratification by 75% of the states. If they think they have the votes to do this, then they should lobby their legislative representatives to seriously propose it.

Needless to say; it will go nowhere, and 99% of the population probably has no idea how a constitutional amendment is facilitated or that a C.A. is required if they want to "abolish" the electoral college. Like everything else they whine about, they just want the talking point to rile up their low-info base.

This is why the left relies on the courts to be their de-facto legislative branch.

"...Were we to choose the president and vice president under a popular vote, the outcome of presidential races would always be decided by a few highly populated states. They would be states such as California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, which contain 134.3 million people, or 41 percent of our population. Presidential candidates could safely ignore the interests of the citizens of Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Delaware. Why? They have only 5.58 million Americans, or 1.7 percent of the U.S. population..."

It really doesn't get much Clearer than the above, as to how Smart our forefathers truly were. They knew people like the Scum Left would arise someday.

We don’t need an amendment to “undo” the Seventeenth Amendment. We need states to reclaim the representation THEY concede to the popular vote election of senators to Congress. They can implement qualification requirements at the state level that allow their own preferred way of choosing Senatorial candidates that would then be elected by the popular vote of their citizens. Instead of choosing a particular person as Senator, they would be choosing a pool of candidates who had passed their test for the office who then could be put before the public for popular votes. This way, you get the power back into the hands of the States AND you comply with the popular vote requirement of the Seventeenth Amendment.

I’d be all for the Electoral College being revamped where each Congressional District gets one Electoral Vote and each State gets 2 Electoral Votes. We have 2 States that already do this. But as long as we have the situation where California can have winner-take-all but Texas be split-up (or vice versa) then that’ll never happen unless it happens across-the-board.

Unfortunately, a large number of red states have gone in the complete opposite direction - legislation that awards their state's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Irrespective of how their state votes. Granted, this doesn't kick in until enough states do it to have the majority of electoral votes, but still really dumb...

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