My vote was stolen yesterday. In politicospeak, I was disenfranchised by the Electoral College. (Please don’t lump this harangue in with Trump’s hissy fit – totally different.)
I revere our Constitution. I believe the Founding Fathers crafted a unique and robust foundation for a republic. And if we’d stuck to the limitations it placed on the power of the federal government, we wouldn’t be in this economic bind (but that’s another conversation).
Despite my abiding respect, I believe it’s time for the Electoral College to go. It served a purpose in the early days of the union when travel and communications were difficult, and especially when the inhabitants of the newborn United States of America thought of themselves as Georgians or New Yorkers or Virginians first, and citizens of the Union second. But now, after numerous Supreme Court decisions forcing the states to kow-tow to the voracious and insatiable federal amoeba, the concept of free and independent statehood is vestigial at best.
Rendering the Electoral College obsolete.
This was hammered home to me yesterday when I voted for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. Did I think he would win? Of course not. But I am truly sick of the Republicratic system where I must repeatedly choose the lesser of two evils. Sure, they talk different talk, but once elected, they walk the same walk: more power to the state, less for the individual. I refuse to play their game.
But although I cast my vote for Gary Johnson, it went to Barack Obama. All of New Jersey’s individual votes, whether for Obama or Romney or Johnson or any other candidate, were lumped into 14 Electoral votes, all of which went into the Obama column. And electoral votes decide the winner. (Had I been voting in Texas, my Gary Johnson vote would have wound up in Romney’s pocket – same problem.)
The upshot: My vote didn’t count.
It didn’t get to Gary Johnson as I intended. Yes, it will wind up in a popular vote tally somewhere, but so what? My vote was rendered meaningless by the Electoral College system.
I can’t say this often enough, because this is personal and it infuriates me: I did not vote for Obama, yet that’s where my vote went. I might as well have left the PRESIDENT line on the ballot blank. I do not want to be part of a collective. One person, one vote – remember? I was not heard yesterday.
You can say, Well, Obama won the popular vote as well. So what? I don’t care. That’s not the point. You’re not listening: The popular vote is meaningless as long as the Electoral College calls the shots.
We have the technology for a popular vote. Next election, let the states submit the unique votes of the individuals who voted – not the collective – directly to the candidates. This might well result in people taking a closer look at alternatives to the Republicrats.
You may not want to be heard. I do.
This post was last modified: 11-07-2012, 01:01 PM by fpw.
FPW
FAQ
"It means 'Ask the next question.' Ask the next question, and the one that follows that, and the one that follows that. It's the symbol of everything humanity has ever created." Theodore Sturgeon.