Tag: Electoral College

Was The Election Rigged?

I would bet that some Right wing dullard is rolling his/her eyes for they think this is a post about the election that brought Trump to the height of power, the presidency of the United States.

Well as much as I hate to pee on their parade…it is not about their man crush…….

Most of my regular visitors know that I like some history and I truly enjoy imparting a little knowledge to them…..and this is a little knowledge on some contentious elections in our past…..

“There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections, in part because they are so decentralized and the number of votes that are cast,” the president added. “There is no evidence that has happened in the past, or instances that will happen this year.”

While such complaints have been rare before votes were cast, they were very prominent in certain post-presidential elections, as was evidence that votes weren’t always counted properly.

http://dailysignal.com/2016/10/18/rigged-election-past-presidential-contests-sowed-doubt-and-nearly-led-to-violence/

I do enjoy this stuff….hopefully my reader learned something that they may not have known…..

Time To Graduate From The College

This time I am referring to the Electoral College…..time for the country to move past this antiquated system and move on to a more reliable popular vote.

Since I began analyzing politics some 50 years ago I have been opposed to the electoral college….and ever election since those dark days have done nothing to give me confidence in the EC as necessity for this republic.

Now that we have an election, 2018 mid-terms, are quickly approaching maybe it is time for me to once again insert my objections to this archaic system.

My attacks on the EC here on IST began back in 2008, although I had written many articles of condemnation the old fashioned way, by paper…..

Source: Can The Electoral College Be Killed? – In Saner Thought

After the Bush win in 2000 the calls have been getting louder, it is as if the American people are starting to wake up from their idyllic slumber….and it has gotten louder since the Trump win in 2016.

assault on the heels of Donald Trump’s victory last November—the second time in five presidential races the popularly elected candidate lost the election—but it’s not due to any groundswell in Congress for a constitutional amendment to adopt a national popular vote. Instead, the most viable campaign to change how Americans choose their leader is being waged at booze-soaked junkets in luxury hotels around the country and even abroad, as an obscure entity called the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections peddles a controversial idea: that state legislatures can put the popular-vote winner in the White House.

It was mid-February, inside a four-star resort in a third-world country, when I heard the pitch to transform American democracy. The institute flew 11 political journalists to Panama for an “educational seminar” on election reform. (My peers included reporters representing outlets ranging from Breitbart to U.S. News & World Report.) The trip presented a bargain: three days of sunshine, sightseeing, fine dining and free cocktails on the institute’s dime, in exchange for being educated by seminar coordinators in the pool, at the bar, overlooking the Panama Canal—and most aggressively, during the five-hour workshop in a windowless conference room—about the history and weaknesses of the Electoral College, and the potential of a radical alternative.

Source: Is the Electoral College Doomed? – POLITICO Magazine

To be fair if my reader is not well versed of the EC and his not too familiar with its functions then I would like to help out…..

Source: What Do You Know About The Electoral College? – In Saner Thought

Source: The Electoral College Wasn’t Meant to Overturn Elections – In Saner Thought

To be fair….not everybody thinks the EC is a worthless piece of crap……in case you need more info before you choose a side…..

Source: Electoral College: Reasons Not To Abolish – In Saner Thought

Closing Thought–30Jan17

The Electoral College

I wrote a whole series about the college after the last election….most in opposition of keeping it….I believe that the country would be better off without it.

I read recently where our new lord and master thought about getting rid of the EC also……

President Trump told congressional leaders he was considering getting rid of the Electoral College, only to be talked out of it by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

During a meeting with congressional leadership this week, Trump said he was interested in using a national popular vote to determine the presidency, sources who attended the meting told the Journal.

McConnell urged Trump not to do so, pointing out the lengthy recount in Florida in the 2000 presidential election and noting that a national recount would take even longer.

Source: Trump brought up ending Electoral College, but McConnell talked him down: report | TheHill

McConnell’s argument was Bullshit…..he is worried about gerrymandering that is how Trump got elected and in 2020 the GOP can do even more harm to the electoral system…..that is the real reason he talked Trump out of the move…..any other excuse is just plain disingenuous…..

This is it for me today…..today’s one dimensional news is tiring…..I shall be off like a dirty shirt….back in the ‘morrow for more stuff.  TTFN

Dethroning The “King”

Today is the BIG day…the electoral college will have its say in the 2016 election…..

How many have read the rantings of the lunatic Right and their constant bitching about the “attempts” to de-legitamizing the election of Donald Trump?

They whine about the protests….they condemn anyone that will not bow down and kiss the joint of our newly “elected” emperor…..

So in the spirit of cooperation I have read something about the possibility of some electors that may NOT sign on to the presidency of Trump…..

This is from the site “The Hill”……

Harvard University law professor Larry Lessig said Tuesday that 20 Republican Electoral College voters are considering flipping to vote against Donald Trump, more than half the number of anti-Trump votes needed to stall the president-elect from being sworn into office.

“Obviously, whether an elector ultimately votes his or her conscience will depend in part upon whether there are enough doing the same. We now believe there are more than half the number needed to change the result seriously considering making that vote,” Lessig told Politico.

Lessig has been offering free legal counsel to “faithless electors” who are considering casting a ballot for an alternative candidate as opposed to Trump, who earned 306 votes on Election Day, well above the necessary 270.

According to Politico’s report, 20 Republican electors have contacted Lessig’s group about voting against Trump.

Electors will cast their ballots on Dec. 19.

If anti-Trump electors manage to whip up enough votes against him, the decision would then go to the GOP-controlled House.

Here’s the problem…even if these 30 electors decide to go against the election and vote for someone other than Trump…he will still have enough votes to be the president…..if it does somehow go to the Congress then Trump will still be the winner….why?  GOP are cowards and will  NOT vote against their party.

So please stop your constant whining…..Trump was elected and he will be president…..move on to something that deserves attention.  That is assuming that you can actually think beyond what those idiots in the fringe media tells you.

It’s Time to End the Electoral College

NOTE:  Please forgive today’s posts…they may be few and short….for today is my day to be poked, probed, goosed et al by my doctors and you would think with all that abuse at least I could get a kiss….but NO!…..just a bill.

I intended to post this before the election but decided that if the conversation is going to move forward it will be after this election…but I am NOT optimistic….plus this is my final post on the subject of the EC.(and the peasants dance)

Without the electoral college then we might have a Pres. Clinton….for as of this writing appears to have won the popular vote….the very thought sends a chill up my spine…..

There is loads of rhetoric this election as it has been in ones before of a rigged system…..I will agree that the system is rigged but I see as the electoral college as the problem not some bullshit about voter fraud…..

Before I go any further let me help the reader understand how the Electoral College works…..before you can hate something it would be a good idea to know what it actually is…..

Source: The Economist explains: How does America’s electoral college work? | The Economist

I recently was contacted by a group that wanted me to write a short piece about the possibility of eliminating the electoral college which got me to thinking about something that I had not considered in a couple of years…..

Source: Can The Electoral College Be Killed? – In Saner Thought

I have been calling for the destruction of the electoral college for 40 years….maybe this election will make my voice amplify……

Gallup has asked the question since 1944, and a majority has always supported an end to the Electoral College, ranging from 80 percent in 1968 to 63 percent in 2013.

Raise your hand if you think that the president of the United States should be elected by the popular vote. Ah, it looks like most of you do. Hands down and know that you’re not alone.

In fact, poll after poll, for quite some time, has shown that most Americans would like to replace the Electoral College delegate system with the popular vote – one person, one vote and the candidate with the most votes wins. Gallup has asked the question since 1944, and a majority has always supported an end to the Electoral College, ranging from 80 percent in 1968 to 63 percent in 2013. And not surprisingly, 70 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds are anxious to end the undemocratic practice of voting for electors who, in turn, vote for the president.

Source: It’s Time to End the Electoral College – LA Progressive

Maybe after the disaster that is the 2016 election is over the American people will see the need to the elimination of the rigged electoral college….

Time for the voter to be put in charge of the circus we call elections.

But sadly the media and the 2 parties are in control…they will not allow the electoral college go away……the media needs it to drive the agenda of swing states that drives the media coverage and the parties will not allow it because they would lose control of the system and the people would once again be in charge….all of this does not bode well for the disappearance of the electoral college……

After this election, 2016, the conversation will once again arise about the electoral college…..a conversation we need but like most other conversations it will be mostly talk with little action.

Source: The Electoral College Is Hated by Many. So Why Does It Endure? – The New York Times

We can piss and moan forever about this……until the American people realize just how screwed they are it will continue to distort American democracy…….

The election commentary now filling the Internet seems distinctly out of touch. Many analysts are castigating Hillary Clinton for all the things she did wrong, her failure to connect with white workers in the Rust Belt, her inability to sufficiently rally blacks, and so on. Or they’re criticizing the American people for falling for a racist, sexist know-nothing like Donald Trump.

But these critics are ignoring the elephant in the parlor. The simple fact is that Americans didn’t elect Trump. An ancient relic known as the Electoral College did. For better or worse, a plurality of the people voted for Hillary Clinton.

Source: How Electoral College Cheats Democracy – Consortiumnews

Thoughts?

Should We Rid Our Society Of The Electoral College?

The short answer for me is…..YES!

I was recently contacted about writing some articles about the electoral college…I originally declined since I am not an expert on the subject….but the more I thought about it I decided that something needs to be done…..

Apparently Trump won the electoral college and Clinton won the popular vote by some 1+ million votes…..with that has come the call for the elimination of the electoral college…..

Every four years, the Electoral College creeps back into the lives of American voters. In some presidential elections, the strange, indirect system used to select the next U.S. president can feel like a formality that doesn’t seem to matter much.

In other elections, it matters very much indeed. This is one of those years.

On Nov. 8, Donald Trump surpassed the necessary electoral votes to become the nation’s president-elect. But if you look at the popular vote, which is the direct number of votes cast, Hillary Clinton beat Trump by about 1 million votes.

Source: Critics Work To Get Rid Of The Electoral College : NPR

I am sure that the Trump supporters will be fine with the results…but would they if the shoe was on the other foot…..more stuff about a “rigged election” would be flying all over the internet, especially those blogs.

Personally, I have written several times during several elections that the college needs to go away and that the popular vote should be the only decider of an election…..

I have a couple of reasons….why I do not like the electoral college…..

1. The person a majority of Americans favor may not win.
Certain smaller states have a larger percentage of Electoral College votes than their percentage of population of the United States. This is because the minimum number of Electoral College votes for a state is three. Some consider this to not be democratic.

2. It’s complicated and dissuades people from voting.
A popular vote is a simple majority, but the Electoral College consists of redistributing votes every 10 years because of population changes and electing delegates. There are many more steps involved, which may give citizens the feeling that their vote does not matter, encouraging them to stay home instead of visiting the ballot box on election days, according to the U.S. Election Atlas.

3. Small states and swing states get more power.
One man does not equal one vote. California’s 55 Electoral College votes mean there are 705,454 people per vote while there are only 194,717 people for each of Wyoming’s three electoral votes.

I believe that the electoral college cheats democracy completely……

The election commentary now filling the Internet seems distinctly out of touch. Many analysts are castigating Hillary Clinton for all the things she did wrong, her failure to connect with white workers in the Rust Belt, her inability to sufficiently rally blacks, and so on. Or they’re criticizing the American people for falling for a racist, sexist know-nothing like Donald Trump.

But these critics are ignoring the elephant in the parlor. The simple fact is that Americans didn’t elect Trump. An ancient relic known as the Electoral College did. For better or worse, a plurality of the people voted for Hillary Clinton.

Source: How Electoral College Cheats Democracy – Consortiumnews

My dislike has nothing to do with this election…..(contrary to popular belief….I did not care who won the damn thing….NOTHING was gonna change) I have been a verbal critic for decades….only difference now is that people are starting to see what I have been preaching about and have seen the need to eliminate this dinosaur from the 18th century.

Please bear with me….there is one more piece I need to write in this mini-series and it will be done and you can think about who is going to win “Dancing With The Stars”…..

The System IS Rigged!

So far the only thing positive, to my mind, that has come up of this past election is the renewed interests on the Electoral College.

My personal opinion, in case you have missed it, is that it should go…..I have been calling for its elimination for 30+ years….few listened then….but they seem to be caring a bit more these days.

This is a piece that explains the EC and the 2016 election…..

Donald Trump was right: the system is rigged! But it is rigged for the Republicans, not the Democrats, for conservatives, not progressives. And the result is the election of an extreme racist, misogynist authoritarian who may change the course of U.S. and even world history.

Source: The System IS Rigged!—The Electoral College and the 2016 Election | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

The question has been asked….if Clinton had won the election would we be having this conversation?  my answer is…..probably not the Dems are just looking for an excuse…but of us Lefties saw this problem coming even before this election or the one in 2000.

Will they listen this time?

The Electoral College Wasn’t Meant to Overturn Elections

I recently got an email from a friend that asked me to contribute to the debate about the Electoral College….I turned her down because I was not interested because for years I had been writing about the need for its elimination and as usual NO one was reading or listening….and then 2016 happened and there was a renewed interest in the elimination……

I decided to do a short series on the EC….trying to give both sides of the debate…….

Electors were intended to be faceless hacks whose independent exercise of judgment was neither wanted nor permitted.

Here is Question One on this year’s Constitutional Law exam.

The “electoral college” is

  1. a terrible idea that has gone wrong repeatedly and now bids fair to destroy the Republic.

  2. a wise creation of all-wise “Founding Fathers” who foresaw precisely this moment and set up the “college” to protect the People from themselves.

  3. Both of the above, even though that makes no sense at all.

  4. WTF? How did we get here?

At least from now until December 19, when the electors will meet in the state capitals to vote, we are likely to hear a good deal about answer 3 from Democrats and supporters of Hillary Clinton. (In the spirit of disclosure, I am both.)

Source: The Electoral College Wasn’t Meant to Overturn Elections – The Atlantic

In my opinion, the EC has outlived its usefulness as part of the process….now it only serves the two party system and the media….it is used to drive the conversation and determine which states will be important.

The popular vote is the only logical way to elect a president in the 21st century.

Even a supporter of the EC has changed his mind and says time for it to go!

The man who would have been the 43rd president if the Electoral College weren’t in place thinks it’s time to ditch it. Al Gore, who won the popular vote but lost the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000, tells NBC News that he’s changed his mind about how America picks its leader. “I think moving to a popular vote system is not without peril, is not without problems,” he says, per the Hill. “But I think the balance has shifted, in my mind at least, and I think that we should go to a popular vote.” Among other things, he says it would “stimulate public participation” like no other election reform, adding that it’s “pathetic how our system is not working today.”

Time for this dinosaur (the EC not Gore…but it is a thought) to be put in a museum where it belongs…

Electoral College: Reasons Not To Abolish

There is a debate going on….the same debate that we have after each election especially the ones that are somehow contested, about the Electoral College.

This election has started the usual debate once again…..sad part is both sides are basing their opinions on emotional crap…..nothing can be doe until calmer heads prevail….

I am of the mind, for the past 30 years, that it is time for it to go….this is the 21st century maybe we should move our elections into it.

But once again to be fair….this is a report issued by the Brookings Institute in favor of keeping the system intact.  Keep in mind the Brookings is a status quo think tank…….they benefit from the system staying as it is……

If democracy means the majority rules, the Electoral College is an undemocratic institution. Twice in the last five elections it has delivered the White House to the loser of the popular vote. In 2000 it gave the nation George W. Bush. Two weeks ago it gave us Donald Trump, although Clinton will most likely have a more than two million vote edge among those who cast ballots. Many people, not just liberals, fear that a Donald Trump presidency will threaten core American values. Some of his initial appointments and failure to strongly condemn the racism of some of his followers have done nothing to quiet these fears. If this is not enough to condemn the Electoral College to oblivion, it has long since ceased fulfilling the function for which it was intended: namely, ensuring that the President owed his office to the people and not to the Congress (at the time, allowing the Congress to choose the president was the most likely alternative) while at the same time interposing a deliberative group of wise men (and they were all men back in the day) between a perhaps overzealous populace and the country’s most powerful office.

Source: Two cheers for the Electoral College: Reasons not to abolish it | Brookings Institution

I stand by my belief that the political system would be a better institution without the Electoral College….one person, one vote…is that not how a democracy is suppose to work?

The debate over the EC is getting interesting…..

There’s been talk of “faithless electors” trying to overturn the Electoral College vote on Dec. 19 that presumably will fall in Donald Trump’s favor, but one Texas elector has so much faith that he’s taking a different route, per the Houston Chronicle: He’s resigning his GOP elector’s post entirely. In what Politico calls a “little noticed” blog post from the weekend titled “Conflicted Elector in a Corrupt College,” Art Sisneros of Dayton explains the difference between a republic and a democracy, states that most electors are forced to make pledges that flout both the Bible and the Constitution, and proclaims he’s stepping down as an elector because, although the “vast majority of Republicans” are pleading with him to vote for Trump, “they don’t make the case that Trump is indeed biblically qualified.”

“I believe voting for Trump would bring dishonor to God,” Sisneros adds, comparing electors to parents who are supposed to step in so their kids won’t gorge on Skittles for dinner—but who, in what he says is the conservative view, still go by what the people say. By resigning, he says, another elector can step in, and “the people will get their vote. They will get their Skittles for dinner. I will sleep well at night knowing I neither gave in to their demands nor caved to my convictions. I will also mourn the loss of our republic.” Sisneros also acknowledges that in regard to the “biblical qualifications” he thinks candidates should possess, “most will think I am just clinging to long forgotten principles that, quite frankly, no one cares about anymore.” The Republican Party of Texas didn’t immediately get back to the Chronicle for comment.

I have heard a lot of stuff around the EC….but “biblical qualified”?

Now that is a new one!

I have thought of many reasons to eliminate the EC……..and not once did I ever think of the Bible in my opposition.

What Do You Know About The Electoral College?

After the Right made a big deal out of the calls for the elimination of the Electoral College I decided to do a series on the subject…..I mean some of us have been fighting to rid society of this dinosaur for decades just the Right was too goddamn busy imposing their religious beliefs on everyone to notice…..

The 2016 election is over….and Mr. Trump has won the big enchilada….he won the electoral college and it appears that Clinton may have won the popular vote….and division has started yet another debate about the electoral college.

Lots of pros and cons…personally the only solution is a popular vote….period!

I have been calling for the elimination of the EC since 2008 on this blog….and that was when Obama was elected…I guess the Leftist thing is just wrong (but of course not one person will admit it)…and I invite anyone that knows how to use the archives to do so to check my statement…..if you doubt what I say……

But let’s look at some historic perspective (you knew that was coming) on the issue……

When U.S. citizens go to the polls to “elect” a president, they are in fact voting for a particular slate of electors. In every state but Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who wins the most votes (that is, a plurality) in the state receives all of the state’s electoral votes. The number of electors in each state is the sum of its U.S. senators and its U.S. representatives. (The District of Columbia has three electoral votes, which is the number of senators and representatives it would have if it were permitted representation in Congress.) The electors meet in their respective states 41 days after the popular election. There, they cast a ballot for president and a second for vice president. A candidate must receive a majority of electoral votes to be elected president.

The reason that the Constitution calls for this extra layer, rather than just providing for the direct election of the president, is that most of the nation’s founders were actually rather afraid of democracy. James Madison worried about what he called “factions,” which he defined as groups of citizens who have a common interest in some proposal that would either violate the rights of other citizens or would harm the nation as a whole. Madison’s fear – which Alexis de Tocqueville later dubbed “the tyranny of the majority” – was that a faction could grow to encompass more than 50 percent of the population, at which point it could “sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.” Madison has a solution for tyranny of the majority: “A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking.”

(factcheck.org)

A bit more on the history……

Source: The Troubling Reason the Electoral College Exists | TIME

But could there be more to this issue than a simple pro and con debate?

There always is when it comes to American political system……

To be clear, this critique of the racialized origins of the Electoral College should not be interpreted as the cheap product of disappointment over the most recent election results, but rather as an effort to tap into what will likely be a short-lived public appetite for presidential politics in order to explore how US political institutions are themselves always already racialized. To be sure, race and racism in the US context have long served as some of the most significant guarantors of democratic structures and institutions. In short, US democracy itself is a racial project whose fulcrum hinges on policies of inclusion and exclusion.

Source: Slavery, Democracy and the Racialized Roots of the Electoral College

This debate is a debate that has been had before and has accomplished nothing….I will be covering this a bit more in the days and weeks to come….please if there are any opinions we would love to hear them…..