By Joseph J Jacob
I advocate the Popular Vote System because it reflects and represents the voice of the people.
On any election day, your friends tell you, “Go vote, your vote counts.” Does your vote really count?
How can anyone forget the Presidential election of 2000, when Al Gore received more votes than George Bush in the popular vote. And in the 2016 Presidential election Hillary Clinton’s final tally came in at 65, 844, 610 compared to Donald Trump’s 62, 979, 636 with a difference of 2, 864, 974 as the final popular vote count.
The Presidential elections are the biggest fraud in the history of our democracy. Through the electoral college, they steal your vote, while the Supreme Court Judges, who are appointed for life, are watching.
Back in 1776, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, “Common Sense,” encouraged British colonists to sever their loyalty to the crown of King George III. Kings are crowned for life, so are the Supreme Court Judges. Apparently, we replaced the King by Supreme Court Judges. They decided the Presidential election of 2000, in favor of “George” Bush.
Florida’s disputed Presidential election of 2000 should have been settled by the electorate and not decided by Kathleen Harris and the United States Supreme Court. Schools and colleges give exams; if they discover cheating occurred they schedule another test, not resort to the State to settle the cheating problem.
In all of our elections, except the Presidential elections, the winner is the one with the majority vote. Then why don’t we use the same principle for the Presidential elections?
The Electoral College process was originally drafted in 1787, established in 1788, modified in 1804 with the ratification of the 12th Amendment, and ratified in 1868 with the 14th Amendment and in 1961 with the ratification of the 23rd Amendment.
In 1787, when the population was under 4 million, the electoral college was necessary. The framers of the constitution gave voters in thinly scattered populated states more weight than voters in heavily populated states. The reason for that was to dilute the votes of population centers that may have different concerns from the majority of the country.
Now that the population is over 325 million, the popular vote system is more genuinely democratic.
The electoral college gives too much power to swing states and ignores the will of the people. It discourages people from voting by making them feel that their vote does not matter; they stay home instead of voting on election days.
Direct-vote would give everyone an equally weighted vote regardless of what state they live in as opposed to giving greater voting power to voters in small states.
The Electoral College System is an archaic system, less understood and befuddling, long overdue for reform, and should be replaced in favor of a system of direct election for the President and Vice President by the pure popular vote.
Journalist Stephen Chapman wrote in his 2016 column, “Why would Cruz insult New Yorkers?” “…Cruz doesn’t care. He has no reason to care. That’s because of a curious artifact, known as the Electoral College. The fact that a major candidate is happy to write off so many Americans is just one more piece of evidence that this system is a bad way to elect a President—and that both parties ought to make it a priority to abolish it.”
“Under the Electoral College, we don’t have a national election for President. We have 50 state elections, and nearly every one of them is winner-take-all.”
We are in the twenty-first century; we cannot justify the existence of the electoral college, an antiquated device created to deprive the electorate of its power and make it impossible for a third-party candidate to mount a challenge to the major party candidates.
How could we as people who uphold the ideal of human equality not elect our President by the people for the people? Pitching reform is a matter of democratic principle. True democracy requires electing Presidents the same way we elect mayors, governors, senators, and congressmen.
So, Republicans and Democrats, I urge you to work together and abolish the outdated Electoral College.
God bless America.
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Joseph J. Jacob is a former corporate controller for Hamilton Digital Controls, Inc., former president of the National Association of Accountants in the Mohawk Valley, former president of Upstate NY Regional Council of NAA and former national director of NAA. He is a contributing writer for the Utica Phoenix.
