Sooner or later, I was BOUND to rant on this…
As we all know, the U.S. Constitution does not give the general public the right to vote for our President. We must vote for electors, who pledge to vote for our candidate of choice. They actually CAN change their mind and vote for another candidate (and have on occasion) (Some states make it a crime to do this.) After certifying their selection process, (notice I said “SELECTION”, not “ELECTION”. There is NOTHING in the Constitution that even requires that the states even HAVE an election. They can JUST flip a coin if they want to!) a state can certify a set of electors that have been designated BY that candidate to vote FOR that candidate. The state cannot be held responsible if that doesn’t happen.
Ok… So just based on THAT.. Voting for people we know NOTHING about so they can vote on OUR behalf. Isn’t that the craziest idea you have ever heard?
Wait it gets worse!
Most states (except for Colorado), decide on a candidate’s electors in a winner-take-all system. For instance, take California (55 electoral votes). Obama beat McCain in ’08 handily in California for sure (roughly 60% – 40%). But look at how the electors were allocated. All 55 of Obama’s electors in California got to vote in the election. But a full 40% of the population voted for McCain! If California were represented proportionately, 33 of Obama’s electors would get to vote and 22 of McCain’s electors would get to vote. So, in essence 40% of the actual citizens in California who voted in the election for McCain, (over 4 Million people) had their votes thrown in the trash. The winner-take-all system (coupled with the Election fraud in Florida) enabled Bush to be elected President (by the Electors, not the citizens), even though the majority of the citizenry voted for Gore (or others),
Regardless of what you may think of McCain (and poor John seems to be trashed by both the left and the right), that is just screwed up.
But… It gets worse than that!
Because the states can choose their electors ANY way they please, (remember, they don’t even have to have an election if they don’t want to) they can choose to be proportional or winner-take-all. Proportional is obviously much better. However a MIXED system is patently unfair. Colorado, which leans slightly Republican now has a proportional vote, giving Democrats part of that state (Boulder, and parts of Denver are very BLUE). But Colorado only has 9 electors to divide up. The Republicans tried to put together a bill in California in ’08 for it be proportional (which would give them a sizable chunk of electors even though they have little chance of winning the majority). But then there is the deep South, which has little blue chunks (Atlanta comes to mind, also Austin, TX) but in the majority votes solidly RED. Unless the entire deep South goes proportional, Democrats are out of luck on those electors as well. It was strange though, the ads for the Republican led bill were crying foul in CA about poor voter representation, but never seemed to bring it up in the deep South. Strange…. hmmmmm
With me so far? As if this thing wasn’t bad enough. Here is where it gets downright EVIL.
Remember, I said the states have the freedom to choose their electors any way they want? Well, the states can individually set the rules of their own elections. (Except they cannot discriminate on the basis of race any more, thanks to the Civil Rights Act). So keep in mind, we have NO national election that we all are allowed to vote in. We have 51 SEPARATE elections. (All with their own set of rules). Some states do not let people who have been convicted of a felony vote. EVER. (Regardless of how long ago in their lives it occurred). Some states, allow an ex-felon to vote after a certain amount of time. Many states don’t have any such laws at all. The state legislatures are free to pass their own election laws (as long as they aren’t proven to be discriminatory on the basis of race, creed, or color) as they see fit.
Bad enough yet? It gets worse.
The people who OFFICIATE the elections at the state level are called Secretaries of State. You’d think that such a position would be non-partisan, wouldn’t you? (Officiating elections???) You’d be WRONG! In fact, The Secretary of State of a particular state is free to OPENLY SIMULTANEOUSLY be the CHAIRMAN of his/her party for that state. Yep! Nothing illegal about that under our current system. Conflict of Interest? No such thing in our current system.
Bad enough yet? It gets even worse than that.
NOTE: I am sure the Dems pull some shananigans with Democratic Secretaries of State somewhere, but I never have seen anything about it. I live in a Blue State, and our Democratic SoS, seems perfectly honest (as far as I know?). Compared to the Republicans who absolutely EXCEL at election fraud, the Democrats are rank amateurs (ACORN flunkees running around putting in stupid names like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck (and of course since no one is registered under those names, they can’t vote under them, and there is absolutely no benefit to the Democrats). Where I live, we are a winner-take-all BLUE state, and McCain had NO chance here anyway. So I will point to two examples with the Republicans:
We know that we have partisan Secretaries of State, and guess what? State legislatures are partisan too! Oh, and Governors too!
Hmmm What would happen if a Republican Majority State Legislature made a law in, (let’s say) Florida stating that all ex-felons are to be banned from voting. (OK… Patently unfair to take away a citizen’s rights, if he/she has already paid his/her debt to society, but let’s go with it.) What if the that SAME State Legislature wrote IN THE LAW that a 3rd party database company (by coincidence owned by a HUGE Republican donor) was the arbiter of who was or was NOT an ex-felon? They are free to do that! What if the Republican-owned database company worked with the Republican (but impartial????) Secretary of State (who also doubles as the head of the Florida Republican campaign) to provide a list of names of supposed ex-felons? What if the Secretary of State arbitrarily decided (of course he/she is the final arbiter of the election rules for that state) that there simply weren’t enough names on the list? What if the Secretary of State knew that a majority of Florida ex-felons were African American, and that African Americans almost always vote Democratic? What if the Secretary of State asked the Database company to provide him/her with people with African American sounding surnames that were the SAME as the original ex-felons list? Who could question him/her? He/she is the Secretary of State (and the OFFICIATOR) of the election! What if this process continued several times until there was a list of thousands of American Americans on the list (with only a small percentage of them being ex-felons)? Oh, and what if the Governor of the same state just HAPPENED to be the the BROTHER of the Republican presidential candidate?
Guess what? This happened in Florida in 2000, and Al Gore was too worried about “hanging chads” to see it. Secretary of State Katherine Harris got caught red-handed in her email asking the database company for more names. The NAACP sued and won! And RIGHT before Ms. Harris was about to be called to testify, they SETTLED the case for $10 Million! Are you kidding me? The NAACP can be bought off for $10 Million in the most important case in history facing our democracy?
And here is the KICKER!
- Yes, the NAACP sued for an alleged TORT, but there is no CRIME here. The Secretary of State acted within the laws of her own state (passed by the state’s Republican Legislature)
- This is the biggie. (Crime or Tort doesn’t matter!) The Constitution provides absolutely NO remedy after the fact. ZERO. Once a candidates electors have been certified to vote in the ACTUAL election, NOTHING can be done. Even if FRAUD has been proven! (as in Florida 2000).
OK… Now this REALLLLLY stinks… But wait it GETS worse!
Let’s move to 2004. Ohio Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (an African American himself) doubled as the Ohio chairman of the Republican Presidential campaign. (Remember this is perfectly legal). He (like in many other states) decides to use voting machines manufactured by Republican contributor, Diebold. (Remember, he is the Secretary of State and makes all final decisions regarding election rules for his state.) He could LEGALLY decide to have Rush Limbaugh count the votes if he wanted to. (Perfectly legal). He decides to purchase voting machines that do not return a receipt to the voter and store the votes in (I kid you not) a Microsoft Excel file. The Excel files are then combined to produce a final vote tally for a precinct. During the election, some strange things occur in the African American areas in Cleveland and especially Columbus:
- There are VERY few machines and the ones that do exist are breaking down a lot. ONLY in the African American sections of town. People are waiting upwards of 6 hours to vote. Strange? Could it be that the people in these sections of town are likely to vote for the Democratic candidate? Nahhhh
- Strange unidentified people have keys to the voting machines, and laptops, and cables connecting them to the machines (officially to “repair” them) hmmmmm?
- The totals for several precincts have 3x the number voting for the Republican candidate that even live in the area!
ok… Maybe this is me being a paranoid conspiracy theorist lapping up left-wing kool-aid… (Yeah that’s me…)
But after the election, Ken Blackwell ran for Governer of Ohio as a Republican, on the platform of “Delivering Ohio to the Republicans in 2004″! No, I am NOT kidding! In his role as the (supposedly impartial) Secretary of State he BRAGGED about delivering the election to the Republicans!
Then of course there is this:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/29380
Nice huh?
In one amazingly ironically named piece of legislation (forgot about this one in a prior post) The “Help America Vote Act” is pushing ALL states to use voting machines with no requirement for receipts!!!!
Jimmy Carter, who works on a UN delegation that officiates elections in third world countries, said the US election system would NEVER meet the standards of a UN officiated election. (OPEN partisans are allowed to officiate while doubling as the chairman of their party’s election campaign?????) Our OWN election system won’t pass the UN standards for an election in a third world country.
So what do we do?
- Repeal this disastrous “Help America Vote Act”, put together by the previous President
- Eliminate the Electoral College (probably can’t do it by Constitutional Amendment, but the states can nullify it, with a National Popular Vote Bill http://www.electoral-college.org/) Each National Popular Vote Bill would STRIP the Presidential election from the Secretary of State’s jurisdiction as part of its terms.
- Let everyone Vote Online (yes online) in ONE National Election. EVERY American citizen (verified) can vote, regardless of what they may or may not have done in their past. Those without computers can go to their local library. Each voter is identified with a unique ID (which changes every election). Everyone can download the ENTIRE nationwide list (or by state or by County, or WHATEVER) of how each ID (no names) voted AND the totals (which they can independently verify if they so choose). Everyone can VERIFY their own ID, and that their vote was recorded correctly.
- Create a REAL Non-Partisan Federal Election Commission with TEETH. That actually OFFICIATES the election.
Problem solved.
