The Bill of Rights was included, the finest eight freedoms, along with two protections of all other freedoms for the states & the people to decide for themselves.
Lets not forget, the Articles of the Constitution is still the main body of the document, I fear people overlook this section of the Constitution, which outlines the ways in which the government is suppose to function, what the Congress can & cannot do, along with outline how elections are suppose to take place for the President, United States Senate, and the House of Representatives.
While the Representatives are suppose to be elected directly by the American citizenry, the United States Senate directly by the state legislatures, however, indirectly by the American people who elect the state legislature, and the office of President which is a complex electoral system.
As it stands today, the President of the United States shall be elected by the electors, and when we cast our ballot for President, we are actually casting our ballot for the electors in our state, to vote for whom we want. This is a process the Founders wanted, because American is not meant to be a democracy as some are attempting to push it into, but rather America is suppose to be a Republic, and suppose to be a separation of powers....even in electoral means of the United States Senate & United States President.
Did you know that two states have violated the United States Constitution in the way they allocate their votes to Presidential candidates? Yes it is true, those would be the states of Maine & Nebraska.
According to the Constitution (as defined in both the Articles & Amendments), the electors shall meet as a state, and cast their ballots. As the process is meant to be a winner take all system, Maine & Nebraska have a system where there are two popular electoral votes, and that each congressional district also has one vote as well. In violation of the Constitution, because it is not suppose to be decided on a congressional basis (not one electoral vote), but as a state.
Is there any chance that this will be returned to its original version? I could see it happening. However, it would take a lot of grassroots to change those systems back to the original intention, and with a lot of Americans already turning against the Elector College, that might be a tough task, however, it would also be a noble one.
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4 comments:
wrong
You're all wrong. The Constitution leaves it up to the states to decide the electors are chosen. In 1789 (the first presidential election), North Carolina and Virginia states elected electors by district. No one thought this was unconstitutional.
What the Founding Fathers said in the U.S. Constitution about how presidential electors should be awarded is: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all rule) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation's first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote.
In 1789 only three states used the winner-take-all rule.
There is no valid argument that the winner-take-all rule is entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The winner-take-all rule (i.e., awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all rule.
As a result of changes in state laws, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all rule is used by 48 of the 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes--that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.
The bill is currently endorsed by over 1,659 state legislators (in 48 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This national result is similar to recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado-- 68%, Iowa --75%, Michigan-- 73%, Missouri-- 70%, New Hampshire-- 69%, Nevada-- 72%, New Mexico-- 76%, North Carolina-- 74%, Ohio-- 70%, Pennsylvania -- 78%, Virginia -- 74%, and Wisconsin -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Delaware --75%, Maine -- 71%, Nebraska -- 74%, New Hampshire --69%, Nevada -- 72%, New Mexico -- 76%, Rhode Island -- 74%, and Vermont -- 75%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas --80%, Kentucky -- 80%, Mississippi --77%, Missouri -- 70%, North Carolina -- 74%, and Virginia -- 74%; and in other states polled: California -- 70%, Connecticut -- 73% , Massachusetts -- 73%, New York -- 79%, and Washington -- 77%.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 29 state legislative chambers, in 19 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon, and both houses in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington. These five states possess 61 electoral votes -- 23% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
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