I think it's Pravda, that's reporting the cost to US taxpayers for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to be a quadrillion or 1000 trillion dollars, which we seem to think we can afford. What we should afford is election reform. A 20 multiple choice test questions for citizens from the US, asked who elects the President? The correct answer is the Electoral College, answer the people and you would have been marked wrong. That system allows, as I understand it, for one persons vote in one state of 50 to swing the Electoral College over to one of the parties. Interestingly, the President and Vice President in the early days of the republic could and were from different parties, a "coalition" of sorts until changed, but the Electoral College remained unchanged. The state of Maine is changing that, adjusting Electoral College votes to reflect the popular numbers actually voted by its citizens as best possible. Let's hope "as Maine goes so goes the Nation" up to the States of the Union how they are counted and used under the US Constitution.
Happy Thanksgiving! Did you know the Declaration of Independence was probably signed with ink made from pokeberries fermented in a pumpkin?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The congressional district method of awarding electoral votes (currently used in Maine and Nebraska) would not help make every vote matter. In North Carolina, for example, there are only four of the thirteen congressional districts that would be close enough to get any attention from presidential candidates. A smaller fraction of the country's population live in competitive congressional districts (about 12%) than in the current battleground states (about 30%) that get overwhelming attention while two-thirds of the states are ignored. Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
ReplyDeleteThe National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular vote in all 50 states (and DC).
ReplyDeleteEvery vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
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 National Popular Vote bill has passed 29 state legislative chambers in 19 states. It 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 www.NationalPopularVote.com