The Fair Vote

Such a travesty of justice, I need a safe space to recover and then we'll start the coup. Can the people count on you?

 

So more strawmen? Lol

 

You're not alone. Millions maybe billions of Americans around the world share your heartbreak. We have to do something about this injustice, maybe we can impeach him?

 

So doubling down on the strawmen? It’s ok, I understand. You can’t address what is actually said so you need to make **** up and attack it. We both know why.

 

So then what is the incentive to have a fair tax if it hurts the blue states?

 

Several have answered you with facts but you insist on your BS persecution story. Straw may give us some place to walk through it without getting our feet covered with it. Two universal truths, Hillary lost the election and Epstein didn't kill himself.

 

You said they voted for the president. That is factually inaccurate.

 

No it isn’t. They vote for the president. They just don’t elect him/her.

 

The constitution makes no provision for the people of the several states for voting for the president.

 

Citizens in all 50 states vote for the president on Election Day. The electoral college elects him some
time after. This is reality.

 

They can't vote for the president. The president is elected by electors chosen by the several states.

 

Citizens in all 50 states vote for the president on Election Day. The electoral college elects the president some time after

 

They don't vote for the president. There is no such procedure described in the constitution.

 

Citizens in all 50 states vote for the president on Election Day. The electoral college elects the president some time after This is reality.

 

I think your constant harping about the EC and the popular vote arises out of a misunderstanding of the intent of our Founders. You should take the time to read Article II of the Constitution sometime. The powers of the president are extremely limited and there is very little a president can do independently without the approval of Congress.

The real power was supposed to be in Congress.

Congress controls the budget.
Congress controls taxation.
Congress is supposed to decide if we go to war.
Congress writes the laws we live under.
Even most presidential appointments have to be approved by Congress.
Congress may override a veto.

The real political battles are supposed to occur in the halls of Congress.

The primary job of the president was supposed to be to execute the will of Congress. The president also acts as the "head general" in case of war if Congress decided to take the nation to war.

It could be said that the president, for the most part, was supposed to be a figurehead - someone who represented all of the nation more or less equally - the populous states and cities and the less populous states and rural areas - equally.

What you should be harping on is to get term limits on Congress. Career politicians in Congress have deliberately ceded much of their authority to run the nation because they don't want to exercise it. It is risky to take a stand, and career politicians avoid risk like the plague. Motivated short-term members of Congress wouldn't have that problem. They would want to get things done during their short stay in Congress - like 8 years max. This deliberate ceding of power from the Congress to the President (and the Supreme Court) betrays the intent of our Founders, and it betrays the People who elected them.

That, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with our political system, and that is where your focus should be.

 

It does huh? So 48 is larger than 52. Dang this modern math. You had 136,669,276 votes cast which 65,853,514 were for Hillary Clinton, 70,815,762 against Hillary. Only with modern math can 65,853,514 mean the will of the people while 70,815,762 doesn't.

 

Yes. Clinton received more votes than any other candidate. Math so how we know that.

 

I agree that if the president is limited to two terms, 8 years, so too should those in congress. It's a matter of what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Either get rid of the 22nd amendment or place term limits on congress to make things equal and fair. 8 years for the president, 8 for the House, 12 for senators since their term is 6 years. I'd be willing to go along with 12 years for the House to make them equal to the senate.

It's true congress has ceded quite a lot of its constitutional powers to the administration and other federal agencies and department. This way those in congress do not have to make any hard decisions, hard votes. They can blame the president and the different governmental agencies and departments. Not our fault cries congress.

 

They do elect him/her, just not directly. Nearly all the electoral votes are cast according to the popular vote for each State.

You can't make an apple pie out of cherries no matter how many of them you count.

 

Which is moronic and unequal. As I’ve repeatedly pointed out. Wyoming votes are 3 times the weight of California.

Nobody is talking about pie. I’m correctly pointing out that the American voters chose Clinton, not trump.

 

I think I would hold the House to 8 years and repeal the 17th Amendment. I would like to return to having our state legislatures elect our senators. That way, those senators would be accountable only to the elected representatives in their state. As it is now, senators are beholden to big money donors from all over the country. They are also beholden to the national party they belong to. Repealing the 17th would take away the power of those interests over the Senate. All a senator would have to do would be to vote in concert with the will of their state, as represented in their state legislature. They would need no campaign money, no donors. They would probably represent the predominant party of their legislature, but they would not be beholden to the national party. Theoretically, a senator who was a Republican could perfectly satisfy the wishes of a Democratic state legislature by simply voting as they wished. But that aside, the biggest advantage would be to take away the influence of donors to election campaigns for the Senate. As it is, an interest that has nothing to do with a senator's state may influence that senator by donating to his campaign fund. In a worse case, that interest could even be to the detriment of the senator's state. So I would repeal the 17th, and the let the House be the body that we elect directly from our local areas.

 

And you should get your facts straight.

I am not harping about the Constitution but about an Amendment, that of number 12. It was written at a time when there were no trains, and barely any roads amongst the states. Getting the vote to DC was a great headache.

But, the nation is not like that anymore. And certain articles of the Constitution merit a review. The one about how we elect a PotUS is key, but has been flawed from the get-go. The winner-takes-all-rule is wrong, wrong, wrong - particularly in a national vote for the presidency. Gerrymandering manipulates the popular-vote at both the state and national level.

Finally, and please take note: Not one developed country that was reinventing the process for electing its national political leadership ever copied that of the United States!

Not one. Ever ... !

NB:
*Countries other than the US that employ an EC to elect the Head of state (from here):

*Further reading in the matter: 10 Countries Besides the U.S. That Have Electoral Colleges - excerpt:

 

If you're not happy with the current constitution, there is always the amendment process. Good luck getting 38 states to vote for reducing their political power.

 

California has 538 electors and Wyoming has 3? We have to win Wyoming or we lose the election said no politician ever.

 

I don’t care. The center of our politics should be in the Congress, not the presidency. Our Founders got it right except for the lack of term limits on Congress.