Kalifornia seeks to bypass electoralcollege

While I've never liked the concept of the Electoral College , preferring a "one state-one vote" system instead , what could their motivation be aside from an obvious attempt to hijack future elctions ?

I believe that it is high time that we went to a directly elected President. The problem with the current system is that states with small populations are disproportionately represented in the Electoral College due to the Senate-based electoral votes. For example, most mid-sized cities have a population larger than Wyoming, but this state receives three electoral votes (one for each senator and one for their representative).

Until recently, the winner of the Electoral College was also the winner of the popular vote. The fact that a president can be elected to office without winning the popular vote highlights the flaws in the current system. Please remember that the current state delineation may not always hold true. I remember being a member of the GOP when very few from the South and West voted Republican. If a small sparsely populated state like Wyoming were to go “blue,” it would have a much greater impact on the Presidency under the current system. With approximately 250,000 residents, Wyoming is ripe for a Democratic takeover via engineered mass migration.


One last thing: this move to being a true democracy, instead of being a democratic republic, is not new. Remember, there was a time when the only directly elected federal office holders were our representatives. Senators were not directly elected until 1913 (Amendment XVII). Another proposal would be to keep the Electoral College and drop the 100 Senate-based votes.

Actually, the term “Electoral College” is never mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. The term is a creation of nineteenth century politics (It first appeared in written law in 1845). In fact, there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution that requires the states to hold a general election for president. Hence, our state-level officials hold the power to take us out of the equation.

Here is the section of the U.S. Constitution pertaining to the election of the U.S. President:


Article II. - The Executive Branch Note

Section 1 - The President Note1 Note2

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

(The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not lie an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; a quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two-thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice-President.) (This clause in parentheses was superseded by Amendment XII.)

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

(In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.) (This clause in parentheses has been modified by Amendments XX and XXV.)

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Actually, the men who drafted the U.S. Constitution believed that the average citizen was too poorly educated and of insufficient caliber to be trusted with the vote. At the time of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, almost two-thirds of the people who had arrived on our shores from Great Britain did so in bondage. African slavery did not come into vogue until after we won our independence. Before that time, “bound labor” for the colonies was supplied from Great Britain, in large part, in the form of “transportees” from Newgate Prison (many of whom were merely debtors who could not reply their debts), political prisoners/prisoners of war from Scotland and Ireland, and poor children kidnapped from the streets of England and pressed into service by “press gangs.” After we won our independence, England started shipping these “undesirables” to Australia, and the practice of “perpetual slavery” took hold here in the U.S.

Not to change the subject, but it is amazing how we have ream upon ream of paper dedicated to black slavery while, at the same time, we have almost forgotten about white slavery (the residents of Appalachia are almost all descendents of white slaves). For those of you who believe the “prettied up” version of white slavery that is taught in our public schools, I invite you to spend a few days in the archives of the original thirteen colonies. I guarantee that it will be an eye opening experience (i.e., you will see how much of our history has been written from a revisionist point of view). For almost two hundred years, white people were passed from one family member to another as “chattel” in probate proceedings, and less than one-fifth of these quote-unquote indentures received their “freedom dues.”


One last thing: here are a few publications that cover the subject of white enslavement (I have many more citations if anyone is interested):

1.) Murray, John, and Ruth Herndon. "Valuing Children in Early
America: Compensation for Bound Child Labor in the Eighteenth Century"

2.) Hoffman, Michael. “They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America”

3.) Maryland State Archives. “American Sources Giving Clues to Overseas Origins.” available at www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/refserv/genealogy/html/immigrat.html

4.) David Dobson. “The Original Scots Colonists of Early America. Caribbean Supplement 1611-1707”

5.) Jim Goad. “The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks and White Trash became America’s Scapegoats.”

What would you have done if President Bush had won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College? Would you have accepted Al Gore as a legitimate president?

The concept of state-level electors was created during a period when there were no major parties. If one reads the text of the U.S. Constitution closely, one can clearly see that the framers expected each state to put forth its own candidate, which is why they put in the clause that each elector also had to place a vote for another state’s candidate. They had no idea that we would end up with a two-party system.

IMHO, it is high time that we had direct elections. There is no way that either side could claim that the people, under direct elections, did not elect a president. Direct elections would do away with the silly "red" and "blue" America demarcations. There are no 100% "red" states and no 100% "blue" states. As it stands, the current system gives conservative voters no voice in liberal states and liberal voters no voice in conservative states with respect to the executive, yet each person, regardless of political orientation, is forced to pay taxes.