Dear Conservative,
I’m just going to come out and say it… The Electoral College isn’t perfect.
For those of you who do not know, the Electoral College is the system set up to determine who wins and loses Presidential elections. The Framers designed the system to ensure that power be equitably shared between the country’s rural and urban communities. The number of electoral votes a state has is determined by the number of Congressmen and Senators that state has in Washington DC. Since every state has two Senators and at least one Congressman, that means that the minimum number of Electoral College votes is 3.
Without the Electoral College, the country’s urban centers would have complete control over our Presidential elections. New York City, for example, has more residents than 39 other states. If the Electoral College didn’t exist, candidates would only need to campaign in the cities in order to be elected! Without this system, cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles would decide who runs our country.
This system might be flawed, but it has maintained the balance between urban and rural American and it has made sure that the inner city political machines don’t control the country. The Left knows that they don’t have the votes in Congress to change the Constitution so they have found a loophole that could very well destroy the Electoral College!
There are two ways that a state’s electoral delegates are decided. Many states are “Winner Takes All,” meaning whoever wins the state-wide popular vote receives all of that state’s delegates. It doesn’t matter if the candidate wins by just one vote, the majority takes all the delegates. The alternative way is a system where the delegates are awarded proportionally based on each candidate’s performance in the state.
Either way, every state’s electoral votes are determined by what the majority decides within that state. I mean, that makes sense… right? If New York decides to vote for Barack Obama, then he would receive the delegates.
Well, the Left doesn’t like that. They are still reeling from 2000 when George W. Bush beat Al Gore by 5 electoral votes, even though Bush lost the nation-wide popular vote by 0.5%. Ever since then, the Left has been pushing to abolish the Electoral College. Well, they realize that won’t happen anytime soon, so they have settled for the next best thing: changing how delegates are awarded.
States can determine the means in which delegates are awarded. Maine and Nebraska, for example, split their states into districts and individual delegates are awarded to whoever wins each district.
Well, a group of ten Liberal states are conspiring to change the rules and award electoral votes based on the national popular vote, not on what their state voters decide.
Now, I know this might seem a bit confusing but it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that you understand this. The Left wants to make it so that individual states don’t matter. They don’t care what a majority in Idaho, Georgia, or West Virginia believe and vote for… If they have their way, each state would award its delegates according to who wins the national popular vote.
It’s not hard to see why they want this.
New York State has 29 electoral votes and a population of over 19,600,000 people. However, NY’s electoral delegates can be offset by a conglomerate of smaller states. Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota, Alaska, Idaho, West Virginia and Nebraska also have a total of 29 electoral votes, however they have a combined population that is less than half of New York’s.
This is how the Founders intended it to be. Even back then, there was a clear divide – politically and population-wise – between the country’s urban centers and rural communities. The last thing the Founders wanted was for elections to be decided in the cities without rural America having a say.
Otherwise, factions and special interest could control the country by simply winning the city votes.
Well, a group of Liberal states are trying to effectively abolish the Electoral College and make it so that the only thing that matters is the national popular vote.
So far California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and New York have passed laws mandating that their electoral votes be awarded to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. These states, combined, account for 165 Electoral votes. In order for these changes to be made permanent, the movement would need a total of 270 votes within the Electoral College. Many other states have already voted on these changes. All it will take is for a few more liberal Governors to sign on and the Electoral College is dead and it will usher in decades of Democrat rule!
I am not asking you to fall in love with the Electoral College. Yes it is flawed, but the alternative cannot simply be using the National Popular Vote. Everywhere we turn, we are watching liberals and RINOs conspiring to destroy the Constitutional safeguards designed by the Founders and replace them with straight Democracy. Senators used to be elected by state legislators… today they are popularly elected, which has significantly reduced state power. The filibuster in the Senate was designed to stop a majority from trampling on the minority… but, Harry Reid abolished the filibuster for political appointments last year. At every turn, the Left is conspiring to remove the mechanisms designed to prevent a tyranny of the majority from ruling the country and trampling on individuals’ rights. Now they want to get rid of the Electoral College so that the inner cities can decide who runs the country!
I don’t expect you to love the Electoral College… there is certainly a lot to hate about it. However the choice is clear: We simply cannot afford to get rid of it all together!
If this Liberal plot to change the Electoral College is allowed to go into effect, our experience with representative government is over. Plain and simple.
Our country is Conservative… anyone with half a brain can look at the map above and see that, spatially, the majority of the country believes in conservative governance. The problem is Conservative America has to go up against the uninformed career voters in the inner cities who literally vote for their paychecks and can’t, for the life of them, even remember who is on the ballot. We are going up against a Democrat machine that uses illegal aliens and voter fraud to steal elections out from under us. We are fighting against a liberal movement that seeks to remove all the safeguards designed by the founders and usher in an age of tyrannical majoritarianism. As it is, the big cities have too much power over our elections. But the Democrats are working to expand that power by essentially abolishing the Electoral College and picking the President based on the national popular vote!
This must be stopped and only Congress can intervene! We must push back against the Left because the alternative is the complete transformation of our constitutional republic!
If you believe in states’ rights and the importance of preventing cities from deciding the Presidential elections, then I implore you to please take the time to fax Congress and tell them to put an end to this lunacy!
Sincerely,
Joe Otto
Conservative Daily
No comments yet - make the first one!