Liberty or Laws?

Are You a Voter, or, an Elector?

 

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
September 6, 2016

During this current election cycle, a matter has constantly recurred, that of the federal government mandating, primarily through the District and Circuit Courts, who can vote and what requirements, if any, are necessary to do so.

To understand what has gone wrong, we will have to look to the Constitution, what was required to vote in national elections in the past, and how the federal government has supplanted the States regarding the authority over who may vote.  There is also concern about the Electoral College, so we need to see what was intended when the Constitution was written.  It is necessary to follow this history of voting to understand just how Article IV, § 4 of the Constitution has become moot.  The pertinent part of that Article reads:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government…

So, let’s begin with references to voting and elections in the Constitution.  In Article I (Legislative Branch), we find:

Section 2 — The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

Well, clearly, it is the prerogative of the State to determine what “Qualifications [are] requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.”  The federal then yields to the state’s authority concerning who is qualified to vote in federal elections.  The use of the term “Electors”, in this section, is what most would simply call “voters”.  They elect the Representatives, but their qualifications are based upon the qualifications that State has set for its most “numerous Branch.”  There is no such condition for the Senate, like the Senators, prior to the 17th Amendment, were chosen by the state legislatures.

Next, we see that the Constitution leaves a degree of discretion to the federal government, though quite limited:

Section 4 — The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

It says that “Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations…”, though since it refers to itself, when it says “alter such regulation”, it can only refer to “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections…”  Otherwise, the previous (Section 2) provision would be without substance.  The same power or authority cannot be granted to two different parties, the federal government and the State governments.  That would be contrary to any practical possibility that both would agree to any acceptable determination of who could vote, especially if one had the guarantee of a Republican Form of Government.  As we will see, the states that existed in 1874 had diverse requirements.  There was some commonality, but the federal government could only intervene to assure that such voting was done timely, not done at a place that would limit access to voting, and of the manner (not requirements), such as paper ballots.  At that time (before the Seventeenth Amendment), the state legislatures elected the Senators.

Next, we have:

Section 5 — Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members…

Now, there is another grant to the federal government, but only to “Judge… the Elections“.  That, obviously, could only extend to judging the results of the elections, as they cannot be judged before being completed.  This would include Returns.  The Qualifications, of course, is to satisfy the requirements regarding who may serve in the House of Representatives and the Senate, found in Article I. Section 2, clause 2 and Section 3, clause 3.

Initially, Article II (Executive Branch) set forth the method by which the President would be elected:

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 be 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.

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.

Now, in the election of the President, the Electors are selected according to the “Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct“.  In the subsequent section on the “Electoral College“, the disparity of this method has become problematic.  However, we can see that the federal government may only “determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes.”

This procedure was changed in 1804 with the ratification of the 12th Amendment.  The Constitution had the second highest vote receiver as Vice-President, and it was determined that the two highest vote getters, running in opposition to each other, would then share the responsibilities of the Executive Branch of Government.  The 12th Amendment changed the voting by the Electors to one vote for President and one vote for Vice-President, rather than, as described above, where they voted for “two Persons.”

The only other amendment to affect the election of the President was ratified in 1961 as the 23rd Amendment; it simply gave Washington, D.C., the District of Columbia, the ability to participate by allowing it to select Electors for the election of the President and Vice-President, just as the States.

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Other Amendments

In 1868, with the ratification of the 14th Amendment, we find an acknowledgment of the authority of the States, with regard to determining who can be an “Elector”.

Article I, Section 2, clause 3, had set the determination of the number of Representatives for each State, based upon population, to wit:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons…

The 14th Amendment removed only the “three fifths of all other Persons” portion, for the purpose of enumeration.  However, it continued the exclusion of “Indians not taxed“.  So, let’s look at what else this Amendment says:

Section 2–Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.  But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Golly, Gee!  They didn’t tell the States that they had to let those that the federal government had just franchised the privilege to vote, they simply said that the enumeration would “be reduced in the proportion“, meaning the federal government did not have the authority to go beyond the limitations already existent in the Constitution.  The only power the federal government had was to reduce the count of the population for the purpose of representation.

It appears that the Congress, in obtaining ratification of both the 13th (Anti-Slavery) Amendment and the 14th Amendment (For a thorough study of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, see The Fourteenth Article in Amendment to the Constitution.) were extensions of extra-constitutional authorities, in violation of the 9th and 10th Amendments.  However, they were small steps.

Just two years later, in 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified.  This was an effort to achieve what both the 13th and 14th failed to achieve.  It trod directly on the prerogative of the State to determine who could vote and who could not.  It did not deal with the loss of numbers for representation, which had always existed.  Instead, it jumped to the very heart of the rights of the States and began what was to become an escalating disintegration of the “Republican Form of Government” guaranteed by Article IV, Section 4, of the Constitution.  The 15th Amendment reads:

Section 1–The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2–The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Note that the phrase “right of citizens” is included in this Amendment.

Interestingly, as we find in an 1875 United States Supreme Court decision, United States v. Reese, 92 US 214, that when they enacted laws, in accordance with Section 2 of the Amendment, they went beyond their lawful authority and beyond that authorized by the Amendment.  The Enrollment Act of 1870 provided for the punishment of election officials, if they denied voting to anyone within the provisions of the Amendment, specifically, “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  The Amendment, however, said nothing about other provisions of State election laws that might have other requisites that would prohibit someone from voting.  So, the Supreme Court struck down some provisions of the Act as unconstitutional.  This still left the State with the authority to determine who could vote, and who could not, so long as race, color, or previous condition of servitude was not within those restrictions.

Next, in 1913, with the ratification of the 17th Amendment, we see the federal government interceding on the State prerogative of determining, in lieu of their respective legislatures, which Electors can vote for the Senators.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.  The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

Beginning in 1893, the States, under their prerogative, began a slow but steady progression of extending suffrage to women.

• Wyoming 1869
• Utah 1870
• Colorado 1893
• Idaho 1896
• Washington 1910
• California 1911
• Arizona 1912
• Kansas 1912
• Oregon 1912
• Illinois 1913
• Tennessee 1920

Women’s suffrage, as granted in Utah, had been encouraged by the federal government in hopes that polygamy would be voted out by the women, themselves.  However, it failed to do so, so the federal government, with the Edmunds-Tucker Act 1887, removed the Utah women’s right to vote.  This right of women to vote was not returned until 1920, with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Much of the objection to Women’s Suffrage had to do with the fact that if a husband voted for A, and the wife voted for B, the votes negated each other.  Keep this in mind when we get to the section on the “Electoral College“.

In 1920, the federal government, through the Amendment process, usurped the State prerogative with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Note that the phrase “right of citizens” is included in this Amendment.

Yes, this did return to the women of Utah the same right that had been taken away from them by the federal government, just 33 years before.

“right of citizens“

Now, to distinguish what was a “right of citizens” of the several States, under the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment, we can visit a Supreme Court decision that addresses the issue of whether a woman was franchised by the 14th Amendment.  If a woman was, ipso facto [by that very fact or act], a citizen, it was argued that she had the right to vote.  That case is Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), after Wyoming and Utah had granted women’s suffrage.  We can look at whether “right of citizens” is as inclusive as might be implied, or if the prerogative was still left to the States.

Mrs. Virginia Minor, a native born, free, white citizen of the United States, and of the State of Missouri, over the age of twenty-one years, wishing to vote for electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, and for a representative in Congress, and for other officers, at the general election held in November, 1872, applied to one Happersett, the registrar of voters, to register her as a lawful voter, which he refused to do, assigning for cause that she was not a ‘male citizen of the United States,’ but a woman. She thereupon sued him in one of the inferior State courts of Missouri, for wilfully refusing to place her name upon the list of registered voters, by which refusal she was deprived of her right to vote.

Now, some perspective on citizens with respect to the 14th Amendment as well as to the right to vote:

There is no doubt that women may be citizens.  They are persons, and by the fourteenth amendment ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ are expressly declared to be ‘citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’  But, in our opinion, it did not need this amendment to give them that position.  Before its adoption the Constitution of the United States did not in terms prescribe who should be citizens of the United States or of the several States, yet there were necessarily such citizens without such provision.  There cannot be a nation without a people.  The very idea of a political community, such as a nation is, implies an association of persons for the promotion of their general welfare.  Each one of the persons associated becomes a member of the nation formed by the association.  He owes it allegiance and is entitled to its protection.  Allegiance and protection are, in this connection, reciprocal obligations.  The one is a compensation for the other; allegiance for protection and protection for allegiance.

So, even though citizens have to have allegiance, the right to vote is still not among those automatic privileges of citizenship.  Then the Court poses a question, which they intend to answer:

If the right of suffrage is one of the necessary privileges of a citizen of the United States, then the constitution and laws of Missouri confining it to men are in violation of the Constitution of the United States, as amended, and consequently void.  The direct question is, therefore, presented whether all citizens are necessarily voters.

To give substance to their answer, we can extract some rather interesting information about the status of Electors then, throughout the member States of the Union, at that time:

• New Hampshire, ‘every male inhabitant of each town and parish with town privileges, and places unincorporated in the State, of twenty-one years of age and upwards, excepting paupers and persons excused from paying taxes at their own request,’
• Massachusetts ‘every male inhabitant of twenty-one years of age and upwards, having a freehold estate within the commonwealth of the annual income of three pounds, or any estate of the value of sixty pounds,
• Rhode Island ‘such as are admitted free of the company and society’ of the colony,
• Connecticut such persons as had ‘maturity in years, quiet and peaceable behavior, a civil conversation, and forty shillings freehold or forty pounds personal estate,’ if so certified by the selectmen,
• New York ‘every male inhabitant of full age who shall have personally resided within one of the counties of the State for six months immediately preceding the day of election . . . if during the time aforesaid he shall have been a freeholder, possessing a freehold of the value of twenty pounds within the county, or have rented a tenement therein of the yearly value of forty shillings, and been rated and actually paid taxes to the State,
• New Jersey ‘all inhabitants . . . of full age who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation-money, clear estate in the same, and have resided in the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election,
• Pennsylvania ‘every freeman of the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the State two years next before the election, and within that time paid a State or county tax which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election,
• Delaware and Virginia ‘as exercised by law at present,
• Maryland ‘all freemen above twenty-one years of age having a freehold of fifty acres of land in the county in which they offer to vote and residing therein, and all freemen having property in the State above the value of thirty pounds current money, and having resided in the county in which they offer to vote one whole year next preceding the election,
• North Carolina, for senators, ‘all freemen of the age of twenty-one years who have been inhabitants of any one county within the State twelve months immediately preceding the day of election, and possessed of a freehold within the same county of fifty acres of land for six months next before and at the day of election,’ and for members of the house of commons ‘all freemen of the age of twenty-one years who have been inhabitants in any one county within the State twelve months immediately preceding the day of any election, and shall have paid public taxes,
• South Carolina ‘every free white man of the age of twenty-one years, being a citizen of the State and having resided therein two years previous to the day of election, and who hath a freehold of fifty acres of land, or a town lot of which he hath been legally seized and possessed at least six months before such election, or ( not having such freehold or town lot), hath been a resident within the election district in which he offers to give his vote six months before said election, and hath paid a tax the preceding year of three shillings sterling towards the support of the government,
• Georgia such ‘citizens and inhabitants of the State as shall have attained to the age of twenty-one years, and shall have paid tax for the year next preceding the election, and shall have resided six months within the county.

You might take note that, with the exception of Delaware and Virginia, with inexplicit descriptions as to what their requirements were, all of the other States have requirements that demonstrate that the person who chooses to be an Elector has to have attained a certain stature in life, a contribution to the State, and as such, one who helps to build, not take from, the State.

In a sense, the Electors were like shareholders in a corporation.  They were vested in the nation as the shareholders were vested in stocks of the company.  Would it make any sense, at all, for the corporation to allow non-shareholders to vote in corporate matters?  If so, they could easily outnumber the shareholders and vote that all prices be cut in half, regardless of profit.  That, quite frankly, would result in the destruction of the corporation.  So, we must ask, is the same true of a country?  If you allow those who are not vested — have not contributed — to vote, will they vote, not to have prices cut, but to have money given to them without working for it.  Is that not just as likely to destroy the country?

There are also terms of residency requirements and in many cases, a poll tax to be paid.  However, the federal government will extinguish that right with the 24th Amendment.

They then conclude their explanation with another question:

… if suffrage was necessarily one of the absolute rights of citizenship, why confine the operation of the limitation to male inhabitants?

Finally, a concise explanation as to the limitations on the Congress, and the powers, with regard to suffrage, are solely, with exception to specific amendments to the Constitution, the purview of the States.

Being unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void.

So, if this is what the Constitution says, we need to keep that in mind.  Absent an amendment, it should still be true, today.

Next, in 1964, as part of the Civil Rights era, the federal government set forth an Amendment to do away with the “poll tax” or any other tax, as we see required by some States in those listed above.  The 24th Amendment reads:

Section 1–The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2–The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Note that the phrase “right of citizens” is included in this Amendment.

The final, to date, act in diminishing the State’s right to determine who their Electors would become with the reduction of age, in 1971, from the historic 21 years of age to “eighteen years of age“.  This, with the 26th Amendment, to wit:

Section 1–The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2–The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Note that the phrase “right of citizens” is included in this Amendment.

So, by 1971, the federal government had substantially subordinated the States, with regard to who could vote.  A far cry from what was intended by the Founders, since the organic Constitution never attempted to determine who could vote, except by reference to “the most numerous Branch“.

Electors and Voters

We have also seen that the Constitution refers to those who vote, whether in the Electoral College or in state elections, as Electors.  Nowhere do we find the term Voter that we have come to use, in lieu of Elector.  So, it might be worthwhile to understand why the government has opted away from Elector, in favor of the broader definition of Voter.

We must begin by understanding the meaning of each word.  So, let’s start where the Founders did, with Elector.

From Webster’s 1828 Dictionary:

ELECT’OR, n.  One who elects, or one who has the right of choice; a person who has, by law or constitution, the right of voting for an officer, in free governments, the people or such of them as possess certain qualifications of age, character and property, are the electors of their representatives, &c., in parliament, assembly, or other legislative body.  In the United States, certain persons are appointed or chosen to be electors of the president or chief magistrate.

From Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th Edition:

Elector.  A duly qualified voter; one who has a vote in the choice of any officer; a constituent.  One who elects or has the right of choice, or who has the right to vote for any functionary, or for the adoption of any measure.  In a narrower sense, one who has the general right to vote, and the right to vote for public officers.  One authorized to exercise the elective franchise.

So, an Elector has the qualifications to vote, as per both Webster’s and Black’s.  They meet all of the necessary requirements of “age, character and property“, or at least, that is how the Founders would have perceived the word that they chose to include in the Constitution.

So, let’s see what a Voter is:

From Webster’s 1828 Dictionary:

VOTER, n.  One who has a legal right to vote or give his suffrage.

From Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th Edition:

Voter.  The word has two meanings — a person who performs act of voting, and a person who has the qualifications entitling him to vote.  Its meaning depends on the connections in which it is used, and is not always equivalent to electors.  In a limited sense a voter is a person having the legal right to vote, sometimes called a legal voter.

Well, Webster says that one has the “legal right“, though the Founders opted to use Elector.  Perhaps Webster was deficient, for we can see that by his definition, there is nothing available to define one who votes without the requisite qualifications.  However, Black’s makes clear that there are “two meanings” to the word.  One is legally qualified while the other simply performs the act of voting, whether qualified or not.  So, there can be little doubt that the Founders intended that only those qualified were considered able to vote, leaving those qualifications to the State.

Now, there is another aspect that, in light of current circumstances, is worthy of note.  In every amendment affecting voting, it includes the phrase, “right of citizens“.  There can be little doubt that the Constitution and its amendments only enfranchise those who are citizens of the United States, or state, or both.  This does not mean that they are applying to become citizens, for they are not citizens until they have met all of the requirements thereof.  It would also mean that someone who was a citizen, and then died, is no longer a citizen, for we have seen in Minor v. Happersett, that a citizen “owes it allegiance and is entitled to its protection.  Allegiance and protection are, in this connection, reciprocal obligations“.  Surely, a deceased person is no longer able to “owe allegiance” to that country.

Perhaps, now, we can have a better perspective on the intention of the Founders versus the recent ‘judicial activism’, where federal district and circuit court judges tend to place legal obstructions in the way of determining if one is an Elector, as opposed to a Voter.

While we are discussing the two, let’s also consider if it was federal pressure or decisions that removed the “freehold” or “freeman” requirements.  Would the outcome of elections be drastically different if the States were allowed to continue such practice — to grant suffrage — providing the elective franchise (Elector status) only to those who had proven to be productive members of the society?  As with shareholders in a corporation, those vested are more concerned with the operation than those who seek only to achieve personal gain from their participation in the voting process.

Electoral College

Though the Founders did not define Electoral College, they did define intent.  That intent was the indirect election of the President and Vice-President.  Their initial concept, first place to the President and second place to the Vice-President was relatively short-lived.  The ratification of the 12th Amendment changed the casting of votes, though not the method.  However, the process, which became known as the “Electoral College”, was unchanged.  It left to the discretion of the States the method of selection and was silent on any aspect of consolidation.

So, we need to look at what happened, over the years, that has led to a “winner take all” casting of Electoral College votes, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska.

However, the beginnings of the College show us a different and realistic approach to an otherwise undefined process.  The following information comes from “How the Electoral College Became Winner-Take-All“.

For an understanding of the most common methods of selection of the Electors to the Electoral College, we need to understand some terminology:

Legislature: The legislature of each state chose the presidential electors of the state, giving the people at large no direct vote in presidential elections.

Districts: States were divided into districts, either using pre-existing congressional districts or creating new districts specifically for the presidential election.  Voters elected one or multiple electors from their district.

Statewide: The current most common system–voters in a state vote for candidates, and all of that state’s electoral votes are cast by electors nominated by the candidate with the most statewide votes.

Now, for the progression, over the years, to the current system:

1789: Just three states allocate electors based on the winner of the statewide popular vote.

1792: State legislatures emerge as the preferred method of selecting presidential electors.

1800: Virginia, the state with the most electoral votes, switches to a statewide popular vote system.

1804: The number of states using statewide and state legislature systems is equal for the first time.

1812: The number of states using statewide models decreases and the number using state legislature systems increases.  A substantial number of states continue to use a district-based model.

1820: An equal number of states use statewide and state legislature methods for the second time.  Political parties have become entrenched and the electors of the Electoral College can no longer realistically claim to be independent.  After the election, James Madison proposes a constitutional amendment that would require states to use the district method, writing that “The district mode was mostly, if not exclusively in view when the Constitution was framed and adopted; & was exchanged for the general ticket & the legislative election, as the only expedient for baffling the policy of the particular States which had set the example.”

1824: The tipping point election for presidential electoral systems, as twice as many states used the winner-take-all statewide method as used the state legislature method.  James Madison’s pleas for a constitutional amendment requiring a uniform district election system, but to no avail.  In every U.S. presidential election since, the statewide method has been predominant.

1836: All but one state, South Carolina, uses the winner-take-all method based on the statewide popular vote to choose its electors.  South Carolina continues to have its legislature choose electors until after the Civil War.

1872: For the first time, every state holds a popular vote election for president, and all use the statewide winner-take-all rule.

Today: Only Maine and Nebraska have returned, partially, to the district method.

What is Wrong with the System, Today?

Though not well documented, we can start with the matter of negating votes — a common argument against women’s suffrage.  Now, we can couple that with the concept of “one man, one vote”, and recognize that the identification of “man” does not preclude a woman who is qualified to vote, the concept is that each vote should count.

This is consistent with what James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, called for in 1820 and 1824 (above).  And, more than likely, most people believe that this is the means currently used to elect those Electors to the Electoral College.  However, that is not true.

California has the greatest number of Electoral College votes.  Of the 538 allocated to the Electoral College, they held sway to 55 votes in the 2012 election.  These numbers cannot change until the next census in 2020.  This means that California holds 9.8% of the total votes, leaving 90.25 to the renaming 49 States.

In 2012, 60% of the votes went to the Democrat candidate.  That means that of the 13,202,000 votes cast, 7,854000 votes went to the Democratic and the remaining 5,348,000 were to other candidates.  So, the “one man” theory is out the windows, as those 5,348,000 have absolutely no representation in the Electoral College.  Now, let’s look at how this would affect a third party candidate.  If he were to win in some of the districts in Maine or Nebraska, he could possibly get a couple of Electoral College votes.  However, the chances of that third party candidate winning in any of the remaining 48 “winner take all” states is statistically impossible.

Now, let’s look at the “two party” system that we have.  Perhaps it is best described as a “one party” system, with two factions.  Both have the same objectives, and it is simply a matter of who gets credit for something, and how the Voters can be snowed into believing that there is even a minuscule chance of something to their liking can ever be enacted.

In this recent election cycle, we have seen demonstrated, in both parties, a stronger show for the will of the people over the will of the party.  Both parties opposed such challenges to their near absolute authority (control), but in one party, the will of the people did prevail.

However, because the Electoral College is clearly, according to Madison, not what was intended, nor is it consistent with the oft-used phrase, “one man, one vote”, the will of the people may be defeated.  Chicanery and obfuscation has become the mainstay of control by the two party system.

The next step, of course, is to remove the Voters, those who have not substantially contributed, and/or do not have allegiance to, the country, from the Voter Rolls, and return the foundation of the election process to Electors.

A politician’s desire to retain office is probably the most destructive force in our system of government.  In their desire to secure votes, they make promises and enact laws to gain votes, simply for the subjective purpose of being re-elected, rather than the objective purpose of maintaining the greatness of this nation.  They are concerned only with themselves, and not the constituents that really matter.

By taking from the States those rights that were reserved to them by the Tenth Amendment, the federal government undermines the very concept upon which this nation was built, and that government created.  By allowing other than citizens to vote, they have provided a means to destroy the culture that is one aspect of the greatness of America.  By substituting voters for the intended Electors, the have provided the means for other nations to eventually subordinate the will of the American citizen to the influence of an invading army of voters, who will change the course of OUR nation, forever.

The solution is nothing less than abandoning the political correctness that has influenced the federal government to abandon the reasonable qualification of Electors, as the Founders clearly had the foresight to understand — by any means necessary.

 

“how long we can hold our ground I do not know. we are not incorruptible; on the contrary, corruption is making a sensible tho’ silent progress. offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and when once a man has cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct.”

Th. Jefferson to Tench Coxe, May 21, 1799