Abolishing The Electoral College Is Best For America
We need to abolish the Electoral College.
I'm making this original post while knowing full well that many of you will respond with either:
Defeatist attitudes such as:
We would never get it past congress.
The states would never vote for the constitutional amendment.
The Interstate Compact still requires congressional approval and we could never get that.
OR
Contrarian attitudes such as:
We shouldn't get rid of it because it disadvantages farmers.
If we got rid of it, only two states would get campaign stops during the election.
That's not what the founding fathers wanted. We have a republic, not a democracy.
To the defeatists:
Never give up on a fight that is noble and just. People told Susan B. Anthony women would NEVER get the right to vote. Carry Nation was told prohibition would never pass. Martin Luther King was told to go kill himself. Cigarette companies never imagined the people would turn against them. Truman thought we would forever have a monopoly on the bomb. Mildred Loving was told she would never be allowed to legally marry her husband. I was told that gay marriage would never pass.
Anything worth doing is going to be hard. It won't be easy, it will require clawing through shards of glass and sand-coated barbed wire. It will be painful, but that pain is where the growth is. Growing pains ARE painful, but they are necessary.
One person, one vote. That's a human right, just as much as health care, marriage, and the right to eat at any counter you want.
To the contrarians:
First, a popular vote would not turn into a referendum of only California and New York. Why? Because 82% of this country lives in a state other than California and New York. For that matter, more people live in Texas than live in New York. If you want to reach enough people to win the election, you would need to visit not just LA and NYC, but also:
Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Columbus, Charlotte, Seattle, Denver, Detroit, DC, Boston, Memphis, Portland, Las Vagas, Oklahoma City, Baltimore, Louisville, Milwaukee, and Albuquerque.
All of those cities are in different states. All of those cities are BIGGER than the second largest city in the state of New York. All of those cities have more than 500,000 citizens. In fact, all of those cities except Albuquerque have more people than the entire state of Wyoming.
You would have to win major population areas, and that would mean traveling to at least 20 states plus the District of Columbia. By comparison, the 2016 presidential election was fought in just 11 states. Only 11 states had a significant say in the 2016 election.
Yes, population centers would still be the target for rallies, but population centers are already the target for rallies... just in 11 states rather than 20.
More people would vote in states like California AND in states like Idaho because they would know that their votes MATTERED, even if their state was going blue or red... all votes would MATTER.
This would actually spread out the competition for votes rather than limit it.
As for the founding fathers.
This quote from Thomas Jefferson is inscribed on his memorial:
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
I have been fighting the Electoral College since the 90's and have posts on DU fighting against it as far back as 2008. This is a passionate issue for me, so thank you guys for taking the time to read this.
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The only special qualification I might have is that I've argued about this for years and researched it for years. It's been a pet issue of mine. But, other than that, I'm a citizen just like you. It's just a topic I've long been interested in.
If you disagreed, but had real and respectful reasons to disagree, I mean I support that. I liked the comment above that said one of our major issues was the "timing"... I can buy into that. People are going to be skeptical because this is right after an election that was lost due to the EC.
But there might be things we can do to overcome that.
I'm not bashing you. 