Honjii's Harangues

Want Your Vote Counted? Vote Republican

Last week at a dinner party people were discussing the election. Of course they were, what the hell else does anyone ever talk about these days. I am a firm believer that since we, as humans, have the ability to form opinions we should give voice to them, so I did. I stated my belief that for a presidential election to be fair, we need to do away with delegates and that the primaries should be held on the same day in all states. Scattering the primaries as we do, allows the media to take too much control of the outcome, and it does not give every candidate who enters the race the same chance, nor does it give all Americans the choice to vote for all candidates who have tossed their hats into the ring.

I’ve ranted about the electoral college before (I got my degree from the electoral college) and here I go again. At the dinner party several people agreed with me, but one, seemingly intelligent, woman argued (as someone always does when this discussion comes up) that we must have the electoral college or small states will be under-represented. That’s just so much horse shit it makes me want to scream! If state A has five thousand people and state B has five million people and all of them vote, and the votes are fairly counted we end up with five million five thousand votes..what’s the freakin’ problem? The president is supposed to be chosen by the people (one nation), not states.

Another silly argument that comes up on occasion, is if we don’t have the electoral college people can vote for whoever they want. So, what’s the problem? It’s our country, our president. It’s not as if eliminating electors means eliminating the rules entirely. We would still be able to choose only from those candidates who are on the ballot. And I suspect one primary, one election, one vote per person would take a much smaller chunk of taxpayer change.

In state and local elections we have a direct vote, no one worries that small counties may be unfairly represented. The only way to fairly and honestly choose a president is one person one vote. Pledged delegates, as I understand it, are under no legal obligation to vote for their candidate. How do we know that many of the so called democratic delegates are not really under-cover republicans that have joined, worked, or volunteered for the DNC to earn delegate status so that when it comes time to vote in the presidential election they can throw their votes to the republican nominee or vise versa?

The present system is needlessly complex and I believe the reason they keep it so is because it makes it that much easier to manipulate an election. I’m considering not voting anymore as it is probably a waste of time and hope, and I wish I had the power to convince all Americans to boycott presidential elections until we elect the head honcho by popular vote. Sadly I suspect that even if I could accomplish such a boycott the result would be the same as if everyone voted.

I am completely and utterly disillusioned, outraged, frustrated, and feeling powerless to do a damn thing except rant and hope that by doing so I can make people think.

Ironically I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “It’s not about who votes, but who counts the votes.”