Proposition for changing the US presidential popular-vote

[Individual]

Best wishes for your recovery...

Aging is hard to recover from, but Thank you.

 

[jdog]

States are represented in the Senate, there's zero need to pretend they have relevance for presidential elections. States long ago gave up the idea of appointing electors to deliberate, they turned presidential elections over to popular votes. The fact that we're stuck aggregating state-level popular votes via an algorithm that's heavily distorted by the decision over the last century not to continue raising the cap on House seats with population growth isn't some grand design, it's an accident of history that makes very little sense in the present context.

Re-weighting votes based on geography is not justifiable. And weighting all Americans equally does not introduce a disparity, it removes one.

Your talking bullshit. The States lost their representation in the Senate with the 17th Amendment. The electoral college is still in use. The fact that we are a republic of individual States seems to mystify you, so trying to teach civics to someone of your intellect is getting tiresome.

 

[mrjurrs]

I think the US should abandon it’s two party system and move to a parliamentary government like here but that of course is entirely not realistic.

The reason I believe this is because minority opinions have to be listened to in order to form and maintain a government.

The fact is that your two party system is for all intents and purposes winner take all.

Having an electoral college slightly evens out the system. If a large red state like Texas loses it’s choice of president at least it can have a little more power in the choice with it’s electors.

And let’s face it, if Trump had won the popular vote and lost in the electoral college the US left would say, see the system works.

Talk about Amendments, a change to the Parliamentary system would likely require an entirely new Constitution (which would not be the worse thing in the world imo).

The two party system has many disadvantages, but it worked pretty well when politicians looked to country first instead of party (R's and D's).

I disagree that we would point to your example as the system works.

 

[Greenbeard]

Your talking bullshit. The States lost their representation in the Senate with the 17th Amendment.

Then your theory of the case is obsolete anyway. The states have been supplanted by the people in American political philosophy and practical governance. That's certainly de facto the case for presidential elections, it's time to remove the final unintended distortions in that process.

The electoral college is still in use.

Not in any meaningful sense, other than as an algorithm for aggregating state-level popular votes. It's no longer a deliberative body, electors are automatons, barred in many cases from any attempts at individual judgment. Every state relies on a popular vote for the president. The 1929 cap on House seats has increasingly distorted the aggregation of those popular votes. The current process is an accident of history and has no justification.

The fact that we are a republic of individual States seems to mystify you, so trying to teach civics to someone of your intellect is getting tiresome.

Enjoy your nap.

 

[joko104]

Except that voter fraud and election fraud are really, really hard to pull off, and never constitute a statistically significant number of votes.

It's a piece of cake if Democrats get what they want. NO ID. No observers. No confirmation of who cast the ballot. Mass mailing out unrequested ballots that anyone could steal out of mail boxes by the thousands. There is nothing stopping mass election fraud within the voting precinct and the election department by partisan employees.
It takes 1 fraudulent vote to constitution a potentially decisive, not just significant, 100% corrupt of an election and resulting in the winner of the legitimate votes losing the the winner of the fraudulent cast votes.

I was a precinct election officer for one election some years ago. That meant I ran the voting precinct. I could have cast thousands of fraudulent votes myself. Even if it could be shown that there were thousands of votes cast with no voter along with the name, all votes would still count nor would it be possible to prove I did anything. With that one precinct I could have changed the outcome of every local and country election since those elections are solely on popular vote.

I understand you have been ordered to chant the slogan. But it takes an IQ of 70 to understand the system Democrats want - now declaring every election in US history was a fraud and under Jim Crow laws - allows whichever party country the county government to cast as many fraudulent votes as they want to. There is nothing to prevent it, no way to erase fraudulent votes and essentially impossible to prosecute.

Sorry you hate the USA so much you claim - essentially - there has never been a legitimate real election in the USA until last year. That is how truly bizarre the corporate-fascist (anti-liberal progressive) the Democratic Party has become. As Joe Biden himself said, Democrats no longer accept facts. They only recite slogan dictated to them.

Since you claim you know how elections really work, explain what stops an election officer at the county or state level from running as many ballots thru voting machines that they want to? It is no more difficult that just doing it. After all, they control the machines, all ballots and all voter registration info.

 

[Sagittarius83]

Talk about Amendments, a change to the Parliamentary system would likely require an entirely new Constitution (which would not be the worse thing in the world imo).

The two party system has many disadvantages, but it worked pretty well when politicians looked to country first instead of party (R's and D's).

I disagree that we would point to your example as the system works.

You and I can agree that the electoral college is flawed. My biggest problem for me is that many electors can simply decide to vote anyway they want. (Loretta Switt I remember tried to encourage them to do just that in states where they were pledged to Trump.) So I thought it could be virtual but I think that it might be time for the US to have a constitutional convention. And both parties will fight that tooth and nail.

I am not even an American anymore but I would suggest revisiting the second amendment just because it is so vague. I would remove the part about having to be born in the US to be president and I would have preferred that the president had served in some capacity in the military as the US president is commander and chief and I would think it would be better if he had served as governor somewhere because governors serve in an executive position with a state congress.

And you are correct, parliamentary government will never happen in the US because people won’t understand it and the legal and political hurdles would be too high.

So mostly we are agreed.

 

[Dayton3]

They also thought owning slaves was a good thing.... We changed the constitution for that and we can change it for this...

No they didn't. They merely tolerated slavery in the interest of getting nationwide support for the Constitution.

 

[Perotista]

We must fix the manner in which the winner of the popular-vote can lose an election to the presidency. Which is wholly unacceptable to a truly fair and honest democracy.

Ours is dysfunctional because it does not reflect the pure total-vote of the presidency due to a dishonest manipulation of the vote-count in the Electoral College (EC). Only the pure total popular-vote is acceptable in any Real Democracy.

At the basis of the EC is a law passed and signed by Ulysses S. Grant in 1877. Voting needs a more modern rethink.

One that the basics of which might look like this:
*Only registered electronic-voting-machines are authorized to account for and deliver to DC electronically the presidential vote by state! (That method of communication can be made non-manipulable externally.)
*Each state decides (and is responsible for) how only Registered Voters access the also registered voting-machines (for the Presidency and Congress). Said machines can be kept under permanent-scrutiny to assure no tampering.
*The original vote-count - certified in each state by its Electoral College - is then sent to the head of both Houses of Congress that publishes the count immediately on their Web-site (the same date, hour and second programmed).
*The winner of the vote is then publicly simultaneously announced by the Senate and the HofR on their respective web-sites.

If and only if the above were passed into law by Congress and signed by the PotUS.

Which I think, btw, is highly unlikely - but you are most welcome to comment ...

PS: Comments adding to or subtracted from the above most-welcome!

We're a union of the several states, each state has a vote, a say in who becomes president. That vote and say is based on the population of each state as in the number of electoral votes each state has. If you're a small state with little population, you get 3. If you're a large state with a huge population, you can have 55. What we have isn't one presidential election, but 50 smaller presidential elections, 51 taking D.C. into consideration.

Now I would make a change in the electoral college, but would retain it as we are a union of the several states, retaining each state having a say. The change I would make if I had the power is with the winner take all portion. For a winner to be awarded all of a state's electoral vote, that candidate would have to receive a majority of that state's vote. 50% plus 1 vote. In states where no candidate received a majority of the votes, then go to the congressional district method as Maine and Nebraska do today. The winner of each congressional district would receive that Congressional district's electoral vote. The plurality winner of the state, then receives the 2 electoral votes for senators exactly as Maine and Nebraska do today.

 

[Lafayette]

SICK IN THE HEAD SOME STATEMENTS ABOUT THE US SENATE

Your talking bullshit. The States lost their representation in the Senate with the 17th Amendment. The electoral college is still in use. The fact that we are a republic of individual States seems to mystify you, so trying to teach civics to someone of your intellect is getting tiresome.

Bullshit this: Last time I looked at the Senate there were two representatives from each state!

And BS your statement regarding the 17th Amendment, which does nothing of the kind mentioned above.

The 17th Amendment does this below and NOTHING ELSE (from the Senate itself):

The Seventeenth Amendment restates the first paragraph of Article I, section 3 of the Constitution and provides for the election of senators by replacing the phrase “chosen by the Legislature thereof” with “elected by the people thereof.”

In addition, it allows the governor or executive authority of each state, if authorized by that state’s legislature, to appoint a senator in the event of a vacancy, until a general election occurs.

And that is all!

PS: And, by the way, what planet do you live on ... ?

 

[Lafayette]

I understand civics, and history. What you need is to take a course in debate because you really suck at it. If you can make a logical argument do it, but I doubt you have the knowledge.

You should be giving lessons on how to waste bandwidth on a Debate Forum!

What a pleasure it is to put you on Ignore!

 

[Bullseye]

We must fix the manner in which the winner of the popular-vote can lose an election to the presidency. Which is wholly unacceptable to a truly fair and honest democracy.

Ours is dysfunctional because it does not reflect the pure total-vote of the presidency due to a dishonest manipulation of the vote-count in the Electoral College (EC). Only the pure total popular-vote is acceptable in any Real Democracy.

At the basis of the EC is a law passed and signed by Ulysses S. Grant in 1877. Voting needs a more modern rethink.

One that the basics of which might look like this:
*Only registered electronic-voting-machines are authorized to account for and deliver to DC electronically the presidential vote by state! (That method of communication can be made non-manipulable externally.)
*Each state decides (and is responsible for) how only Registered Voters access the also registered voting-machines (for the Presidency and Congress). Said machines can be kept under permanent-scrutiny to assure no tampering.
*The original vote-count - certified in each state by its Electoral College - is then sent to the head of both Houses of Congress that publishes the count immediately on their Web-site (the same date, hour and second programmed).
*The winner of the vote is then publicly simultaneously announced by the Senate and the HofR on their respective web-sites.

If and only if the above were passed into law by Congress and signed by the PotUS.

Which I think, btw, is highly unlikely - but you are most welcome to comment ...

PS: Comments adding to or subtracted from the above most-welcome!

I'd prefer not having California and New York choose our President for ever and ever.

 

[Lafayette]

We're a union of the several states, each state has a vote, a say in who becomes president. That vote and say is based on the population of each state as in the number of electoral votes each state has. If you're a small state with little population, you get 3. If you're a large state with a huge population, you can have 55. What we have isn't one presidential election, but 50 smaller presidential elections, 51 taking D.C. into consideration.

What we have today is a distinguished but antiquated system of democracy in which the election of the PotUS is most notably an error far too often to be acceptable of any "decently fair-and-equitable democracy". (And this last election of Donald-Dork is only the latest in history of that kind.)

Why we keep it nobody knows. And in fact, when it came to rebuilding Europe, NOT ONE COUNTRY COPIED THE AMERICAN POLITICAL STRUCTURE. (Of course, Britain did not need to do so.)

The mainland European countries (at the end of WW2) preferred a direct vote of the Head-of-state as represented by the leader of the particular party to have won the majority of members in the National Parliament. At the end of WW2, Communism dominated the eastern-European countries which, until recently, were not "democratic" but "totalitarian communist".

The Europeans evidently thought that a political division between the PotUS and the heads of the two legislatures was unacceptably difficult to manage. And Uncle Sam's present long-standing obstinate political-stagnation shows them to have been right ...

 

[Lafayette]

WE THE SHEEPLE

Then all I can offer are my condolences.

I don't recall being taught our government being founded as a "true democracy" in neither High School or College.

I only can acknowledge the fact that in each and every election since our founding the rules determined the winner.

And I find it even more idiotic to suggest the idea of any fairness resulting from centralized majority rule government of our 50 State nation.

Actually I've suggested both the 16th and the 17th amendments should be repealed. There would still be a Presidency, and States would still be required to obey the U.S. Constitution as well as Federal laws and their own State Constitutions. The States would NOT decide everything for themselves, but might exercise variations in achieving results within the laws which they collectively allow to be created by the Federal level of government.

And I found your post lacking of any brilliance in its stoopidity [sic].

Pitiful all that, and completely beside the subject, which is "the nature of a True Democracy of the people".

We seem to think that just because we go vote that we are a "free people". We forget that without a damn good understanding of how this nation "works" in LaLaLand on the Potomac we have no idea whatsoever of what is happening. None, zilch, nada!

Dammit, we are being "had" (in the first instance) by the dominant fact of a bunch of millionaires who are seated in both parts of Congress. I'm not suggesting that we supplant them with communists, but who-in-hell in their right mind would want the opposite either - a millionaire deciding political decisions that affect your life!?!

Anybody we put in Congress is human and thus unable to distance themselves from the fact that they are "privileged". We must be stone-dead silly to vote someone who is diametrically-financially opposite from us and our lifestyles to represent "we-the-sheeple" in Congress!

Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid ... !

 

[jdog]

SICK IN THE HEAD SOME STATEMENTS ABOUT THE US SENATE



Bullshit this: Last time I looked at the Senate there were two representatives from each state!

And BS your statement regarding the 17th Amendment, which does nothing of the kind mentioned above.

The 17th Amendment does this below and NOTHING ELSE (from the Senate itself):



And that is all!

PS: And, by the way, what planet do you live on ... ?

The US government was designed to give the States, and in State governments, a voice in the Federal Government. The 17th amendment stripped the State Governments of any political power in the Federal Government. Now even a young child should be able to understand that....

 

[jdog]

We're a union of the several states, each state has a vote, a say in who becomes president. That vote and say is based on the population of each state as in the number of electoral votes each state has. If you're a small state with little population, you get 3. If you're a large state with a huge population, you can have 55. What we have isn't one presidential election, but 50 smaller presidential elections, 51 taking D.C. into consideration.

Now I would make a change in the electoral college, but would retain it as we are a union of the several states, retaining each state having a say. The change I would make if I had the power is with the winner take all portion. For a winner to be awarded all of a state's electoral vote, that candidate would have to receive a majority of that state's vote. 50% plus 1 vote. In states where no candidate received a majority of the votes, then go to the congressional district method as Maine and Nebraska do today. The winner of each congressional district would receive that Congressional district's electoral vote. The plurality winner of the state, then receives the 2 electoral votes for senators exactly as Maine and Nebraska do today.

Tell me how this does not disenfranchise the minority?

 

[jdog]

You should be giving lessons on how to waste bandwidth on a Debate Forum!

What a pleasure it is to put you on Ignore!

WE THE SHEEPLE


Pitiful all that, and completely beside the subject, which is "the nature of a True Democracy of the people".

We seem to think that just because we go vote that we are a "free people". We forget that without a damn good understanding of how this nation "works" in LaLaLand on the Potomac we have no idea whatsoever of what is happening. None, zilch, nada!

Dammit, we are being "had" (in the first instance) by the dominant fact of a bunch of millionaires who are seated in both parts of Congress. I'm not suggesting that we supplant them with communists, but who-in-hell in their right mind would want the opposite either - a millionaire deciding political decisions that affect your life!?!

Anybody we put in Congress is human and thus unable to distance themselves from the fact that they are "privileged". We must be stone-dead silly to vote someone who is diametrically-financially opposite from us and our lifestyles to represent "we-the-sheeple" in Congress!

Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid ... !

Freedom, sovereignty and liberty are incompatible with socialism and the policies of the Democratic party.

 

[Perotista]

Tell me how this does not disenfranchise the minority?

I don't see how it does. In fact it may give them more of a voice. As it is now, a simple plurality of the vote gives all a states electoral votes to a single candidate. An example, Trump won North Carolina with 48% of the vote and received all of NC 15 electoral votes. Under my proposal since neither Trump not Biden received 50% plus one vote, you'd go to the congressional districts. Biden won 5, Trump 8. Since Trump won NC via a plurality, he'd get NC 2 electoral votes for the senators. NC would have awarded its electoral votes 10 for Trump, 5 for Biden.

If anything, that would have given minorities more say, not less. Especially since the courts mandate majority minority districts, you have two of those in NC. What I proposed would have ensured Biden at least 2 of NC's electoral votes. On the contrary, I think it enhances minority input.

 

[Lafayette]

We're a union of the several states, each state has a vote, a say in who becomes president. That vote and say is based on the population of each state as in the number of electoral votes each state has. If you're a small state with little population, you get 3. If you're a large state with a huge population, you can have 55. What we have isn't one presidential election, but 50 smaller presidential elections, 51 taking D.C. into consideration.

Now I would make a change in the electoral college, but would retain it as we are a union of the several states, retaining each state having a say. The change I would make if I had the power is with the winner take all portion. For a winner to be awarded all of a state's electoral vote, that candidate would have to receive a majority of that state's vote. 50% plus 1 vote. In states where no candidate received a majority of the votes, then go to the congressional district method as Maine and Nebraska do today. The winner of each congressional district would receive that Congressional district's electoral vote. The plurality winner of the state, then receives the 2 electoral votes for senators exactly as Maine and Nebraska do today.

Blah, blah, blah! What we have is an election-system that no other nation of any significance has adopted.

Then notion of an Electoral College (EC) was devised at a time where there were damn few roads from state-capitals to Congress. So, an EC was devised to assure their timely availability to Congress.

It's high-time we changed a voting system that has elected the loser of the popular-vote to the presidency five-times!

Of course, American knot-heads who cannot tell the difference from an "honest vote" and one that is a "manipulated vote" will say otherwise. (Which you have amply done.)

Uncle Sam may have the oldest Democracy on earth, but no other nation (of any developed country) has implemented the same usage of an Electoral College as has the US. Precisely because of the consequence with the election of Donald-Dork who lost the popular-vote but nonetheless won the presidency ...

One of the more pronounced mischiefs of the EC-vote is to assure the winner of the popular-vote TAKES ALL THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES into their count. Which means all those authentic votes by American citizens against the winner of the EC-vote did not matter in a country-wide vote count. Their EC-vote count was reported to Congress for each candidate but the whole EC vote-value was attributed solely to the majority winner! That is, they won also the state's whole EC-vote that they did not deserve!

Only the raw popular-vote of each candidate need be reported to DC that will then announce the "national winner" of the total-vote countrywide!

That is, once-known, all minority-votes were counted but just thrown onto the dung-pile because they were for the loser and not the winner (who assumed the total undeserved EC-vote!) Which is an unacceptable manipulation when a vote is being made for a position that is national in nature and not just state-wide ... !

 

[Individual]

I don't see how it does. In fact it may give them more of a voice. As it is now, a simple plurality of the vote gives all a states electoral votes to a single candidate. An example, Trump won North Carolina with 48% of the vote and received all of NC 15 electoral votes. Under my proposal since neither Trump not Biden received 50% plus one vote, you'd go to the congressional districts. Biden won 5, Trump 8. Since Trump won NC via a plurality, he'd get NC 2 electoral votes for the senators. NC would have awarded its electoral votes 10 for Trump, 5 for Biden.

If anything, that would have given minorities more say, not less. Especially since the courts mandate majority minority districts, you have two of those in NC. What I proposed would have ensured Biden at least 2 of NC's electoral votes. On the contrary, I think it enhances minority input.

I'd go with winner take all, but include the population of DC into MD giving them a vote for representation in Congress.
Would still like to see some interest in repealing the 16th and 17th amendments.

 

[Lafayette]

WE-THE-SHEEPLE

As it is now, a simple plurality of the vote gives all a states electoral votes to a single candidate. An example, Trump won North Carolina with 48% of the vote and received all of NC 15 electoral votes. Under my proposal since neither Trump not Biden received 50% plus one vote, you'd go to the congressional districts

Yes, that is what electoral law stipulates. None the less, it defies the actual results! Not all NC voters voted for Trump! (Thank God!)

So why in heavens name should he have got ALL THE RC VOTES. It did not make sense in the 19th century and it still makes no sense in the 21st ... !

Presidential voting law in the US has been "bonkers" for two centuries and remains that way because "some" in Congress say the law is "unchangeable".

Any law is changeable if the question is put to the people to change it. And if a majority of voters vote Yes for the change, we are obliged to change it. Period! All the rest of the free-world believes in Rule of the Majority Vote in any election. Uncle Sam screws it up!

It is incomprehensible that the result of a presidential vote that is partial (a percentage for one party, and another percentage for the other party) should GIVE all the EC-votes to the winner. It's a voting machination that is patently arbitrary and unfair. IT SHOULD BE UNLAWFUL!

When we vote against a candidate for the presidency, our negative vote should not be assimilated within the total winning vote just because that's the law! That voting-process is insane!

We've been putting up with a unfair voting-law for more than two-centuries and many dumb-heads think "why change it now?" That very same question is true for a good many other issues that bother the US today. And simply ignoring them will do no solve them!

But for as long as We-the-Sheeple think and say with indifference that all is just-fine with America's voting-democracy then nothing will change it - and the popular-vote manipulations arising from the unfair-abnormalities will remain.

Kings used to run countries. What we have now is more than half of both the House and the Senate combined are populated with Millionaire-MoneyKings running the show. No big difference ...

 

[Perotista]

I'd go with winner take all, but include the population of DC into MD giving them a vote for representation in Congress.
Would still like to see some interest in repealing the 16th and 17th amendments.

That's been my position on D.C. all along. There's a precedence for that, the southern portion of D.C., south of the Potomac was returned to the state of Virginia from whence it came. One still could keep a few blocks of D.C. for the federal district, the White House, Capital, SCOTUS building, just a business district and return all the rest to Maryland. It's been done before and that would solve the question of D.C. statehood and give the people living in D.C. a vote for Maryland's 2 senators and have their own representative, raising the number of Maryland's representatives by one.

Yes, I too have been in favor of repealing the 17th. The framers gave the people the House of Representatives, hence known as the peoples house. The house was to represent the people, the senate the states. With the 17th, representing the state has sort of flown the coop. The senate now has become just a mini House of Representatives.

The 22nd Amendment is another, I'd either repeal it to let the president run for as many terms as he may wish or add congress to the 22nd. If one is going to limit the terms of the president, one also should limit the terms of senators and representatives. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. The 22nd was just a knee jerk reaction to FDR. I don't think it was thought out.

 

[Individual]

That's been my position on D.C. all along. There's a precedence for that, the southern portion of D.C., south of the Potomac was returned to the state of Virginia from whence it came. One still could keep a few blocks of D.C. for the federal district, the White House, Capital, SCOTUS building, just a business district and return all the rest to Maryland. It's been done before and that would solve the question of D.C. statehood and give the people living in D.C. a vote for Maryland's 2 senators and have their own representative, raising the number of Maryland's representatives by one.

Yes, I too have been in favor of repealing the 17th. The framers gave the people the House of Representatives, hence known as the peoples house. The house was to represent the people, the senate the states. With the 17th, representing the state has sort of flown the coop. The senate now has become just a mini House of Representatives.

The 22nd Amendment is another, I'd either repeal it to let the president run for as many terms as he may wish or add congress to the 22nd. If one is going to limit the terms of the president, one also should limit the terms of senators and representatives. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. The 22nd was just a knee jerk reaction to FDR. I don't think it was thought out.

I'd keep the 22nd Amendment and add term limits to Congress, but repealing the 16th Amendment along with the 17th Amendment is IMO the ONLY way powers of government would be brought under control of the people and the States, as John Adams said "a nation of laws, not men."

 

[Glitch]

We're a union of the several states, each state has a vote, a say in who becomes president. That vote and say is based on the population of each state as in the number of electoral votes each state has. If you're a small state with little population, you get 3. If you're a large state with a huge population, you can have 55. What we have isn't one presidential election, but 50 smaller presidential elections, 51 taking D.C. into consideration.

Now I would make a change in the electoral college, but would retain it as we are a union of the several states, retaining each state having a say. The change I would make if I had the power is with the winner take all portion. For a winner to be awarded all of a state's electoral vote, that candidate would have to receive a majority of that state's vote. 50% plus 1 vote. In states where no candidate received a majority of the votes, then go to the congressional district method as Maine and Nebraska do today. The winner of each congressional district would receive that Congressional district's electoral vote. The plurality winner of the state, then receives the 2 electoral votes for senators exactly as Maine and Nebraska do today.

The US Constitution gives every State the authority they require to determine how they wish to choose their Electors for the Electoral College. They may adopt your proposal, or they may adopt something completely different. It is up to each State to make that determination.

Which means that no amendment need be added to the Constitution, just a change in State law, to determine how Electors for the Electoral College should be decided.

Personally, I think the States should completely abolish the pretense of a popular vote and make the decision themselves. That way it will leave absolutely no doubt in the minds of the civically illiterate that States determine who is President of the United States, and not the people.

As long as there is a State popular vote for President, the uneducated will continue to mistakenly believe that their vote counts.

 

[Perotista]

The US Constitution gives every State the authority they require to determine how they wish to choose their Electors for the Electoral College. They may adopt your proposal, or they may adopt something completely different. It is up to each State to make that determination.

Which means that no amendment need be added to the Constitution, just a change in State law, to determine how Electors for the Electoral College should be decided.

Personally, I think the States should completely abolish the pretense of a popular vote and make the decision themselves. That way it will leave absolutely no doubt in the minds of the civically illiterate that States determine who is President of the United States, and not the people.

As long as there is a State popular vote for President, the uneducated will continue to mistakenly believe that their vote counts.

That's was the way it was in the beginning when we were a true representative republic. The people elected their state legislature via the popular vote, the state legislature determined who to award their states electoral votes. It wasn't until after the civil war that all states went to the popular vote. It was the same with senators until the 17th amendment. The people elected their state legislatures, the state legislature choose who would be their state's senators.

The House of Representatives was designed to be the peoples house, the senate to represent the states. We've been slowly moving away from a representative republic to a more direct democracy.

 

[Glitch]

That's was the way it was in the beginning when we were a true representative republic. The people elected their state legislature via the popular vote, the state legislature determined who to award their states electoral votes. It wasn't until after the civil war that all states went to the popular vote. It was the same with senators until the 17th amendment. The people elected their state legislatures, the state legislature choose who would be their state's senators.

The House of Representatives was designed to be the peoples house, the senate to represent the states. We've been slowly moving away from a representative republic to a more direct democracy.

That is not quite correct.

During the 1788 presidential election, of the 10 States that voted (North Carolina and Rhode Island had not ratified the US Constitution yet, and New York did not chose their Electors on time) only four of them did not have popular votes. Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey all held popular votes to determine their Electors. There popular votes were not public, however, they were made by a select group of individuals.

For example, Maryland chose 11,342 Federalist Electors (71.65%) and 4,487 Anti-Federalist Electors (28.35%). Maryland cast 6 of its 12 Electoral College votes for George Washington, and 6 Electoral College votes for Robert Hanson Harrison.

Massachusetts chose 3,748 Federalist Electors (96.60%) and 132 Anti-Federalist Electors (3.40%). They also split their vote with 10 of their 20 Electoral College votes going to George Washington, and the other 10 going to John Adams.

Altogether, there were 39,624 Federalists (90.5%) and 4,158 Anti-Federalists (9.5%) casting a grand total of 138 Electoral College votes.

Out of the eight candidates who were running for President in 1788, George Washington ended up with a majority of 69 Electoral College votes. Washington also won 85.2% of the popular vote, while Adams received 12.0% of the popular vote and 34 Electoral College votes (which is why he was made Washington's VP). The next closest contender was John Jay with 1.1% of the popular vote and 9 Electoral College votes.

Altogether, less than 1.8% of those eligible to vote in 1788 voted according to the 1790 census. It was not the popular vote that we would understand today. That didn't become common practice among the States until 1824. Which explains why it was also the only presidential election in US history to be decided by the House of Representatives.