He is not YOUR president!

He is not YOUR president!

Did you know that you do NOT get to decide who the president is?

That's right YOU do not get to choose.  It is a multi-stage process where each party selects their favorite candidate from several potential ones and then offer the supposed choice to the people.

The people go out every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November to cast their votes.  In reality voters actually choose their state’s electors when they vote for President.

What really happens is that when you vote for your candidate you are actually voting for your candidate’s electors.  Yeah so?  What does that mean?

Lets try a little hypothetical scenario.....

NY has 19 million people... about 16 million voters... 29 electoral votes

Florida has 19 million people... about 16 million voters... 29 electoral votes

in essence they are equal in the power to put a president into place.  What would happen if we assume that 9 million NY voters voted Obama and 7 million for Romney?  Let's also assume that all16 million FLORIDA voters voted Romney and 0 voted for Obama.

If we total the votes for Romney there would be 23 million and the total for Obama just 9 million... Romney wins right?... WRONG.. Obama won in NY and gets 29 "ELECTORAL VOTES" and Romney won in FLORIDA and also gets 29 "ELECTORAL VOTES" making it a TIE

The problem is that the people can vote for their favorite but it is actually only a handful of states that have the  electoral clout and make the choice as to who becomes the president.

Now for some facts.....

Obama took the 3 west coast states California, Oregon, Washington, he then followed it up with the great lakes states and the New England states... hardly a cross section of the country but all together they have the Electoral votes to wag the dog and give this country Obama for another 4 years ... even though the people's popular vote and most states went for Romney!

This is not random or arbitrary it is how it is written into the constitution.  The founding fathers established it as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.

The number of electoral votes each state gets is based on the census for each state except for the District of Columbia which is allocated 3 electors and treated like a state for purposes of the Electoral College under the 23rd amendment of the constitution.

A census of the country is taken every 10 years and in this case the census used is specifically the 2010 Census which is effective for the 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections.

Oki fine... who chooses the electors that you are voting for?  Well, each candidate running for President in your state has his or her own group of electors. The electors are generally chosen by the candidate’s political party. Yes I said chosen by the candidate's POLITICAL PARTY!

Generally, the political parties nominate Electors at their State party conventions or by a vote of the party’s central committee in each State, Electors are often chosen to recognize service and dedication to their political party.

Except for Maine and Nebraska, each state has a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the winning presidential candidate.

Electors meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December after the presidential election in their respective states, where they cast their votes for President and Vice President on separate ballots.

NOTE:- While there is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their States.  26 states DO have laws on the book making it illegal for an elector to vote for any candidate other than the candidate of the winning party in their state.   The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees. Some State laws provide that so-called "faithless Electors"; may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector.

Back to the REALITY CHECK...

The actual results of the election were close, about half of the states went to Romney and about half went to Obama.  While at the last look the popular vote was still for Romney it was the aforementioned coastal stated with the "old money" and the population that with few exceptions went to Obama.

The states with low populations, poor economic situations and little political clout.  Southern states, central and mid western states almost all went with Romney.

I will not draw any conclusions from this, that is your prerogative.  I will however say this.  The system has been used for over 200 years and like any old and outdated piece of equipment it can only be tweaked and amended so far before the effort outweighs the benefit.

When the government is the single largest employer of the people it no longer serves them but enslaves them to the system.  Is there a better system available? 

I do not know, perhaps it is time to look at it and see what can be born of this situation instead of just patching it up with more amendments and making an already top heavy system even more unstable.

For now, "By the people and for the people" is just a slogan and no longer has any validity as it is the system that makes the decisions.  After all the president will be elected by ELECTORAL VOTES... not by you.

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