I didn't vote since I believe the second option misstates reality. While counter-institutive, a one man/one vote analysis shows that voters in the smaller states have a stronger voice when voting for president. In states where cattle out number people, like Vermont and Wyoming, the 2 Electoral College votes represented by the US Senate seats are much less diluted. Washington DC has the highest efficacy for its voters, with the least population. In California, they are washed out with the overwhelming number of House Seat electoral votes. This has been the case ever since the number of US Representatives was capped at 435. The Gerrymandering of districts just exacerbates the problem in presidential politics and in getting a true representation of the people in the House of Representatives.
We tend to forget that the Electoral College was a compromise worked out during the framing of the Constitution to allay fears of the smaller states. These same smaller states would have to ratify any Constitutional Amendment to change the structure and is unlikely since no entity just naturally concedes power. I see two major problems with direct election—1)Any election fraud would concentrate on vote denial and vote flipping in those precincts that could swing an election (a surprisingly small number is all that would need 'fixing' to swing an election). 2)We become the United Peoples of America not the United States of America.
Adjustments need to be made to the House of Representatives but are never discussed since sitting Congress Members would lose power. The Nelson Bill being a response to the primary vote is just plain ignoring the facts; the Repug run Florida state legislature set the date for the primary trying to put a monkey wrench in the Dems' plans. They succeeded in making the Dems look undemocratic while avoiding the blame. If this was really a response to the 2000 election, why wasn't the Amendment proposed in 2001? What would seem to be a more sensible approach would be to discard this set of 54 different primaries and establish national standards for the primaries.
Crossposted from Public Polls
http://www.tvnewslies.org/phpbb/viewtop ... 1296#51296
