A great number of Americans don't really understand how our election processes work, dori. Consider this report:
[url=http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071228_the_path_to_a_national_popular_vote/]
The Path to a National Popular Vote
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Quote:
By David Sirota
Right now, many are frustrated about Iowa and New Hampshire voters having such oversized influence in America’s presidential elections. In a few months, as the general election campaign unfolds, we will be similarly frustrated about Ohio and Florida. Who arbitrarily gave this handful of states the disproportionate power to determine our national political path?
When it comes to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, the answer is the parties. They decide which states select nominees first. In the general election, the culprit is the Electoral College. Most states award their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. However small the margin by which a presidential candidate wins your state, that candidate gets all your state’s electoral votes. That means if you don’t live in a “battleground” like Florida or Ohio whose statewide vote is perpetually up for grabs, you are ignored.
The nominating system is easily modified. Parties can add early primary and caucus states if they choose. Changing the general election, on the other hand, looks much harder. The Electoral College and its negative consequences seem locked into the Constitution.
But the operative word is seem.
The group National Popular Vote has developed an ingenious path around this constitutional obstruction: States can pass legislation mandating that all of their presidential electoral votes go to the winner of the national popular vote—regardless of the election outcome in their own state
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Note how Mr. Sirota ends this report:Quote:
By passing national popular vote bills in the upcoming 2008 legislative sessions, state lawmakers can bring America closer to getting the democracy our civics books pretend we already have.