I type that out with just a little hint of sarcasm.
Though I like to believe we live in a democratic country, the simple truth is we really don't live in such a democratic country. Today I had a conversation with one of my teachers and what we talked about made my heart hurt for the "democratic" country we live in...
I think we're all old enough to know how the government works. Three branches of it, legislative, executive and judicia. We all know that the president is voted by the people or is it? Hopefully most of you know about the electoral collage and how that changes everything.
Take for example, Ohio. When it's time for voting and they find which candidate won that state, all electoral votes go that candidate. Ohio has nineteen votes. The tricky part is, the people of the electoral college are not forced to vote the way the majority voters wanted. They can vote for whoever they want in the end. Really, we have no say in the matter. Why is that? Why is it that the votes aren't judged by the popular votes? Is it because we are all too uneducated to figure out who we like best that we rest our fates as a country on a few men and women to choose for us?
Let us go back to the first thirteen colonies. Ask any of the founders of thoughs first colonies, "Do you believe in a republic? In a democracy?"
They would tell you yes, if only you met their requirements. Such strict requirements would only leave the wealthy, the aristocratic rich white men with the right religious beliefs. Wonderful.
This leads me to my next problem, complaint, idle ramblings or whatever you would like to call them.
Voting. No other country in the world goes through so ridiculous steps to vote as we Americans do. No other country has such strict rules.
Many countries make their election day a holiday so everyone has a chance to go ahead and vote.
The United States government does the opposite. Why? To limit the people who vote, to limit who vote. The middle-class working people. Yes. We are always working on the weekdays. How can we just miss work, most can't just get that day off. They think we're too uneducated to vote for the "right" candidate.
Please. If people could just notice such little disturbances in our government and decide to speak out against them, maybe we could show the government how educated we really are.
The United States was founded as Constitutional Republic. Democracy is a horrible form of government. The United States is more like a Democracy then a Constitutional Republic now. Where the majority rules, which is wrong.
I yearn for our Constitutional Republic as laid down in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Not the horrors of Democracy.
Actually, America is a republic nation. A government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitle to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law. So, we, as citizens elect Senators and Representatives and they make and pass laws, which we are suppose to follow. I do think that the electoral college is out dated and we need to go to a direct vote of the people. Of course, many of our elected officers do not want this and would rather see the vote very limited and more in their control. This is why voting is made so difficult here. The fewer votes the more control the people in power have. And here, I'm talking corporations.
The reason popular votes are not counted is because it would take waaaaaaaaay to long to deal with the number of voters (in our system, the states deal with their votes separately. if it were changed, the federal government would probably have to do all by itself). People vote for the electoral college person associated with the party of their choosing. No, that electoral college member does not have to vote for that party, but if they want to keep their job they will (I have never heard of a case when they didn't). I do agree that whomever wins the popular vote should receive something like 100 electoral votes automatically (this way that candidate is pretty much guaranteed the win).
b-money
"A cactus is the opposite of a chair. In my house you can sit anywhere but there."
So what if it took a week or so to count the votes. The point is that your vote should count. The electoral college system is very outdated and the reasons for having that system are not applicable today. People running for office deserve all the votes given them. I think it is time to change our way of voting; to make it more representitive of how the people feel.
I think the idea is with a de-centralized system, it takes less time to count the votes because the process can be allocated to counties. Without the system, the federal government would have to pay tons of money to have a huge amount of people counts votes to get it done in a week. I mean, if everything were electronic you could conceivably have a database (although that could be hacked into, and older people wouldn't trust it), but with all the paper, a week is not long enough. People expect fast results. Really, the only problem the system has is the discrepancy between winning the electoral college and the popular vote, which could be righted by what I suggested earlier: the person who wins the popular vote gets a certain number of electoral points automatically (also remember that a lot of laws would have to be changed and put in place for an entirely new system--it would be a bureaucratic nightmare).
b-money
"A cactus is the opposite of a chair. In my house you can sit anywhere but there."