How often have we looked at our senate, and our house of representatives, then looked at the president in the last few elections, wondering how we got where we are? How is the system of the vote to be accomplished, and how do electorates determine the electorate vote?
Is it the popular vote that determines the president? Was this ever intended?
I would argue... no. There are various reasons that I argue this. The electoral college was instituted specifically to blunt the power of the people. The people can be swayed, impassioned, and manipulated by shrewd and careful action. The people can be wooed away from their principles in time of panic, and bought away from them in hard economic times.
The system that was argued for was substantially different, however, than the means by which we've implemented that system.
Imagine for a moment... if the Nation were a bit different. Imagine if, for over the last century and a half, the nation were subverted from the intent of the constitution's electorate, to what we have today. Imagine if the intent of the popular vote was not to elect the president... but to elect the persons who would select the president.
Imagine if that vote were designed to find the most enlightened, perceptive, and independent elector possible.. if it were to seek from the greater bodies of the people the wisest, and most perceptive electors available, those who are the most honest, the most immune to manipulation, the most capable of testing the character, actions, and qualifiications of a president... then having them select the president from the body of the people.
What would our nation look like at that point, if the qualifications for presidency were adherence to the Constitutional Law, understanding thereof, understanding of the powers, as well as the duty adjunct to those powers, understanding of the rights and liberties of the people, and the powers reserved to the states. Understanding of the service of the president to the country, and the duty of the president to foil the works of Congress that are unconstitutional.
If it were part of the electorate process to determine the nature of the person, the past of the person, and determine the capability of the person for dealing with the office of the president, exercising its powers, and duties... would we be here?
If the president were thus vetted, by representatives chosen from and of the people themselves, with full knowledge of history, and an independent mind, unswayed by political power and intrigue... would we have a Supreme court that seems unswayed by the Constitution, or the laws or intent thereof, or of the stated position of those that wrote and agreed to the constitution?
Love of the nation, and duty to it are the seals of a President's role. He is literally a slave of the people, and of the constitution. During his term of office, there is no constitutional means by which to renounce it save high crimes and misdomeanors through impeachment, or by becoming unable mentally or physically to execute the powers and duties of the office.
Now.. why would I bring such a thing up, at such a time? After such a dog and pony show at the Federal level on this last 'election', with such a show of counting the 'votes for the president' in the last few elections...
What if that was not the intent? What if, just as I have said, the intent was to elect the electors that would select the president, as a body?
What if their job was not to cave to the will of the people, but to determine honestly among themselves who was most fit to be president... and even select such a person, if needs be, as a farmer from a field, a person jailed for a misdomeanor, a pauper? If he was the best man for the job, the best man to do what needed doing for the country, the one that would most faithfully execute the office of the president, and most faithfully adhere to the Constitution, and defend it against all enemies, then he was the man for the job.
I keep asking what if... because of this.
The Federalist 68, explaining the election of the Presidency to the American People, and to the States.
THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded.1 I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.
All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best," yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.
The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter.
The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor, in casualties similar to those which would authorize the Vice-President to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President
Read carefully through that. Unfortunately, with the advent of good communications, and the far larger nation, low intrigue, and political acumen, along with the arts of popularity, have made strong inroads upon the road to the presidency. The nation shivers at a word, trembles like a leaf in a gale at a scandal, and the intrigue and popularity contests continue.
Rather than vote for the president... find within your own state the most independent old farmer with the highest amount of stubbornness, and perception you can find, and vote him in as an elector.....
But wait.. the people don't determine the electors anymore. And the electors generally vote for the popular vote, as reported from the polling places.
And more and more those polling places are electronic, and leave no paper trail.
More and more those polling places are controlled by the various parties, in one extreme or another. More and more those results are counted outside of view, by enterprising pollsters, or by machines that it is prohibited by federal law to look at the instructions for the count.
Those very machines also elect your congressmen, your senators, and are used to count the votes on popular referendums, bills, and amendments.
Those very machines.... elect your state senate, your state's house of representatives and the governor.
And those very machines are subject to simple, difficult to detect manipulation and alteration, and without even the ability for oversight of the count itself.
And there is no guarantee that what is put into the machines for code is approved. There is no review on the machine code, save by the manufacturers. Those very manufacturers that have had the machines repeatedly rejected by states, then reintroduce them under a different name.
To say that the election of the president of the United States, the congress, your city council, your constitutional amendments, your governor, and even your sherriff is a trade secret, or a national security issue.. is saying that you have no security at all.
In the hands of enterprising men, even the best technology can be compromised. And this is far from the best technology.
We wonder how we got here... but how often do we even look at where we *are* or where we are *GOING?*
When you plot a course, for a ship, in the seas you use a fixed point, from the stars to the sun. When you plot a course for a nation, things are rarely so clear... but our charter provides that fixed point. Our nation is chartered in the ideals of liberty... and dedicated to the defense of those ideals.
Liberty is never created by government. It is the lack of government action that comprises liberty, so liberty is always at odds with government. They are natural enemies, and part and parcel of the same being... Ouroboros.
No comments:
Post a Comment