It looks like Louisiana citizens can sit back and relax this election season without even going out to vote. At least that is the way it seems with how the electoral vote is shaping up.
And, in fact, that is the way it often comes about thanks to our electoral system.
If each person should have a vote in this democracy, then let’s make it that way. Today in Louisiana and most other states, your vote only counts if it goes the way of the majority of voters in the state. Most states provide all of the state’s electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote.
In earlier years, there was a problem in communication that perhaps required some sort of simplification where every vote did not have to be counted individually before a winner was known. But nowadays, we don’t have that problem.
We need to have a system where we encourage all people to vote whether they live in Ohio or not. And by the way, if a candidate wins by one vote in California, he gets one fourth of the electoral vote in the United States no matter what percentage all of the others get and regardless of how the other half of California votes.
An editorial cartoon the other day showed the entire United States divided into eleven states which were entitled “The United Swing States of America.” In other words, it’s no longer the United States of America.
That’s the way it is going. The people do not count – only the electoral districts do.
It’s time for the people to feel more like a democracy rather than a convenient electoral system. We need to have popular votes in each of the 50 states and eliminate the electoral system altogether. Let the candidates with the most votes nationwide win the election.
After all, the United States invented democracy. Now let’s practice it.
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