Voting, elections, and BS

I just watched a video by Penn Jillette in his “Penn says…” series, entitled Cynicism. It reminded me that I haven’t made any posts explaining my stance on voting and elections. Well, here goes.

Let’s start with the basic mechanics of the presidential election in the United States. I think the WikiPedia article explains it best in the following snips:

The Electoral College consists of 538 popularly elected representatives who formally select the President and Vice President of the United States.^[1] The Electoral College is an example of an indirect election.

Rather than directly voting for the President and Vice President, United States citizens cast votes for electors. Electors are technically free to vote for anyone eligible to be President, but in practice pledge to vote for specific candidates^[2] and voters cast ballots for favored Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates by voting for correspondingly pledged electors.^[3] Most states allow voters to choose between statewide slates of electors pledged to vote for the Presidential and Vice Presidential tickets of various parties; the ticket that receives the most votes statewide ‘wins’ all of the votes cast by electors from that state. U.S. Presidential campaigns concentrate on winning the popular vote in a combination of states that choose a majority of the electors, rather than campaigning to win the most votes nationally.

More after the break!

Although ballots list the names of the presidential candidates, voters within the 50 states and Washington, D.C. actually choose electors for their state when they vote for President and Vice President. These presidential electors in turn cast electoral votes for those two offices. Even though the aggregate national popular vote is calculated by state officials and media organizations, the national popular vote is not the basis for electing a President or Vice President.

All states—except two—employ the winner-takes-all method, awarding the state’s presidential electors as a single bloc. The exceptions, Maine and Nebraska, select one elector within each congressional district by popular vote, and additionally select the remaining two electors by the aggregate, statewide popular vote. This method has been used in Maine since 1972, and in Nebraska since 1992.

Candidates can fail to get the most votes in the nationwide popular vote in a Presidential election and still win that election. This occurred in 1876, 1888 and 2000. Critics argue the Electoral College is inherently undemocratic and gives certain swing states disproportionate clout in selecting the President and Vice President. Adherents argue that the Electoral College is an important and distinguishing feature of the federal system, and protects the rights of smaller states. Numerous constitutional amendments have been submitted seeking a replacement of the Electoral College with a direct popular vote. However, no submission has ever successfully passed both Houses of Congress

So therein lies the rub. Your vote does not necessarily do ANYTHING. The electoral representative who receives the benefit of your vote still has the freedom of choice to vote whichever way they like. Beyond that, as per the second snip, a candidate can fail to get the most votes in the popular vote and still win the election. How exactly is that democratic then?

Here’s another one that I disagree with. Do you know any convicted felons? Well as much as many of you might like to think of them as lesser people, they are people. Did you know in the United States we take away the right to vote from various criminals? In some cases it’s during imprisonment, and in some cases it extends beyond that. I’m sorry, but whether someone has broken the law or not, they are still a person who resides in this country and has to abide by our government. See below.

Many U.S. states intentionally disfranchise people based on criminal conviction by law. For many jurisdictions that do, usually a person is disfranchised after being sentenced to a penalty above some limit—for example, 6 months— but only as long as he or she is serving the sentence.

In 13 U.S. states including the District of Columbia (HI, IL, IN, MA, MI, MT, NH, ND, OH, OR, PA, RI, UT) persons convicted of a felony—that is, a crime punishable with a year’s imprisonment or more—are denied the vote only while serving sentence in a state prison. ^[3] Delaware has a similar law, but extends the disfranchisement period five years after release from custody.^[4]

One felony conviction results in perpetual disfranchisement in 10 other U.S. states, and in Maryland two convictions have the same consequence. In addition to these 11 states, 19 others also disfranchise persons who are on probation for a felony but were not sentenced to prison time. All of these plus five more states (or 35 in all) disqualify those on parole from voting.^[5]

Some states consider dishonorable discharge a felony conviction and disfranchise those affected.

Two states—Maine and Vermont—allow prison inmates to vote unless disfranchisement is meted out as a separate punishment.

Those affected are usually prohibited from voting in federal elections as well, even though their convictions were at the state level for state crimes, not federal crimes. This means that states with permanent disfranchisement prevent ex-convicts from ever voting in federal elections, even though ex-convicts in other states convicted of identical crimes may be allowed to vote in such elections.

As of 2005 there were at least two cases in the U.S. courts challenging disfranchisement of felons: Locke v. Farrakhan in Washington State and Hayden v. Pataki in New York. The NAACP LDF was involved in both cases.

That’s not even all the problems with the current electoral system. I suggest you at least spend some time reading the WikiPedia article on Electoral College. Have you guessed my stance yet? Unless and until there is a candidate that I truly fully believe in and a true democratic election I refuse to vote. I will not vote for a “lesser evil”, and I will not be part of a false system. As Penn said, “The only way to waste your vote is to vote“

~ by wynneth on October 2, 2008.