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The need for the Electoral College

Thursday, February 8 at 3:53 PM

This Speakout has not been edited

By David C. Andrews, Thornton

In his letter in response to a Rocky mountain News editorial on Jan 22, Mr. Kearney says that SB 46 is all about promoting democracy, and he is right. However, what Mr. Kearney is saying just shows that he and like minded people either do not understand what forum of government we live under or worse, know exactly what that forum is and find it problematic for their desired out come in regards to presidential elections. So to help Mr. Kearney become a better citizen I shall explain a few things. In the pledge of allegiants it says “ I pledge allegiants to the flag of United states of America and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands...... We do Not live in a democracy. We live in a Democratic Republic. The founding fathers understood that any system of government that elected its president under a system of “direct vote of the people” as Mr. Kearney advocates, would result in the tyranny of what ever political party could control the voting habits of the largest population centers of the country. Under present conditions that would mean that there would never be an other Republican elected as president, which is just what democrats who are pushing this nonsense want.

The Electoral College was designed to give the voters of smaller population centers just as much meaning as those in larger population centers. Mr. Kearney says “Don’t render meaningless all the votes cast for a losing candidate in any state. To do so is true disenfranchisement.” Under the Electoral College the votes for the losing candidate are never meaningless. There just is not enough of them to win the electoral vote in that state. We do not have a ‘National Election” for the presidency buy the way. We have 50 separate presidential elections. Who ever wins the most “popular” votes in each state wins the electoral votes in that state. In turn who ever wins the most Electoral votes nation wide wins the presidency. To do away with the Electoral College would mean the disenfranchisement of the votes of people in the so called Fly Over States. That sounds unconstitutional to me!

Mr. Kearney says of the Electoral College “Abolish it! Then, we can talk democracy.” This would change the fundamental system of government in America from a Democratic Republic to a pour Democracy. To any one who understands the brilliance of our founding fathers such a change would be as unacceptable as the Intolerable Acts of the British Parliament were to those great and wise men. So to Mr. Kearney I would say of the Electoral college, “Abolish it! And we can talk of civil war in America.”

Any one who understands the how and why of our democratic republic forum of government would never want to live under Mr. Kearney’s idea of democracy. Just as the founding fathers were willing to take up arms against the Intolerable Acts of the British Parliament we would take up arms to preserve our Democratic Republic to which we daily pledge our undying allegiants.

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