Democratizing The Electoral College
The true measure of a democracy is not in counting how many votes are cast, but in how many of those votes that are cast count. By this measure, American democracy does not measure up. This failure of American democracy is grounded in America's allocation of electoral college votes for the President of the United States on a "winner take all" basis. By awarding all electoral votes in each state to the candidates who win the most popular votes in that state, the “winner-take-all” or 'general ticket' system effectively disenfranchises everyone who voted for other candidates.
"Winner-Take-All" is structurally anti-majoritarian, institutionally racist, and constitutionally deficient. Winner-Take-All is structurally anti-majoritarian because it concedes over half of the Presidential Electors needed to select the President of the United States of America to the former 11 states that formed the Confederate States of America. "Winner-Take-All" is institutionally racist because it only counts the nearly 27% of general election white votes cast in the former Confederate States, while disregarding the near 46% of the general election black votes cast in those states. "Winner-Take-All" is constitutionally deficient because it exposes the states to a reduction in state representatives pursuant to the mal-apportionment penalty of the Second section of the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution for an abridgment of a citizens "right to vote".
A Call For The Greening of the Electoral College
(Green Party 2008 national convention)
(Green Party 2008 national convention)
This year will mark the Century and Two Score years commemoration of the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Since the debacle of the 2000 presidential elections, the Green Party in partnership with the Douglass Institute of Government has led the way in educating the general citizenry in their constitutional "right to vote" under the provisions of the second section of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution (see the Green Press releases at http://www.electors.us.)
Proposals:
[]Asa Gordon of the Green Party Speakers Bureau and Chair of the DCSGP_Electoral College Task Force to lead a 3day Workshop on "Democratizing the Electoral College" (DEC) at the Green Party 2008 national convention, July 10-13.
[]The DEC workshops will provide the historical context and provide the post convention strategy for effecting the citizens right to vote under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.
[]State Green Partys will send at least one party delegate who will also be a Green party presidential elector to attend the DEC workshops.
[]The Green Party will advertise that the DEC workshop is open to all United States Party's Presidential
[]Candidates nationwide who desire to Democratize the Electoral College.
[]Candidates nationwide who desire to Democratize the Electoral College.
[]A Final DEC workshop Report to the National Convention.
