Monthly Archives: December 2016

Dear Electors, US Citizens and Fair Readers:

I’ll never forget the first time my junior high school social studies teacher pointed out to me the section of the US Constitution that rendered slaves as “three fifths” of a person. Yes, that’s 60%.

In a word, sickening.

I was heartened (read: not at all convinced) to learn the 13th Amendment had come along to abolish slavery, but not before my teacher went on to tell me his view of what the Electoral College really was: A way for rich slave owners to keep hold of power.

As Wikipedia defines the Three-Fifths Compromise:

The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise reached between delegates from southern states and those from northern states during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. The debate was over whether, and if so, how, slaves would be counted when determining a state’s total population for legislative representation and taxing purposes. The issue was important, as this population number would then be used to determine the number of seats that the state would have in the United States House of Representatives for the next ten years. The effect was to give the southern states a third more seats in Congress and a third more electoral votes than if slaves had been ignored, but fewer than if slaves and free persons had been counted equally, allowing the slaveholder interests to largely dominate the government of the United States until 1861.

That concept found its way into the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Flash forward to 2016 and the ERECTION of Donald J. Trump. Yes, I said erection. Because this prick, like George W. Bush in 2000, was NOT elected. He was erected, by the racket called the Electoral College system, which has aided the elite class in making modern day slaves out of most of us through institutionalized inequality and the purposeful dilution of voting power.

So, just how much of a slave does the Electoral College make of YOU? How much does your vote for President really count? Do you have full personhood status, where 1 Person, 1 Vote (1P1V) applies in your state? Or are you just a measly little percentage, a lesser-than, a half-measure?

What I’m about to show you is just how disenfranchised we (except for those in Wyoming) really are, at the hands of an archaic, white male privilege-based system that has now put our nation in the gravest danger in its 240-year history.

Using Slate’s excellent Electoral College Map based on 2010 Census data and the state of Wyoming (WY) as my reference point, i.e., the “1P1V State,” we get the following chart showing just how much of a slave the Electoral College renders you, by state. It’s a long graphic, but all that scrolling allows one to watch the little person’s voting power fading away, state by state, telling us by just how much we have been disenfranchised:

Note the fair state of Delaware (DE) is the last of eight states where voters are valued more than that of a US Constitutional Slave, i.e., more than three fifths, or 60% of a person. My fellow Nevadans (NV), are you feeling 42% today? How about my homies in Pennsylvania (PA), are you up to your usual 29%?

THE NUMBERS

I’ve used 142,741, which is Wyoming’s (WY) number of persons aged 18+ per Electoral Vote according to Slate’s map, as my basis for 1P1V in my calculations. Wyoming’s 142,741 persons of voting age per Electoral Vote is the lowest in the country, so that means using it for figuring out just how disenfranchised voters for US President in all the other states are.

For example, using Slate’s 2010 Census data for Delaware (DE), which has 230,723 persons of voting age per Electoral Vote, we get the Voting Power Percentage for Delaware:

142,741 (WY) / 230,723 (DE) = .618668

Dividing Wyoming’s 142,741 by Delaware’s 230,723 gives us .618668, or rounding up to an even percentage, 62% voting power, which is just barely squeaking above the US Constitution’s slave status of 60%, via its shameful Three-Fifths Compromise.

You can do the same by dividing 142,741 by your state’s number of persons of voting age per Electoral Vote.

And by now, you probably have realized this: If we must get our calculators and charts out to figure out what our votes are really worth, we’re not living in a democracy.

From my Excel spreadsheet, I’ve also captured the following to show how many Electoral Votes there currently are for each state…and the number of Electoral Votes necessary for each state to achieve 1P1V:

For this, use the inverse of each state’s percentage, then multiply it by the number of current Electors for that state:

1 / .618668 = 1.616375 = Inverse of Delaware (DE) Percentage

Then,

1.616375 * 3 Electors = 4.84912 Electors 

That’s 4.84912 Electors — round it up to 5 if you like — needed for Delaware voters to achieve undiluted, 1P1V status in their state when voting for President.

CASE LAW

For those who like to see case law and Constitutional language in support of the concept of 1P1V in the US, here you go. 

My arguments based around the concept of 1P1V center on the US Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause within the 14^th Amendment. I deem the Electoral College as unconstitutional, as it does indeed disenfranchise entire classes of voters, the definition of “entire classes” in this case being the current voting age populations in every US state except for Wyoming (WY).

Because of the Electoral College, we have 49 (50, if counting the District of Columbia) “classes” of voters being disenfranchised every four years relating to the US Presidential Election, to one degree or another, as less than one “person.”

Personhood is clearly defined by the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, where the Equal Protection Clause states:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.“

And then, we have Reynolds v Simms, a 1964 Supreme Court Case that deals precisely with 1P1V. From Casebriefs.com:

“The Supreme Court of the United States (Supreme Court) notes that “[l]egislators represent people, not trees or acres.” If the State gives voters in one part of the State much more weight in the vote of their legislators, the right to vote of voters in underrepresented parts of the State has been diluted.

“Although the federal legislature has a separate apportionment for its two houses, there is no such need at the State level. Hence, apportionment of state legislatures needs to reflect a one-person, one-vote policy.

“Reynolds v. Sims establishes the principle apportionment doctrine of the United States Constitution (Constitution): one-person, one-vote. The Supreme Court gets around the non-justiciability of political questions by framing the argument as an Equal Protection issue: ‘To the extent that a citizen’s right to vote is debased, he is that much less a citizen.’”

IN CLOSING

So…have you had enough of the Electoral College system of dilution and disenfranchisement?

Our nation’s founders could not have anticipated the advent of computers and Big Data, which have reduced our national Presidential elections to strategies where a candidate need not win the majority of the nation’s hearts and minds, but only needs to win “here, here…and here” (something along the lines of “PA, WI and MI” in 2016).

This is why I’ve come to see the EC for what it is – a Trojan Horse that can be manipulated by advances in technology – including, but not limited to hacking – which is more than enough reason to dispatch it to the annals of history.

Ask yourself: Who needs voter suppression laws when we have the Electoral College?

If this is not a case for compulsory voting, in addition to all the other voter suppression tactics out there, I don’t know what is.

In addition, the Electoral College does the United States the following grave disservice: It reduces our most populous and arguably one of our most influential states, California, to a minor player in national elections – and it is this which I partially blame for our nation’s lurch to the right.

So once again, to our Electors: I’ve read many good arguments as to why and how you should exercise your power to protect this country. My final arguments are threefold:

Electors, our country’s future is in your hands — and I will be among those holding you accountable.

#DoNotRecognize,

Alison