Change the System

The electoral college was created 232 years ago because news travelled slow when the Constitution was being written. The Founding Fathers weren't sure if voters would be totally informed. The Literacy Rate was low and they wanted to make sure the right person would be elected. the way to assure this at the time was to have people vote for the Electoral College. It is rather convoluted and some people may find it to be archaic but the goal was, "to form a more perfect union," not a perfect union. That is Utopian. Impossible.

There was a call to abolish the Electoral College in 2016 after Donald Trump defeated Hilary Clinton. Coincidentally, those who called for the abolition were supporters of Clinton, who won the popular vote despite losing in the category that counted: The Electoral College. I could have taken these calls seriously if they had been made before the election. Instead, it was just a bunch of people looking to change the rules in order to give their candidate the win.

There was more talk about changes to the voting system before that. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the Chair of the Democratic National Committee before it was learned she had interfered with the nomination process and conspired against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. No one was crying foul over that. Why not?

There has been plenty of talk of a long, dragged out election process, especially when it comes to deciding the President of the United States. Again, I wish to remind you that the voters have been holding the cards all along. Those who wish to elect third-party candidates can. All you have to do is vote who you want to win and not who you think will win.

Here's my suggestion: Let's abolish with the Electoral College, the Primary Season, and the Political Party system in general. One person, one vote. No delegates. No Superdelegates. I'll take the most recent Presidential Election as an example.

Candidate          Votes

Hillary Clinton   17,174,180
Donald Trump   13,310,471
Bernie Sanders   13,243,376
John Kasich          4,139,352
Ted Cruz               7,393,794
Marco Rubio         3,353,864
Ben Carson              807,920
Jeb Bush                  280,934
Martin O'Malley      110,216
Rand Paul                  58,127
Chris Christie            54,938
Mike Huckabee         48,397
Carly Fiorina             37,447

Under my proposed system, Hillary Clinton would be elected President of the United States. Donald Trump would be elected Vice President. The President could choose their own Secretary of State or we could go further down the list and make Bernie Sanders the Secretary. This system would resurrect the system that chose the President and Vice President for the first three presidential administrations of this nation.

The obvious issue to this proposal is that there could be people in offices from different parties but the basic idea is that there would be no more parties. Everyone is tired of the gridlock. Everyone is tired of the partisan bickering. Here is suggestion. Nancy Pelosi said it was time to put country before party. Here is our chance to do that very thing.