Imagine what would happen if President Bush won the 2004 election in the Electoral College but lost in the popular vote as in 2000. It could easily happen. What if thousands of angry Americans then took to the streets in a national strike of protest over a bitterly disputed outcome? And suppose trigger-happy police and troops fired on the crowds as they did at Kent State more than 30 years ago.
Such a situation could, believe it or not, grow into a bloody civil war; it’s happened in other countries. That kind of conflict could destroy our economy and result in the loss of democracy as we know it – a terrorist’s dream.
People want to blame the Supreme Court for the last election snafu, or Florida or the Republicans. The real villain is the outmoded Electoral College system. It is a major fault in our Constitution and offers the very real possibility of serious civil conflict. So far, we’ve been lucky.
Instead of wasting time trying to amend the Constitution to limit the rights of certain people to pursue happiness, as in the gay marriage ban foolishness, our cowardly representatives should take on the real threat posed by the Electoral College. Maybe it would be impossible to get the smaller states to agree to give up the supposed power the college gives them, but could we not at least add an amendment that would allow the popular vote to take precedence over the Electoral College vote in any case in which those two votes did not agree, or perhaps mandate an immediate run-off election? A simple amendment could fix the fatal flaw and would certainly be supported by the majority of citizens.
Julian Taber
Clinton
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