Re: A simple proposition to fix democracy in U.S.

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Laura Bush - America's kid-killer) wrote in message 
> Democracy is dead.  All the vote rigging by repugs in the 2000 and
> 2002 elections have confirmed that.  Not to mention a president who
> lost the popular vote and was appointed by his buds on the USSC.

My, my, aren't we just a little bitter?

Of course, the US was NEVER intended to be a "democracy" at the
federal level.  In the original writing of the constitution, only
1/2 of 1/3 of the federal government was popularly elected (that
is, the House of Representatives).

If you find there to be a lack of democracy at your local level,
then come complain.  You do vote in local elections, don't you?
I don't even mean state-wide elections, I mean city and county
elections.


As for vote-rigging, the democrats also have a fine history
of doing so as well.  Mayor Daley and JFK immediately springs
to mind, but is hardly to only example.


And as for your last comment, it is not the first time that such
a thing has happened.  We've even had one president who didn't 
even poll a majority of the electoral votes!  

A great place to find out some of the other weirdness that has 
gone on in presidential elections is here:
http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf

That's our system.  Sometimes bizare and unpredictable, but it's 
what we've got.  

Bear in mind that Clinton never had an actual majority of the
popular vote in either 1992 or 1996, though he did at least
have a plurality.

Of course, popular vote means nothing in our system anyways, and 
popular election of electors only magnifies the discrepenices in 
the weight of individual votes across states.  States with small 
populations have disporportionately large power in presidential
elections than those in heavily populated states.

But since popular election of electors was never envisioned by
our founders, we shouldn't be overly surprised when the system
breaks when used in such an unintended manner.