IDENTITY
"In 2020, 58 percent of Americans lived in the state that they were born in,"
https://welcomelawfirm.com/faqs/where-are-americans-born-analysis-of-us-census-data-from-1850-2020/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%2058%20percent%20of,English
Imagine how this has repeated since America's founding,
Consider the American Civil War, which resulted in a great loss of power and identity of individual states for Americans.
We do not brainwash and force our children to pledge allegiance to their state, but their country.
States have frequently flipped on what party they have voted for in the short time America has been a country.
It is not the 'state identity, but the 'American identity that matters for president, The 'one government official that every American together vote on.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2020/11/animated-map-u-s-presidential-voting-history-by-state-1976-2016
'Every state is in degrees a purple state,
Republicans and Democrats, living together in every state. Neighbors.
The states are not enclaves of a single identity.
It is the 'American Identity, not the State Identity.
ORIGINAL PURPOSE and TECHNOLOGY
Electors, individuals able to vote against what the popular vote tells them.
"As of the 2020 election, there have been a total of 165[3][4] instances of faithlessness"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
This I argue is a betrayal of the people's will.
Something perhaps understandable in older times when so many people in the world tended to be illiterate.
When news and information was more limited.
But we are now in the digital age, people are literate and informed of events and history.
Though even in 1776, perhaps the electoral college for president should not have been.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/09/reading-writing-global-literacy-rate-changed/#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20compiled%20by,still%20barely%20exceeded%2020%20percent.
"In other U.S. elections, candidates are elected directly by popular vote. But the president and vice president are not elected directly by citizens. Instead, they are chosen through the Electoral College process."
https://www.usa.gov/electoral-college#:~:text=In%20other%20U.S.%20elections%2C%20candidates,electors%20comes%20from%20the%20Constitution.
Locals knew their local politicians better than they knew other state politicians or presidential candidates.
In our modern age, every American have gluts of information of less local politicians.
We do not need any in between elector deciding they know better than us as individuals.
The popular will of the people is Not a Suggestion.
THE WHOLE
Returning to identity,
If we are Americans more than Oregonians or Texans,
Then our voices should hold by majority of our population.
Not let politicians gerrymander the population divide and undercut their voices.
The president should not have to focus on swing states and their local issues, but to the American people as a whole, and national issues.
INEQUALITY
"In 1812, slave states had 76 seats out of 143 instead of the 59 they would have had; in 1833, 98 seats out of 240, instead of 73. As a result, Southern states had additional influence on the presidency"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise#:~:text=A%20compromise%20was%20struck%20to,relative%20to%20the%20Northern%20states.
Returning again to identity, the political populations of America are mixed and living side by side,
A state can have 51% - 49% vote for president, yet out of that can come an unequal number of electoral votes for one party over the other.
This does not accurately represent the will of the American people as a whole.
"Twenty states are overrepresented in the Electoral College by more than one vote, based on population. Texas is underrepresented by nine votes."
https://usafacts.org/visualizations/electoral-college-states-representation
The Electoral College traps us into a divisive system of two party politics, giving Americans only a binary choice of no nuance.
"Southern favorite Wallace actually captured 46 electoral votes. Yet the electoral college still deflated his challenge. Although he had received nearly 14 percent of the popular vote, he got only eight percent of the electoral vote. Some 4.1 million Wallace votes cast outside the states he carried were “wasted.”
https://www.aei.org/articles/third-party-candidates-face-a-high-hurdle-in-the-electoral-college
Topical Analysis:
Direct Election
Because the constitution specifies the electoral college as the method for selecting the president, switching to a direct election (i.e. the “popular vote”) would require a constitutional amendment with ratification by 38 of 50 states.
Proposed Counterplan
The description requires that I must defend “an electoral college in some form.” Hence, I propose the following counterplan: states implement proportional elector allocation, similarly to the split elector system Nebraska currently has, but proportional to population. Further, states should nullify the votes of faithless electors, as Colorado has done. Getting the majority of states to do this, or even all of them, is much more feasible than a constitutional amendment and less likely to lead to political backlash, since some states have already made reforms along these lines.
Framework:
In Baron de Montesquieu’s widely-lauded political treatise The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu argues that a government’s laws and structures must be designed with the society’s political structure and cultural context in mind. For example, a policy that works for a small, homogenous city-state may be counterproductive when applied to a large, heterogeneous republic.
For a country as culturally diverse as the United States, I propose a framework that takes this cultural context into account. The question that should underpin this debate is this: Does switching to a direct voting system risk undermining the spirit of the republic—that is, the principles and stability of the United States?
Accommodation
Montesquieu states that a just government must accommodate the diverse “general spirit, morals, and customs” of its people, so that people’s minds can be “prepared for the reception of the best laws” (Book XIX). True to Montesquieu’s point, governments imposed from above that are incompatible with the culture of the people are prone to collapse—consider the U.S. intervention in Iraq, when imposing a Western-style democracy on a society with deep-seated tribal divisions proved to be ineffectual.
Moderation
Montesquieu states that “political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments” (Book XI), and that tyranny is “sure to be felt whenever those who govern establish things shocking to the existing ideas of a nation” (Book XIX). Consider the National Prohibition Act, which prohibited alcoholic drinks in the United States. Because the act was so drastic and polarizing, it was poorly enforced and led to black markets run by criminal gangs, undermining the rule of law and the contract between the government and the governed.
Decentralized Power
Montesquieu argues that “power should be a check to power” and that “were [the judiciary power] joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control…were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression” (Book XI). If undue control is given to a single group or individual, this creates a great risk of corruption. Consider the South Korean Impeachment Crisis, in which a single executive declared martial law in South Korea in a bid for unchecked power, and the full strength of the legislative branch was required to repeal this declaration.
Burdens:
Because Pro’s plan requires radically altering the structure of our elections and the constitution itself, they hold the greater burden in this debate. I argue that Pro’s proposal must pass all of these tests—accommodation, moderation, and decentralized power—for us to consider it worthwhile. Think of these as three pillars supporting the republic, where the collapse of one undermines the entire structure. If a radical alteration to the constitution fails to accommodate the diverse factions in America, such a change fails the duty of government to serve the common good and cannot justify its existence. Similarly, if such a change disrupts moderation or decentralized power, it can lead to an inevitable vicious circle in which warring factions cling to increased power and undermine the common good.
1. Accommodation of Diverse Factions:
Over four-fifths of the US population resides in urban areas. Rural areas have often been written off by the media as irrelevant “fly-over country,” but they are granted greater representation by the electoral college than they would have under a popular vote system. Under a direct voting system, politicians could ignore the needs of rural, agricultural communities and prioritize urban interests, leading to policies that harm the very people who feed Americans.
Case Study: California
The state government of California uses a popular vote system, which means that interests from agricultural areas in the Central Valley are frequently ignored in favor of interests from the more populous city regions. For example, Proposition 1A, which allocated funds for the California High-Speed Rail Authority, passed with a slim majority. The rail line would have connected San Francisco to Los Angeles but failed to accommodate the Central Valley, leading to intense legal battles and the government used eminent domain to snatch land from homes, ranches, farms and businesses in the Central Valley. Today, the High-Speed Rail Project is widely seen as an inefficient, overexpensive failure.
2. Preferring Moderation to Drastic Political Measures:
Precedent of Electoral College
The electoral college has stood the test of time, scaling from 10 states in 1788 to 50 states today. That’s a 237 year timespan, 37 years longer than the average lifespan of democracies. This is a big sign that the current system is doing something right in keeping the republic stable and should not be thrown out. Radically altering the system now would be an extreme, immoderate measure.
Partisan Divide
Abolishing the electoral college is a strongly partisan issue, with significantly greater opposition from Republicans than from Democrats. Recent attempts to abolish the electoral college in 2016 and 2024 came entirely from Democrats, shortly after a Republican won the presidential election. As of late, Americans increasingly see the country as more divided than at any time since the Civil War. Switching to a popular vote system will inevitably be seen as one party “changing the rules” to win more elections.
3. Maintaining a Decentralized Delimitation of Power:
Unfeasibility of Decentralized Popular Vote System
A popular vote system would require a single national voting standard under a single organization. To see why, consider the Bush v. Gore election. When Florida was too close to call in the 2000 election, this led to an expensive, contentious recount. Under a popular vote system with no central voting standard, candidates would demand recounts in every state when an election was too close to call, multiplying the cost and complexity by 50.
Consequences of A Central Voting Authority
However, despite being required for a direct voting model, a single voting authority would come with a whole slew of unacceptable consequences. Both parties have made serious allegations of election tampering, and giving the federal government unilateral control over handling vote counting, trusting the rules and execution entirely to the executive branch and the final single adjudication entirely to the Supreme Court, would undermine trust and legitimacy in our highly partisan society and eliminate state checks on government power—as Montesquieu argues, “every man invested with power is apt to abuse it” (Book XI).
Rebuttals:
“States have frequently flipped on what party they have voted for…It is not the 'state identity, but the 'American identity that matters for president…Twenty states are overrepresented in the Electoral College by more than one vote, based on population. Texas is underrepresented by nine votes.”
I disagree that a simple majority is effective at capturing “American identity” in a diverse society with heterogenous interests. The wisdom of crowds is only effective when the crowd holds diverse, independent opinions. The interests of farmers and those in agricultural areas should hold significant weight and not be ignored, even if they are a minority of the country.
“The president should not have to focus on swing states and their local issues, but to the American people as a whole, and national issues…A state can have 51% - 49% vote for president, yet out of that can come an unequal number of electoral votes for one party over the other.”
My counterplan addresses this. Ending the winner-take-all system would force politicians to focus on all states. A popular vote system would do the opposite, allowing candidates to focus solely on urban areas and ignore the needs of farmers, as I addressed under “Accommodation of Diverse Factions.”
“As of the 2020 election, there have been a total of 165[3][4] instances of faithlessness”
Faithless electors are addressed by my counterplan, by having states nullify their votes.
“In 1812, slave states had 76 seats out of 143 instead of the 59 they would have had; in 1833, 98 seats out of 240, instead of 73. As a result, Southern states had additional influence on the presidency”
No longer relevant, since the three-fifths compromise has been abolished.
“The Electoral College traps us into a divisive system of two party politics…Southern favorite Wallace actually captured 46 electoral votes…Although he had received nearly 14 percent of the popular vote, he got only eight percent of the electoral vote. Some 4.1 million Wallace votes cast outside the states he carried were “wasted.”
Wallace doing poorly is a good thing—he was a pro-segregation candidate who strongly supported racist “Jim Crow” policies. Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, failed to win a majority of the popular vote, but won a comfortable majority of the electoral college. These impacts all turn against Pro.
REBUTTALS
We've amended the Constitution before.
I'm not sure I understand what,
PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL ALLOCATION is?
I think I understand if a state has 10 officials, and vote is split 3 vs 7,
They place 3 and 7 officials of each type.
But there is only one President of the United States.
. . If it means 10 electors, and split it 3 and 7.
This seems much the same as a direct vote?
COLORADO LAW, FAITHLESS ELECTOR
"In Colorado, however, Baca sued in federal court, and the case eventually reached the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which ruled that electors can vote for any legitimate candidate."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/faithless-elector-betrayed-his-state-s-voters-you-won-t-n1120551
Proposed Counterplan
"Does switching to a direct voting system risk undermining the spirit of the republic—that is, the principles and stability of the United States?"
No. Many argue America is all about the individual, their voice, and freedom mattering.
We 'say Republic, but what became of the States after technology and the Civil War?
We are 'Americans, more than our various State identities.
America doesn't really 'have tribes so much as regions and parties.
And those regions are often of mixed parties.
Regions still control local government,
But when speaking of national ideas, every person ought have 'some say.
"Colorado’s 10 presidential electors met at the state Capitol Tuesday to cast their votes for 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who won 54.2% of Colorado’s votes.
Republican President-elect Donald Trump won 43.2% of the vote. This was the first presidential election where Colorado had 10 electoral votes, after the state earned an eighth seat in Congress following the 2020 census. "
https://www.debatecraft.com/debates/d/3t/resolved-that-the-president-of-the-united-states-should-be-elected-by-the-direct-vote-of-the-people
Why didn't Trump get 4 Electoral votes from Colorado?
Sounds to me as though that 43% of Colorado voters didn't get a voice on the national stage in the end.
MODERATION
What is 'Moderate about disfranchising the voters by unequal votes? And winner take all votes?
DECENTRALIZED POWER
States would 'still be in charge of tallying up all the votes, thus the process would be decentralized.
ACOMMODATION, MODERATION, AND DECENTRALIZED POWER
Accommodation is addressed by the people as a 'whole being appealed to, not just swing state votes,
And not the 51% majority of various states, but the people as a 'whole.
Moderation 'again by addressing the majority, not the minority.
Decentralized Power I'm not advocating for the removal of state regional control. Just that in an election for the President, the 'one official who ought be elected by 'all the people. 'Be elected by all the people.
RURAL
20% of the population is still significant, if anything they would gain greater power,
After all 20% of 1/50th is less that 1/5.
TEST OF TIME
The Electoral College has outlived it's purpose.
We're roughly all educated and informed of current and relevant events.
We don't need some 'electors telling us what's best for us.
PARTISAN DIVIDE
Why should we let gerrymandering and the idea of appeal to a minority of voters stop us?
America ran on ideas of democracy and representation, disfranchising the people by not letting their votes matter, is not freedom.
SINGLE NATIONAL VOTING STANDARD
All the states have to do is report how many people voted for which candidate, then have that applied in the presidential election.
They can handle the details of 'how locally.
We 'already address the worse cases of electoral tampering when need be.
And that's 'all we need to do, we don't need to control 'everything in a state to have direct voting.
. . .
ARGUEMENTS MINE
SIMPLE MAJORITY, we get diversity in the officials elected for each particular state.
And we get diversity by the President appealing to everyone, not swing states.
WINNER TAKE ALL,
I'm not sure I understand what,
PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL ALLOCATION is?
FAITHLESS ELECTORS,
"In Colorado, however, Baca sued in federal court, and the case eventually reached the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which ruled that electors can vote for any legitimate candidate."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/faithless-elector-betrayed-his-state-s-voters-you-won-t-n1120551
If the courts let the electors vote as they like, we can do without the electors.
THREE FIFTHS COMPROMISE
'Continues to be felt today, in related court cases and laws such as my vote mattering less than a rural voter.
One person, one vote say I. What could be more fair than that?
https://constitution.laws.com/three-fifths-compromise
WALLACE
It doesn't matter if Wallace was a bad person according to some people today.
What matters is that the people as a whole have their values heard.
How does reserving power to a small elite sound American at all?
Where's the Freedom in that?
Give the people power, and society always get's what they deserve.
As good 'or corrupt as the people may be.
Give some minority of people power, and the people's voice get's lost.
Take gerrymandering for instance, politicians ignoring the people, why should we ignore their thieving of our voices and power?
GERRYMANDERING
What chance do we have at getting away from Bipartisen politics, when we only have two major parties, and they keep moving the voting districts around so only two parties are an option?
Topical Analysis:
Direct Election
Pro says that we’ve amended the Constitution before, which is true. However, it is still a very significant decision, requiring ratification by 38 of 50 states. It is not something that should be taken lightly—if it proves to be a terrible mistake, it will be just as difficult to change it back.
“I'm not sure I understand what proportional elector allocation is”
Let’s say we have a state with 10 electoral votes. We would take the percentage of votes for each candidate and round to the nearest elector. So if Candidate A got 72% of the vote and Candidate B got 28%, Candidate A would get 7 electoral votes and B would get 3 electoral votes.
“In Colorado, however, Baca sued in federal court, and the case eventually reached the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which ruled that electors can vote for any legitimate candidate”
This decision was overturned by the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that states may enforce laws to punish faithless electors, ruling in favor of the state that nullified Baca’s vote. Hence, my proposal to nullify the votes of faithless electors remains feasible.
“Why didn't Trump get 4 Electoral votes from Colorado?”
Because Colorado did not implement proportional elector allocation. Under my counterplan, they would implement proportional elector allocation.
Framework:
As I stated in R1, the question that should underpin this debate is this: Does switching to a direct voting system risk undermining the spirit of the republic—that is, the principles and stability of the United States? Pro does not dispute that this question should underpin the debate or provide an alternative framework. Nor does he dispute that accommodation, moderation, and decentralization should be used to test direct voting against this framework. Hence, voters should use my proposed value and criteria.
Burdens:
Pro does not dispute that failing a single one of these three tests (accommodation, moderation, and decentralization) should be enough to reject direct voting. Hence, if voters feel that I have won on even a single one of these points, that is enough to warrant a Con vote.
1. Accommodation of Diverse Factions:
Extend my points about most Americans living in urban areas and agricultural interests being overlooked under simple majority rule (with California as an example). Pro has dropped all these points.
“Accommodation is addressed by the people as a 'whole being appealed to, not just swing state votes…And not the 51% majority of various states, but the people as a 'whole.”
As I explained, my counterplan addresses this by having states replace winner-take-all with proportional elector allocation. Politicians will have to appeal to people in all states, not just swing states.
2. Preferring Moderation to Drastic Political Measures:
Extend my points about the electoral college being a strongly partisan issue, and that it will inevitably be seen as one party “changing the rules” to win more elections.
“What is 'Moderate about disfranchising the voters by unequal votes?...The Electoral College has outlived it's purpose…What is 'Moderate about…winner take all votes?...We don't need some 'electors telling us what's best for us.”
I will address these later under rebuttals. However, these points are not relevant to the moderation criterion under my framework, even though Pro puts them in this section. Montesquieu’s moderation criterion is about “things shocking to the existing ideas of a nation” (Book XIX). Since the electoral college has been used and accepted from 10 states in 1788 to 50 states today, and Americans have grown up with it, it is not shocking to the existing ideas of the nation. Only radical new proposals (such as a constitutional amendment that will inevitably be seen as a power grab by a particular party), can fail the test of moderation.
Pro does not dispute Montesquieu’s definition or dispute that said criterion should be used to judge this debate against my proposed framework, so voters should consider these points irrelevant when evaluating Pro’s proposal under the moderation criterion.
3. Maintaining a Decentralized Delimitation of Power:
“gerrymandering”
My proposal isn’t gerrymandering, because one party isn’t given unilateral control to draw up state borders however it pleases.
“Why should we let [the idea of appeal to a minority of voters] stop us?”
Because the goal is to balance power between the minority and majority to meet their basic needs and not ignore the needs of one group simply because it has fewer members. Pro states that “America ran on ideas of democracy and representation, disfranchising the people by not letting their votes matter, is not freedom.” I agree. That’s why the voice of the minority should matter and should not be trampled on by the majority. The electoral college forces them to compromise.
“All the states have to do is report how many people voted for which candidate, then have that applied in the presidential election. They can handle the details of 'how locally.”
As I said in R1, recall the Bush v. Gore election. When Florida was too close to call in the 2000 election, this led to an expensive, contentious recount. Under a popular vote system with no central voting standard, candidates would demand recounts in every state when an election was too close to call, multiplying the cost and complexity by 50. Pro does not dispute this.
At this level of complexity, there would not be time to find conclusive evidence favoring one politician over another, or for either campaign to invest the resources in legal cases across 50 states to make sure all recounts are handled properly. With so many recounts, many cases would eventually make it to the Supreme Court, and the justices could select the most ambiguous, disputed cases as justifications for assigning whatever winner they want while maintaining plausible deniability. A growing number of judges have criticized the Supreme Court. Hence, Pro’s proposal would inevitably centralize power in the hands of a controversial authority and give them unilateral power to decide the president.
Meanwhile, my counterplan would not have such a drastic issue, as recounts could only be demanded if vote totals in a particular state were close enough to the cutoff for assigning an additional elector (since my plan involves rounding to the nearest elector).
Rebuttals:
“What is 'Moderate about disfranchising the voters by unequal votes?”
As I have argued, we should strive to balance power more equally among factions rather than exactly equally among all individuals. One vote by itself will not guarantee a voice is heard—if individuals want the government to care about their interests, they need their voting “faction” (people with similar concerns) to have significant representation.
“What is 'Moderate about…winner take all votes?”
As I explained, my counterplan addresses this by having states replace winner-take-all with proportional elector allocation.
“The Electoral College has outlived it's purpose…We're roughly all educated and informed of current and relevant events.
The advantage of the electoral college that I am advocating isn’t compensating for people being uneducated or uninformed. The advantage of the electoral college is that it gives a voice to smaller states and groups that would otherwise be overlooked, such as people living in agricultural areas.
“We don't need some 'electors telling us what's best for us.”
As I explained, my counterplan addresses this by having states nullify the votes of faithless electors.
“Three fifths compromise…'Continues to be felt today, in related court cases and laws such as my vote mattering less than a rural voter.”
That’s not what the three-fifths compromise is. The three fifths compromise was used to determine how slaves were counted as part of a state’s population. The concept of states having electoral votes based on population existed as a broader concept anyway, regardless of how slaves were counted.
“It doesn't matter if Wallace was a bad person according to some people today. What matters is that the people as a whole have their values heard.”
Wallace’s presidency would have silenced the voices of minority groups through racist policies, such as supporting segregation. If you want everyone to have their voices heard, you should be glad that the electoral college harmed Wallace’s campaign.
“Give the people power, and society always get's what they deserve”
The minority groups that Wallace would have harmed did not deserve to have him ruling over them and implementing racist policies.
“What chance do we have at getting away from Bipartisen politics, when we only have two major parties, and they keep moving the voting districts around so only two parties are an option?”
As shown with George Wallace, the electoral college and its preservation of major parties is a necessary measure to prevent fringe, extremist candidates from taking power. The United States would have been worse off with Wallace in power, as he would have put more institutional power behind segregation and racist policies. Hence, bipartisan politics and the electoral college are a positive, not a negative.
RESPONSES
As Savant says, we've changed the constitution before.
If it's unwanted, it won't pass.
And on the off chance it passes, if it's unwanted, it'll be passed back.
High barrier to change the law just means most of the people need be on board.
And with the people having a more direct vote, the people will be able to enforce their will for such.
PROPORTIONAL ELECTOR ALLOCATION
Alright, I understand it better now.
But it still doesn't solve the issue of some states peoples having more or less of a vote than others.
In round 1 Savant says,
"The description requires that I must defend “an electoral college in some form.”
They also say,
"Over four-fifths of the US population resides in urban areas. Rural areas have often been written off by the media as irrelevant “fly-over country,” but they are granted greater representation by the electoral college than they would have under a popular vote system. Under a direct voting system, politicians could ignore the needs of rural, agricultural communities and prioritize urban interests, leading to policies that harm the very people who feed Americans."
How does their PROPORTIONAL ELECTOR ALLOCATION empower the rural areas?
There's cities in all states, even some rural areas.
It's either going to result in the cities in the states sweeping most of the electoral votes anyhow. As each rural area is going to likely have 'some city.
Or if the state divides itself into districts 'specifically for underpopulated rural areas, give the rural areas absurdly even more power.
"Defeat in detail, or divide and conquer, is a military tactic of bringing a large portion of one's own force to bear on small enemy units in sequence, rather than engaging the bulk of the enemy force all at once. This exposes one's own units to many small risks but allows for the eventual destruction of an entire enemy force."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_in_detail
I argue Savant's solution just results in a bunch of sidestepping and maneuvers, gerrymandering and district setting.
The clear and 'simple solution is one person one vote.
That's fair, clear, and gives 'every person a voice on the national stage. As much of America as they statistically represent, they are voted.
No in between electors or tricks about it.
FRAMEWORK
I dispute there is any 'one framework.
The framework I'm mainly working on is the American appreciation of Democracy, Representation, and Knowledge.
We included votes when we founded the nation because we 'wanted freedom,
We had electors because people were often busy or isolated, didn't have the tech to know or communicate all the time. Now we do.
We've 'consistently fought social movements for giving people the right to vote, for the people's ability to not be obstructed by electors.
This seems a pretty direct voting system the more we develop it, why not go all in?
BURDENS
I dispute that failing any of 'their three tests should be understood as agreement.
Why must Savant take silence as consent?
I take these as points of discussion, not tests of qualification.
STABILITY
'Is a point of interest, but America could be 'stable while a small upper class of elite political parties control the votes, the money, and society.
Societies should be controlled by those who live in it.
I'm not even asking that much, just that this 'one official, in charge of 'all the states, get's elected by the people as a whole.
States are 'still going to have their local government.
ACCOMODATIONS OF DIVERSE FACTORS
I repeat my arguments of either Overrepresentation or Defeat in Detail,
Either absurd gerrymander districts are made that give absurdly more voting power to some Americans than others, or
"Defeat in detail, or divide and conquer, is a military tactic of bringing a large portion of one's own force to bear on small enemy units in sequence, rather than engaging the bulk of the enemy force all at once. This exposes one's own units to many small risks but allows for the eventual destruction of an entire enemy force."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_in_detail
Savant's electoral methods and divisions allows every small group to be defeated twice, once locally in state, then on the national stage.
To have their voice heard, there is only the direct vote.
MODERATE POLITICAL MEASURES
The parties are 'always passing laws such as having to pass a test, (Jim Crow)
Or Gerrymandering districts (Modern lawmakers)
Even Savants suggestion of ELECTORAL ALLOCATION can be claimed to be partisan.
You know what 'isn't partisan?
The American people as a whole. No restrictions, no parties in between our votes.
Just one person, one vote.
DECENTRALIZED
What's more decentralized than one person one vote, none of this giving more votes to one person than another.
None of this your vote won't get counted in the electoral system because your neighbors outnumber you.
Decentralized is one person, one vote.
Let the states regulate their local counts, we don't need the feds in 'every state controlling it all. So 'long as the states follow one person, one vote.
MINORITY
If one person in a thousand wants pineapple on the pizza, we don't need pineapple on 'every pizza, just 1/1000 of the pizza ordered.
That's their needs met.
Give them 'more power, and you get some absurd 100th of the pizza with pineapple.
RECOUNT
Why must a nationwide recount take place,
If a state has 10 electoral votes,
If a state has a million people,
Same difference, even in a direct vote, you'd still be able to just ask for a recount in a single state.
Because 'again, I've not argued for the feds to be a single amorphous blob controlling voting, just that we have direct voting, the states can still handle it.
States I'm sure are still going to have sperate districts for voting and counting, it's just that in the 'end, it will be one person, one vote.
My Earlier Rebuttals
There's balance between factions at the state level and their representatives, I'm not asking for direct votes for 'every official. Just this 'one over us all.
Locally, there are still going to be winner take all's.
The only way people get their voice heard, is a single nation wide direct vote.
One person, one vote.
3/5ths Compromise
Effected later laws, and as we see some Americans get more votes than others, we see how our system devalues and disfranchises portions of the population, just based on where they live geographically.
"Contemporary Relevance:
1. Voting Rights and Gerrymandering:
The 3/5ths Compromise serves as a historical benchmark for understanding the trajectory of voting rights in the United States and the ongoing struggle for inclusive and equal access to the ballot box. The disproportionate representation and political power allotted to slaveholding states perpetuated systemic disenfranchisement of African Americans throughout history. Even today, allegations of voter suppression and racially motivated gerrymandering persist, necessitating continued efforts to safeguard and expand democratic participation.
2. Equality and Civil Rights:
The 3/5ths Compromise highlights the battle for equality and civil rights in America, transcending its original context to inspire important social movements. The Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century echoed the struggles of marginalized communities, challenging the systemic racism embedded within the country’s legal and social structures. By recognizing the enduring impact of the 3/5ths Compromise, society remains vigilant in working towards dismantling structural inequalities, promoting inclusivity, and advancing civil rights for all."
https://constitution.laws.com/three-fifths-compromise
WALLACE
Supporting Segregation doesn't 'silence people, it just allows people to not be forced to amalgamate.
People would still have the ability to speak out against segregation, the American Right to Free Speech.
People would still have ended up being 'able to amalgamate.
But they would not have been 'forced to amalgamate.
Not 'everyone 'wants to.
Take Ireland and the UK.
The people as a whole would have gotten what they asked for 'if Wallace had enough support to win.
Which he 'didn't.
Even by direct voting, he wouldn't have won.
What 'matters is that our current system forces us under the thumbs of this two party system we have. As 'they elect the candidates that 'they like best. Giving us little to no option of one of our own choosing.
