The preamble to the Constitution opens with the words: We the people.

Our nations founding began with these simple words for a reason. That reason was that our founding fathers expected us to be decision makers of our country. The United States was formed around the principle of a representative, Constitutional democracy. Yet that principle of fair governance is profoundly undermined in the United States today, and thats why Razi and I are Resolved: The Federal Election Law in the United States Should Be Significantly Reformed. Before we delve into the actual policy reform well be making today, Id like to clarify what well be dealing with, and thats the Electoral College, but more specifically, well be diving into a unique portion of the Electoral College called the Winner Take All system. What this does is take the majority of popular votes in a state and turn it into universal support of any given candidate, or in other words, if one candidate wins a plurality of votes in a state, he receives every single electoral vote from that that as if the minority didnt even exist. Id like to dive into why our election system so desperately needs reform, but before I do that, Id like to take a look back to the establishment of the Winner Take All system. In bureaucracy, its very common that something is designed purely from good intentions, and is corrupted in later years by politics and the rot of time. But was that the case for the Winner Take All practice? The sad answer is to this question is no. The truth can be found in Section 1 - Facts The fact is that the system was designed for partisan pragmatism. Again thats Fact 1: Designed for Partisan Pragmatism The founders didnt picture our nation using the Winner Take All system; they pictured and created a fair system that provided, for the time it existed, a democratic republic in the United States. But after the Civil War, disregarding the government of this nation for and by the people, partisanship destroyed a once working system. This was explained by policy analyst Devin McCarthy [ ] in late 2012 The shift to statewide winner-take-all was not done for idealistic reasons. Rather, it was the product of partisan pragmatism, as state leaders wanted to maximize support for their preferred candidate. Once some states made this calculation, others had to follow, to avoid hurting their side. James Madison's 1823 letter to George Hay, described in my earlier post, explains that few of the constitutional framers anticipated electors being chosen based on winner-take-all rules. There are a couple of key facts I would like to highlight before I move on. First, the system was not designed for the good of America, but the good of individual parties. Second, the battle for who becomes president shifted from the people to the states when the Winner Take All system was implemented. Lastly, this is not what our founders designed for our country, and neither was it what the constitution set forth for our nation. There are two direct consequences of this partisan pragmatism. Those consequences will be clarified in Section 2 - The Consequences With a Winner Take All system, peoples voices across the nation are undermined. Again thats Consequence 1: People Become Irrelevant Id like to explain this through a quote from Dr. John Koza, Professor Joseph Zimmerman and four other experts [ ] in their respective fields in 2013. State winner-take-all statutes are the reason why four out of five states and four out of five Americans are ignored in presidential elections. Under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system, voters in non-battleground states receive no attention from either political party because neither party has anything to gain or lose in the state. This Winner Take All system has directly led to four out of 5 Americans being utterly ignored in Presidential elections. In short, you have 20% chance of being counted in the election of our most

important officer. In fact, the system has become so botched; its extraordinarily possible for someone who doesnt win the popular vote to win the presidency. Again, from Koza, Zimmerman and the experts [ ] quoted earlier. Second, the current system does not reliably reflect the nationwide popular vote. The statewide winner-take-all rule makes it possible for a candidate to win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections. Because of how the Electoral College runs now, people are utterly ignored and presidents who shouldnt have won are becoming our presidents. This is, in short, a violation of the founding of our nation on the principle of We the people. Political genius Frederick Bastiat [ ] stated the eventual consequences of this mindset in his famous book The Law in the early 1850s. Heres what he said I confess that I am one of those who think that the choice, the impulse, should come from below, not from above, from the citizens, not from the legislator; and the contrary doctrine seems to me to lead to the annihilation of liberty and human dignity. The system as it is now leads to a place where human dignity and our individual liberty no longer exist. The Electoral College as it is now is a slap in the face to our Representative democracy. Lets now divide into the second consequence of this political pragmatism, which is that voters are misrepresented. Again thats Consequence 2: Voters Misrepresented The United States was once a place of freedom and democratic representation, but now, thanks to the Winner Take All system, we live in a nation where our President is not elected by the people, but by laws and rules and politicians in dusty rooms. The Fair Vote Program for a Representative Government [ ] explained this clearly. High percentages of wasted votes (that is, votes cast for candidates who do not win). Winner take-all elections frequently result in more than 50% of votes being wasted; in FPTP, more voters are represented by someone who they did not help elect than under any other system.

It is because we no longer live in a representative democracy, its because we live in a place where our interests are ignored for the sake of politics, its because We the people no longer have a say in our government that I propose the following solution Mandate 1: Abolish Winner Take All System: The winner-take-all method of apportioning electoral votes will be abolished in all forty-eight states that use it and the District of Columbia. Mandate 2: Implement Proportional Allocation: The forty-eight states and the District of Columbia will create a system of proportional allocation, where the number of electors voting for a candidate will be tied to the percentage of the popular vote that candidate received in the state. To clarify, or policy would work like this: lets say a state has ten electoral votes. One candidate wins 50% of the popular vote, one candidate wins 30% of the popular vote and one candidate wins 20% of the popular vote. Those candidates would then have five, three and two electoral votes respectively. In the status quo, one candidate would take all ten. Our policy proposal will be enacted immediately upon an affirmative ballot by Congress and the President. Dr. David Brin [ ] explained how this reform would transform presidential elections for the better in 2008 when he stated that Yes, proportional allocation of electors might increase the likelihood that minor parties will win a few, lending increased credibility to the Libertarian and Green Parties, for example. So? This need not be unfair or disruptive. Certainly no more than we saw in 2000. More voices might even turn the Electoral College into something rather interesting, representing the diverse opinions of real Americans... perhaps even something befitting the name that the Founders gave it. Instead of an embarrassing appendix, distorting the peoples' will, it could become an institution that fairly reflects our beliefs, worthy of the Constitution that created it.

Politicization has created a system in the United States that does not uphold the spirit of the Constitution or the founding principle of We the people having that final say in our governance. We left England for a reason, and we dont want Americans leaving our nation for the same reason. We live in this nation because for hundreds of years, we have been free. As Abraham Lincoln [ ] put it after the bloodiest battle of the Civil War in mid-1863 It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Today, a hundred and fifty years after those words were spoken, the government of, by and for the people, is beginning to perish. We have forgotten why we left Britain and what we fought them for. Weve forgotten why we are who we are, and its time we recalled those principles in the removal of the Winner Take All System.