Be Careful Not to Interpret Too Much Into the 2016 Elections

Let the misinterpretation of election results begin!

Many of my hard core Republican friends have been ecstatic this past week.  There are feelings of vindication, and outright joy in having beaten back the dragon that was Hillary Clinton.

I chose to vote Libertarian this time around, but I have to admit a certain relief that there will not be another Clinton in the White House.  Of course, that relief is tempered with the realization that we will have Donald Trump.

If you have been listening to talk radio this week, you cannot miss the elation in the voices of the likes of Rush Limbaugh.  What is more, Limbaugh is outright proclaiming this election to be a complete repudiation of President Obama's policies and the Democrats' liberal ideology.  He is outright warning Trump not to accommodate liberals in his administration.

Surely the more extreme wing of the Republican Party, the Tea Partiers, will see it that way too.  A victory like this, where Republicans not only won the White House, but retained the House of Representatives and the Senate, will only encourage their "no compromises" attitude.  Although there is no credible threat, you can almost hear the Tea Partiers' desire to oust House Speaker Paul Ryan, who failed to adhere strictly to complete support of Trump during the campaign.

Republicans, however, need to be very careful about reading too much into this election.  To be frank, this was far from an ideological landslide.  Trump may have won a majority of Electoral College votes, but let's be clear.  Hillary won a plurality of national popular votes.  The GOP may have retained the House and Senate.  But along the way, they lost about seven seats in the House and three, possibly four, seats in the Senate.  From these numbers alone, this was certainly not an election where the Republican presidential candidate was so popular that his coat tails swept in numerous new Republican legislators.

Exit poll numbers point to this being an election where the voters, or at least those who lived in battle ground states, rejected a candidate perceived as corrupt and dishonest.

A few numbers jumped out to me from the election results that support this conclusion.  First, Trump received fewer votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012.  Second, Hillary's margins of victory with African-American, Latino, Asian and Young voters were smaller than those of Barrack Obama from 2012.  What these numbers tell me is that the voters just did not show up for Hillary the way they did for Obama in 2012.  For whatever reasons, Hillary was just not as exciting a candidate as the current President.

This is not surprising given the atmosphere of the campaign.  This was by far an extremely negative campaign.  This was true of both sides.  From the beginning of September, the Clinton camp was running television ads emphasizing Trump's negatives.  And of course, Trump's campaign mantra was "Let's jail Hillary."  There was very little on display about issues or agendas.  This was totally a personality campaign.

Such campaigns traditionally result in low turn out.  Voters hear over and over again how this candidate is the next Satan, no the other candidate is the next Satan.  Many voters get so discouraged by the choice, that they simply choose not to vote.  Those who do vote choose mainly to vote against someone, and not for their chosen candidate.  In elections like this, it is usually the last bit of bad news released before the actual election that decides the winner.  Hillary drew the short straw, as the announcement of FBI Director James Comey eleven days before the election reminded many voters of her negatives.  By time Comey sounded the all clear two days before the election, on a Sunday when most Americans were watching football, it was too late.

The 2016 election can only be seen as more of a repudiation of a bad candidate than as a triumph of any particular ideology.  Republicans would do themselves a favor if they keep this in mind.  While they are poised to control the two policy making branches of government, and may have a heavy influence on the judicial branch for years to come, a sharp turn to the right could make this victory short-lived.  The House and Senate will stand for election again in just two years.  If there is a radical ideological shift in the government that proves unpopular, the GOP could find their slim majorities erased.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.

This Election Has Shown It Is Time to Strengthen the Electoral College

Guess what.  The U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right of the people to elect their president directly.   As any middle-schooler can tell you, our system is based on a College of Electors, selected by each state, who in turn have the authority to cast the first ballot for president.  In fact, the Constitution does not even guarantee the right of the people to select their electors.

Section 1 of Article 2 of the Constitution provides, “Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors . . . .”  (Emphasis added).  Although the Electoral College has been modified from time to time through amendments to the Constitution, none of those amendments explicitly guarantees the right of the people to vote either for the president or for an elector.

Put simply, the Constitution establishes a system where each state chooses electors to send to the Electoral College.  The number of electors is equal to the number of Representative to which that state is entitled in the House of Representative, plus the number of Senators.  In addition, the District of Columbia, which is not a state and is not entitled to any representation in Congress, is provided with no more than the same number of electors as the least populous states.  The electors meet in their respective states and vote, in separate ballots, for president and vice president.  The results are transmitted to Congress.

A person must win a majority of votes from the Electoral College to be elected president or vice president.  If no candidate wins a majority of votes for president, the House of Representatives has the task of choosing the president.  But, the House votes by state.  Each state is given one vote, and the Representatives can only for one of the three top vote getters from the Electoral College.  In the Senate, if there is no Electoral College majority for vice president, Senators vote for one of the two top vote getters. 

Why did the Founding Fathers establish such a system to select the chief executive of the United States?  As with many of the structures created through the Constitution, the Electoral College was created out of a fear of concentrating too much power in one person or one group of people.  To put simply, the Founding Fathers had just fought a revolution to break away from the rule of a tyrant. 

But as John Madison noted in Federalist No. 10, tyranny could include an “overbearing majority.”  Madison warned that a group of citizens, “whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole” could unite to push “some common impulse or passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”  Madison recognized that people are fallible and selfish, and that this would cause differences of opinions and interests.  A group of people, to whom he referred as “factions,” could join together to pursue a common zeal over their particular opinion or even of a particular leader.  And thus divided into different parties, they could develop “mutual animosity” and attempt “to vex or oppress each other” rather than “to cooperate for their common good.”  Madison’s driving point was that the tyranny of a majority could work to oppress and infringe on the rights of a minority.  For these reasons, he, and other Founding Fathers, opposed pure democracy.

Instead, Madison argued for the creation of a body of people chosen by the citizens through which the views of the public could be passed.  The hope was that by choosing wise representatives, the good of the public as a whole could prevail over parochial interests and passions.  That is, Madison argued for the creation of a republic.

Yet, through the Constitution, the Founding Fathers did not create a purely parliamentarian form of government.  That is, they did not create a government where the legislature chose the person or group of people who would execute the laws.  As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 88, the Founding Fathers wanted to make the chief executive officer, that is the president, independent from the legislature.  That is, they wanted the president to be free of any taint or influence from a pre-existing body.  It was thought that if the president were chosen by Congress, the president might be tempted to suppress his duty to pursue the good of the whole to the temptation to please Congress in order to preserve his tenure in office.

Putting the two fears together, that is the fear that a majority can itself be tyrannical, and the fear that an executive who is chosen by the legislature would be dependent upon the legislature and thus sacrifice the pursuit of the common good, the Founding Fathers devised a system whereby the people would choose a group who would come together only once for the sole purpose of selecting a chief executive, and then be disbanded.  The hope was that this smaller group of people, which we call the Electoral College, would give serious deliberation to the qualities needed for leadership, and choose a wise and virtuous leader.

In that way, the Electoral College was meant to protect the new republic from the dangers of demagoguery.  That is, a charismatic person could influence the general public by inflaming passions instead of reason.  Once in power, a demagogue could then trample on the rights of the minority.

Under the system envisioned by the Founding Fathers through the Constitution, the role of the people was no to select a particular person to be their president.  Rather, they were to select a group of people wise enough to select a person to be the president.

Unfortunately, in practice this is not was happens.  Through tradition, over time, the states have mostly chosen to hold popular elections where that state’s entire delegation of Electors would go to the winner of the popular vote.  In all but Maine and Nebraska, the states have chosen a winner take all approach. That is, each candidate nominates a slate of Electors, and the winner has his or her chosen Electors named to the Electoral College.  Thus, instead of choosing a group of people, individually, to in turn select our president, we vote for the person we want to be president, and the state’s Electors go to that person.  This turns the presidential election into nothing more than fifty-one different elections.

This system, which has grown out of tradition and not out of any constitutional requirement, has some unintended consequences.  First, it makes political parties indispensable.  Second, it distorts the popular vote.

With respect to political parties, in order to win the presidency, a person must be able to garner a few hundred people who will be loyal and vote for him when the Electoral College meets.  This means that a candidate must have an organization, and it must be on a national scale.  This is why it is virtually impossible for independent or third party candidates to win the U.S. presidency.

With respect to the popular vote, each state is guaranteed at least three Electors.  But, there is no guarantee that population is evenly spread across the states.  Thus, in less populous states, like Montana and North Dakota, voters have a disproportionately large say in who will become president.  It also means that it is entirely possible for a person to receive more popular votes for president, but because those votes may be concentrated in one state, lose the Electoral College count.  This has happened three times in U.S. history.

But, there is yet a third unintended consequence.  This system as it is currently configured is more vulnerable to demagoguery.  Specifically, most people today receive their news through television.  Television is a medium that thrives on images and short messages.  To get a message across, particularly on news programs, images must elicit an emotional response and do so in a short period of time.  Thus, the ten second sound bite reigns.  Television is not a medium conducive to a reasonable deliberation of complex issues.

We see this now in news shows and political fora.  Formats are not meant to encourage an intelligent dialogue as they are to encourage shouting, loud disagreement and entertainment that targets the short attention span.  In order to prevail, a person must look good, and have a catchy slogan.

But it is this manipulation of passions and emotions that motivated the Founding Fathers to create the Electoral College in the first place.  And indeed, this 2016 election has demonstrated the very danger that gave our Founding Fathers nightmares.  Both major political parties have been manipulated by demagoguery, and thus have nominated candidates with which many in the general public are completely dissatisfied.  Name recognition and entertainment have become more important factors in selecting candidates than a serious discussion of the issues that face this country.  Thus, this year many U.S. voters are left with the choice of voting for a candidate they don’t like in order to stop a candidate they hate.

The answer to this dilemma may simply be to strengthen the Electoral College, and have it return more to the roots of what the Founding Fathers intended.  That is, the U.S. public should go back to selecting a group of people who will in turn select the president rather than voting for the president directly.

One way to strengthen the Electoral College would be to eliminate the winner take all system.  Rather than vote for a single person, and all of a state’s Electors go to that person, voters should be forced to choose the Electors directly and by name.  If a state has six Electors, then the voters in that state should select six people to attend the Electoral College.  The names of the presidential candidates themselves should not be on the ballot.

The elections should not permit voters in a single sweep to select a slate of candidates. Each candidate should be selected separately.  Moreover, the candidates for Electors should not be grouped by party or by whom they support.  Indeed, nowhere on the ballot should a political party appear.  They should be listed either randomly or alphabetically.  This would have the effect of having a voter actually research the candidates for Electors, and determine if that person would be wise enough to in turn select the president.  If a person wants to select Electors all from one party, then have that voter research and know that information before coming to the ballot box.

Moreover, election of the Electors should permit vote stacking.  That is, if a state entitled to six Electors, then each voter in that state should be entitled to six votes and use them as they please.  If one voter wants to use all six votes on a single candidate to ensure that a particular viewpoint has a seat at the table, then so be it.

Finally, the Electoral College should not be a single day event where the Electors simply cast a vote.  To the contrary, it should be a multiday affair, where each Elector has an opportunity to say either what issues they find important, what qualities in a candidate they find important, or which particular person they may want as their president.

Yes, these proposals would remove the choice of presidency one step further away from voters.  But that does not make it undemocratic.  Voters will still have choice and a say in their chief executive.  But that choice would be less likely left to the winds of passions, ignorance and demagoguery.  It would instead make the process more deliberative and serious.

By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.

Republicans Are Real Good at Blaming Everyone for Election Losses . . . But Themselves

I just heard Sean Hannity's rant from yesterday's radio show. He really loses it over the possibility that Trump will lose Utah to an independent candidate, Evan McMullin. In fact, it's been humorous to watch Trump supporters seethe in anger over conservatives who cannot in good conscience support Donald Trump. Hannity is now threatening a "reckoning" on November 9th if Trump loses the election. 

One thing that fascinates me about this particular campaign is just how early Trump set up the narrative of blame if he loses. Almost immediately after the Republican Convention Trump claimed that the election was rigged. He targeted the media. He tagged the system as corrupt. It was almost as if he knew coming out of the convention that he was going to lose, and he had to begin blaming someone, something, anything but himself, for the impending loss. 

This is set up to be the third time in a row that the Republicans will lose a national election.  And yet the GOP fails to recognize that it has become its own worst enemy. 

The 2012 election should have served as a game changer for Republicans. The exit polls showed that the Republicans lost in every ethnic group, and in big numbers, except for white men. Rationally, this should have signaled the need to change directions. 

Initially, it appeared that the Republicans were going to do just that. One of the biggest indications of a willingness to change emerged in an effort to address immigration reform in a constructive manner. Finally. 

But something happened on the way to that place. One of the more radical wings of GOP voters, Tea Partiers, discovered just how much pull they now had in the party. 

Republicans, who control a majority of state legislatures, concentrated efforts on drawing congressional district lines to ensure a majority in the House of Representatives for years to come. That is, they used the map and demographic information to concentrate the number of likely Republican voters into safe congressional districts. It's a process known as gerrymandering, which had been around almost as long as the US republic itself. By concentrating conservative voters in a single district, however, Republican state legislatures wound up giving disproportionate power to the more radical wings of GOP voters, namely the Tea Partiers.  The result was that incumbent Republican Representatives had far more to fear about a more conservative challenger in the primaries than a Democrat in the general election. 

Republican leadership then began giving in to the Tea Party more frequently. The Tea Party found it had the power to shut down the Government over a budget fight to defund Obamacare.  With its new-found power, Tea Partiers could then concentrate on defeating any common sense approach to immigration reform, by labeling the proposals "amnesty."  

Tea Partiers got drunk with the power. Any Republican who didn't subscribe to their views completely received the dreaded designation of RINO (Republican in name only).  Suddenly, Republicans known for their conservative leanings, such as Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, found that they were not conservative enough for this constituency. Indeed the hallmark of the Tea Partiers has been the refusal to compromise on any issue. 

So, instead of learning from electoral defeats, the party regressed. Its desperate efforts to cling to a majority in the House only gave power to a group of voters all too happy to alienate the rest of the country. It is this group of voters, with their no compromises attitude, that led to the nomination of Donald Trump. 

And once again, instead of being introspective and examining what is wrong with the Republican Party that it fails to attract voters on a national level, the stage is set for post-election finger-pointing.  If there is to be a "reckoning," it should not be aimed at conscientious conservatives who refuse to support a boorishly flawed candidate like Donald Trump. It should be with that wing of the party that refuses to let go of its outdated and divisive attitude, and that fails to see how its message is driving voters away. 

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr. 

If a Pollster Called Me Today

Pollster:  This is ACME Polling Company. We're conducting a poll on the presidential election in Virginia. If the election were held today, would you vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?

Me:  Well that depends. In your scenario, who was leading in the last poll out of Utah?

Pollster:  Sir, you live in Virginia. Who would you vote for?

Me:  My vote depends on two conditions: who is ahead in Utah and whether Virginia is in the margin of error. 

Pollster:  So you're undecided?

Me:  Oh no. I know exactly what I'm going to do on Election Day. It just depends on those two conditions. 

Pollster:  Are you voting for Trump?

Me:  If Evan McMullin is ahead in Utah and Virginia is in the margin of error

Pollster:  Are you voting for Clinton?

Me:  Over my dead body. 

Pollster:  So you're writing in Ewan McGregor?

Me:  I said Evan McMullin. 

Pollster:  I've never even heard of that guy. 

Me:  Not many people have. But no, if I want Evan McMullin to win, it's better that I not vote for him. 

Pollster:  I'm sorry, have you been drinking or doing drugs?  Because that will invalidate my poll results. 

Me:  No. I'm perfectly sober. You see, McMullin has no chance to win in Virginia. His best shot is to win Utah and hope that neither Clinton nor Trump get 270 votes in the Electoral College. So it's better that I not vote for him in Virginia. 

Pollster:  Then you are voting for Trump. 

Me:  Not necessarily. You see, I can't abide the man. So if I can avoid voting for that's my preference. I'm only voting for him if McMullin is ahead in Utah and Virginia is within the margin of error. 

Pollster:  So then you're voting for McGregor. 

Me:  McMullin. But no. You see my heart is with Gary Johnson. 

Pollster:  But you are using your vote to try to help Ewan McGregor to win?

Me:  Evan McMullin. Yeah, it's the best shot to defeating Trump and Hillary. 

Pollster:  With only one state?

Me:  Right. If he gets votes in the Electoral College and if no one else gets a majority of the Electoral College, then when the House votes they can choose from the top three vote getters in the Electoral College. 

Pollster:   You're joking. 

Me:  No. Read the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution. 

Pollster:  I'm sorry. I don't have a box for that. I'm putting you down as undecided. 

Me:  Well if you're going to do that, then put me down for Jill Stein. 

Pollster:  I'm not asking anymore. Goodbye.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr. 

Could the Electoral College Save Us this Year?

Any middle schooler who pays attention in civics class can tell you that here in the United States, we do not directly elect our president.  Instead, we elect people to sit in the Electoral College, and it is the Electoral College who in turn selects our president.

Our Founding Fathers actually intended for the Electoral College to be an actual group of people, who would meet after the election, deliberate and vote on who they, the electors, wanted to be president.  It was meant to protect the process from demagoguery, and the passions of the masses.

But that is not how it works today.  In every state, except Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who wins the popular vote wins that state's Electoral College delegation.  So in effect, the U.S. presidential election becomes fifty-one separate elections (although the District of Columbia is not a state, it does get to participate in the Electoral College). 

Not all of those separate elections are equal.  Each state gets that same number of electors as the number of representatives that the state has in the House of Representatives, plus two to represent the state's Senate delegation.  The District of Columbia gets three electors.  States with large House delegations get more electors.  But since each state is guaranteed at least three electors, voters in smaller states, like Utah and Wyoming, wind up with a disproportionately large say in who our next president will be.

Every four years, we hear arguments that the Electoral College distorts the popular vote.  It is anti-democratic, and as such it should be eliminated in favor of direct election of the president.  Indeed, twice in U.S. history a candidate has won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College vote.

This year, there is an outside shot that no one will win a majority of the Electoral College vote, and that an independent candidate could become our president.

The Constitution provides that a person must win a majority of the Electoral College to win the presidency.  If no one wins a majority, the choice for the next president goes to the House of Representatives.  But, the House votes by state delegation, where each state gets one vote.  And, when each state votes, they can only select a person who has won at least one Electoral college vote.

For the most part, the United States has a two party system.  That is, when a person is voting for president, they are mostly voting for a Republican or a Democrat.  As long as only the candidates from the two parties receive votes in the Electoral College, then one of them will likely win a majority.  There are scenarios where the two major party candidates can tie in the Electoral College.  But those are unlikely scenarios.

However, the equation changes if a third party candidate were to win the popular vote in just one state.  If that were to happen, then it could be possible for none of the candidates to win a majority in the Electoral College, and therefore throw the race to the House.

This year, there are a lot of voters who are dissatisfied with both nominees from the major parties.  However, because the U.S. electoral system is rigged to favor Republicans and Democrats, most voters view third party candidates as a wasted vote.  Thus, even if they do not like either candidate, they choose the candidate they dislike more, and vote for the opponent.

But things are a little different this year.  In the latest polls an independent candidate, Evan McMullin, is leading both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the popular vote in Utah.  Thus, there is a realistic chance that for the first time in over a hundred years, a candidate who is neither a Democrat nor a Republican could win a state's entire delegation to the Electoral College.  If the math were to work out in the rest of the states, there is an outside chance that neither Clinton nor Trump will win a majority of the Electoral College.

All things being equal, this would normally favor the Republican candidate.  It would mean that the vote would go to the House, with each state getting one vote.  Even if the Republicans lose the House in the congressional elections, Democrats will likely be concentrated in the populous states, such as New York, California and Pennsylvania.  As far as state delegations are concerned, the majority will likely favor Republicans.

But, whether they say it publicly or not, Republican leadership does not like Donald Trump.  He was the outsider who cashed in on his name recognition and the popular discontent with politicians in general to win the Republican nomination.  His temperament and the perception of his chauvinism has made him a damaged candidate.  Indeed, after recordings of Trump's vile comments on women were released, some Republican candidates, including Speaker Paul Ryan, have refused to campaign for him.  Republican leadership may be eager to throw Trump under the bus if the opportunity were to come and choose a different candidate.

And there is where the Electoral College could save the republic.  If Evan McMullin were to win Utah, and if neither Trump nor Hillary won the majority of the Electoral College, it could give Republican leaders a real chance to reject the two major party candidates, viewed as severely flawed by many Americans, and make a more rational choice.  One could only hope.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.

Paul Ryan Is in an Impossible Position

I feel for Paul Ryan. I really do. He's in an impossible position. He recognizes that fueled with angers voters in the Republican primaries were conned into voting for a bully and a buffoon disguised as a populist. 

Donald Trump has spent a lifetime perfecting the art of self-promotion. He tapped into the discontent of the Tea Party voters, who demand nothing but complete allegiance from their politicians, and convinced them that he was the outsider ready to take-on Hillary and the big government Democrats. Trump's boorish, crass and vulgar personality was no deterrent; it's what the Tea Party voters wanted. Cashing in on his name recognition, his reality TV experience and the wealth envy of many in the electorate,Trump was able to sweep in and steal the nomination from a GOP pool that was fractured and unfocused. 

Republican leaders knew who Trump was. But by time they realized that his candidacy was a serious threat, they failed to rally around a single, respectable candidate who could challenge him. 

When it became clear that Trump was going to win the nomination, the Republican leadership were not quick to embrace him. But faced with the prospect of a fractured party going into the convention, party leaders, like Ryan, had no choice but to accept and endorse Trump as the party's nominee. To do otherwise would endanger Republican efforts to hang on to the House and Senate. 

But Trump has never had to worry about working well with others. All of his career, he has been able to use his money to bully those around him. He never had to compromise, he never had to be considerate of others. So why should he start now?

And then the video of Trump's lewd and disgusting comments about how a star gets to treat women broke. Look, we all knew Trump was a chauvinist. We all knew Trump values women more for their looks than for their intelligence. We all knew he had no real respect for women. But as long as his chauvinism was disguised as mere comments about a woman's appearance, it could be dismissed. 

There was no disguising his comments to Billy Bish. Faced with this reprehensible attitude on how women could be treated, how he could use his celebrity status to engage in otherwise unwelcome behavior, Ryan took the steps to do the honorable thing and distance himself from Trump. 

Unfortunately, because of his position in the Republican leadership, he does not have the freedom to do what his former running mate, Mitt Romney, could do and completely denounce Trump. Like it or not, Trump is the standard bearer for the Republican Party. Realistically, Ryan cannot outwardly withdraw his endorsement of his party's nominee. 

So Ryan has done the best he could do under the circumstances and distance himself from Trump. His reward has been to find himself in the crosshairs of Trump's irresistible urge to spew his hatred through Twitter. His reward is to find the Tea Partiers hurling the worst insult they can think of at him: RINO (Republican in name only).

In truth, I pity Paul Ryan, a man who was thrust into the national spotlight only four short years ago to shore up the conservative credentials for Romney's candidacy. Now, the man once touted as a conservative policy wonk finds that he is the target of a vitriolic wing of his party's supporters which find him not conservative enough. In the end, when Trump's candidacy goes down in flames, Ryan will be made the scapegoat for daring to put civility and personal principles over voters' hatred of Hillary. 

By: William J. Kovatch, Jr. 

No One Is Entitled to Your Vote

No one is entitled to your vote. Let me repeat that. No one is entitled to your vote.

Why?  Your vote is yours. It is personal. It represents your choice; your voice. 

For millennia before the American Revolution, people struggled to have their government hear them. Even today, the majority of people in this world suffer under oppressive governments where they have no voice. Your right to have your say in how this government should be run has been hard fought and won. And you get to use it as you seem fit.

That concept seems to be under attack from many fronts this year. The attacks stem, in part, from the imperfect system we have.  Over time, the US electoral system has developed structures and rules that give the two major parties immense advantages. So it is assumed that only by voting Democrat or Republican that your vote has any chance of winning. And it is only through winning that your voice can be heard.

To be clear, your vote is an imperfect way to communicate to your government. We do not live in a pure democracy. We will in a representative republic. In our system, we elect people to represent us in making policy and legislative choices. Your vote, therefore, can be difficult for our government to interpret. Are we choosing a particular person, a political party, a particular issue?  Or are we making some other statement?

Into this system, you have people who say that if you are not voting for one of the parties with the institutional advantages, you have no chance of winning. Therefore you are throwing your vote away. Worse, they assume that the major party opponent of their chosen candidate must be defeated. So if you are not voting for their candidate, you are only allowing the other to win. It is this line of thinking that leads people to insist that one candidate or another deserves your vote. 

While a two party system ensures that one party or another controls the system to make laws and implement policies, it has major flaws. Our government addresses a large number of complex issues. In order to win the mechanisms of government in a two party system, the parties must form alliances among those various issues. One result is that some issues get drowned out.  

Another flaw stems from the way candidates for president are chosen. The primary system gives disproportionate power to the fringes of each of the major parties. It also gives an advantage to candidates who can manipulate name recognition and popularity. 

And so, many voters are left dissatisfied with the choices the major parties feed us. As we express our desire to reject both choices, we are met with the voices who insist that our vote must be used to win. Our vote must therefore be constrained to the two choices the parties gave us. 

But this view is limited and parochial. Our republic is more than merely a mechanism to institute major rule. It is designed to protect minority rights. It is a system set up to ensure that fundamental freedoms, such as speech, association and religion, are protected even if they are in the minority and unpopular. 

And it is in this system that we exercise our vote. In the privacy of the voting booth, the vote is personal. It is a reflection of our autonomy. It is a celebration of our freedom to choose. It is a memorial of those defended our democratic ideals. 

Honor those who died and sacrificed to protect this precious right. Revel in this incredible freedom. Exercise this right the way you see fit and tell your government how you think things should be run. Don't be intimidated by those who insist that their candidate is entitled to your vote. Vote your conscience and your conscience alone. 

By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.