Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.     

      - Marcus Tullius Cicero

People who go out and vote on election day are under the assumption that they are voting outright for a president or vice president; in fact, they are voting for a number of electors(either Republican electors or Democratic electors) who are authorized by the Constitution(Article 2 Section 1) to cast ballots for the president and vice president.These ambiguous men/women are called the Electoral College. At a campaign held at the state's party convention,the potential electors pleads their case for an electoral seat.The prerequisites for electoral voter is succinctly stated in Article II Section 1 Clause 2 of the Constitution: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.  Electors are assigned to the fifty states according to the size of the state's delegation. For instance, New Hampshire has 2 senators and 2 members in the house, giving them four electors. While, California has fifty-three representatives and 2 senators, giving them fifty-five electors.The number of electoral votes is adjusted after each census to reflect changes in state populations. States that have gained more population than they average can be given more votes and states that have lost population or failed to gain as much as most states can lose votes--Ohio and New York have both lost electoral votes. As of right now, the Electoral College includes five hundred thirty-eight electors, five hundred thirty-five for the total number of congressional members and three who represent Washington, D.C,per the 23 amendment, which states that permits citizens in the District of Columbia can vote for Electors for President and Vice President. The amendment was proposed by Congress on June 17, 1960, and ratified by the states on March 29, 1961. 

                                                                                              Now I know what your thinking..."A vote for the candidates for President and Vice-President named on the ballot is a vote for the electors" this is exactly the case for 48 states that operate under what is known as the "winner-take-all system." It refers to the practice of awarding all of a states electoral votes or delegates,in the case of primaries, to the one candidate who receives the most popular votes. In most cases, electors cast their votes for the candidate who has acquired the most votes in a certain state. In special cases,however, there have been times when electors have voted conversely to the people's decision, which upholds all legality. But, if you do vote against your party, you will most likely have to relinquish your position as elector and you may also have to pay a reparation. These seemingly seditious creatures are known as faithless voters. Some states have gone as far as to enact laws based on these egregious acts of treason(insert acerbic comment here). For example, New Mexico has made it a fourth degree felony to engage in faithless voting. In Maine and Nebraska operate of a district system, In these states, two electors' votes are made based on the candidate who received the most votes statewide. The remaining electoral votes go by congressional districts, awarding the vote to the candidate who received the most votes in each district.

                                   The electors cast their ballots for the president one month after the popular election in November(yes there are two elections). Almost always, the electors cast their ballots for the candidates favored by the majority of the voters. If there are are more than two major candidates running for president and no ones wins a majority (more than 50 percent) of the electoral ballots, the Constitution provides that the election be decided by a special vote in the House of Representatives. The candidate who wins a majority of the House vote is then elected president. The electoral system was created because of, in my opinion, chattel slavery. Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed a direct national election of the president but James Madisons' phlegmatic rebuttal on July 19th, stated, "The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes." The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty." In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. Virginia at the time hit the jackpot as the big winner with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win in the first round. In examining the 1800 census, one would realize that Wilson's free state of Pennsylvania had ten percent more freedman than Virginia, but received twenty percent more electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. So in layperson's terms: lose a slave lose an electoral vote!

                    The origins of this attenuated voting system is a sustained demonstration of subjugation, provocation,dehumanization, and colonization. Today, we let the surreptitious agenda of the fraudulent two party system demarcate us with cleverly disguised propaganda that engender fatuous dogma's and perversions of the truth. Why entertain there spurious theories or participate in the continuation of world-wide megalomania? Be free my brothers and sisters, be free!

Peace and Love,

  Justin A. Horne