The Free View-- weblog of a presidential candidate

The Free View (Old Style) - 12-20-00

-The Free View-
Issue 3
December 20, 2000
410 weeks until election day

In This Issue:

-Defection 2000
-Articles and Links
-How to Unsubscribe/Subscribe

Defection 2000
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Who Can We Blame?

The effort has been made to place the blame for our spectacularly messy election...well, somewhere. Every level of the courts has been scorned and ridiculed, from county, to state, to circuit, to State Supreme, to U.S. Supreme. The voters, the media, the Constitution, the ballot makers, the county commissions, the state commissions, the secretary of state, the Governor- the blame has shifted from player to player...and now most people have rested upon blaming either one of these characters, or all of them. But those who are really at fault have, by and large, gotten out of this mess unscathed- the lawmakers.

It's the U.S. Congress which has the final say in Presidential elections, and who set the stage upon which this drama has played out- and their failure in this is very revealing. In over 200 years, our Congress has neglected to develop a reliable framework for the election of our President. Why is anyone's guess, but I'd propose that it is because they have simply been distracted.

Some might say that Congress has wanted to avoid interfering with the intent of the Constitution's electoral framework. That would indeed be a noble goal, but unfortunately it doesn't hold true- Congress has changed the presidential election rules a number of times in history.

In the early 1800's, Congress changed the process to accommodate a Two-Party structure, by requiring that president and vice president be voted for as a ticket, and having the winning "ticket" be rewarded with both offices. It used to be that the one who got the most votes was President, and the runner-up was Vice-President. That's a huge change, one which could be said to have shackled this country with a partisan system, which at least one founding father (notably, George Washington) specifically spoke out against.

In 1876, in order to settle a highly disputed presidential election, Congress drafted legislation to set up a one-time electoral commission, which ended up choosing the president (who suffered as many claims of illegitimacy as George W. Bush will). The dispute in the election was due to voter fraud in multiple states, and as a result, multiple sets of electors were sent to Congress by a few states- including Florida, which sent three separate sets of electors in. The Electoral Commission that was set up ended up giving the Presidency (or Fraudulency, as it was called) to Rutherford Hayes with 8 votes to 7.

After another disputed election, the Kennedy-Nixon race, had stirred voter unease, Congress drafted legislation which set some guidelines for states- the main one being that they could not change the rules for counting votes after the election. And in 1975, Congress set up the Federal election Commission, which was supposed to oversee and control the financing of campaigns (and boy, did that one (not) work!).

In each of these actions, Congress has taken it upon themselves to set election rules, guidelines and laws to govern the process. In each of these instances, Congress has taken some control away from the states and the voters, in order to establish more orderly elections. And our recent Congresses have shown the same intent, with more campaign finance reform being a hot issue for both Parties for the past few years.

Despite all these questionable and problematic elections, Congress has not bothered to implement a national voting system, one which would ensure the reliable and fair election of our President. And the result is what's now known as the "Florida debacle," where county officials and state judges were forced to try and do the job that Congress hadn't. As it turns out, they couldn't do it- they could not produce a reliable and accurate vote count. Whatever anyone says about this election, you will find few who will claim that the certified Florida totals are an exact reflection of the votes cast. Even the guy who created the voting machines admitted that they are not completely reliable. As it turns out, there has been knowledge that they are unreliable all along.

This article has been hard for me to write, because the natural conclusion of it is that I think that there should be a national election system. I am opposed to almost every federal government program there is. I simply feel that most activities are not inherently federal. But, and I'll go into this more next week, I think that the Presidential election is a unique exception. I think the failure of the U.S. Congress to ensure that indeed "every vote does count" should be considered one of their biggest failures- and I lay this blame on every Congress of the past two hundred years.

Think back for a minute, to the month of TV commentary we saw after the election. Think back to how many times you heard someone say "Well, there's irregularities in every election- there's nothing we can do about that." Do you buy that? Is that a proper statement for our leaders to be making? In effect, they're saying, "Oh, sure, we know every vote doesn't count- but that's just how it is. There's nothing you can do about it."

Next week, I'll talk about the reason why Congress has failed to protect our right to elect our leaders. As I mentioned earlier, I think it's because they've been distracted. By what?

Let me put it this way: We can put a man on the moon, but we can't add up 100 million votes properly? Hmmmmm....

New Lance Article Online- The Case Against Schools --------------------------------------------------

The reason this newsletter is a day late is because I got inspired to write a new article, and I wanted to finish it so I could share it with you. It's called "'Boston Public': The Case Against Schools", and you can read it right here: http://futuresolutions.org/futsols/freeschool/bp/

This article serves as a complement to my previous writings on The Free School on The Internet. I had already written why classrooms prevent ideal learning, and this new piece provides good examples why the school environment is a bad place for students to be, and not just for academic reasons.

Articles and Links
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I'm taking the easy way out with this week's links; I'll try to make up for it with really good ones next week!

A Layman's Guide to the Supreme Court Decision in Bush vs. Gore
http://www.michaelmoore.com/2000_12_15.html
This is a biting commentary on the decision that elected our President.

Bush vs. Gore Supreme Court Opinion http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supremecourt/00-949_dec12.fdf

U.S. Constitution Online
http://usconstitution.net

Thanks for reading. See you next week!

Be Well, Be Free,
Lance Brown Candidate for President - Year 2008
http://freedom2008.com