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Decide Elections by Popular Vote

Editor, News-Register:

In a true democracy: it is one 18 year-old person, one vote. Period.

According to the one vote per person principle of true democracy the democrats would have won every presidential election since 1988, except for 2004.

There would not have been any 2020 “Big Lie” nonsense as Hillary Clinton would have been president running for reelection, against who knows, as Trump would have been vanquished in 2016 as Hillary trounced Trump by 3 million votes that year.

President Biden humiliated Trump by annihilating him by more than 7 million votes.

The January 6 insurrection would have been beyond the pale in a true democracy. There would be no need to thwart a serious attempt to overthrow a duly elected President. The “big lie” never to be told.

Regrettably our beloved democracy has had to be an evolving enterprise. When our founding fathers–Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, et al — embraced democracy, only white landowners were allowed to vote. Article one, Section two of the Constitution (prior to the 13th, 14th,15th, and 19th amendments) declared that any person who was not free would be counted as “three-fifths of a free individual for the purposes of determining congressional representation, thus increasing the political power of slave holding states.

We have witnessed the great struggle by the ancestors of slaves to gain their full power of the voting franchise, and thereby participating in the selection of who holds power to make policy decisions for them. Now we are witnessing shameful conservative state legislatures not just erode those hard fought rights but to deny them altogether.

We have also seen the ultra-right wing Supreme Court, established by the undemocratic electoral college, achieving a 6-3 majority to oppose anything such as women, gender, civil, equal, immigrant, and environment rights.

Article II, section 1 of the Constitution establishes the Electoral College. Article V sets up the manner by which an amendment is passed. It takes a 2/3rds vote in both houses of Congress, followed by the ratification of 3/4ths of the states, to amend the Constitution (or by a Constitutional Convention, which is too risky of destroying the Constitution). The Constitution has been amended 27 times by the vote of Congress and the States.

However difficult it might be to amend the constitution, especially in our current political environment, we must try if we are ever to achieve true democracy.

All the people of the United States — not 50 separate state elections of the Electoral Colleg — must select the President and decide who controls the House and Senate, and thus the Supreme Court. It must not matter which state you live in.

All citizens must be allowed to vote, if they wish to, in order to establish a true democracy.

Bill Bryant

St. Clairsville

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