Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Election

 
The voting is over, but God only knows when the results will be final. Not a big surprise, but not what I wanted.

National elections are huge cumbersome things, and it's a wonder they work at all.  Holding a presidential election is like trying to put an inflated balloon into a coke bottle while wearing oven mitts and balancing on a surf board.  Every state has its own set of rules and procedures, and that fact alone almost guarantees that someone is going to be sure they are being cheated and head screaming to the courts.

If that wasn't enough, every four years one side or the other calls for the abolition of the Electoral College. 

In some ways I can see their point - it doesn't seem fair that the vote of some riverboat guide in Montana would effectively have seven or eight times the weight of the vote of a music teacher from Brooklyn, but it has to in order for everyone in the USA to have their say.  Without the Electoral College, all presidential elections would be determined by New York and California.  All those of us in between could do would be stand by and watch.  

Yes, our electoral system is a confusing mess and it doesn't always give the results we want - there's the fact that approximately half the votes in any election are cast by people of below-average intelligence - but it is the best system anywhere in the world.

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