election

445 – Importance of Voting

Election day is just one week away. I’m sure many of you, like me, are ready for this election season to be over. For more than a year we’ve been hammered, badgered, and generally harangued with the idea of how important it is to vote. However, it has been my experience that the reasons given for our participation in the election process was more about getting their candidate election, or more often preventing their opponent from winning, than what actually makes voting so important. So as the day of reckoning for this crazy election cycle approaches, let’s take some time and look at the importance of voting without all of the political party rhetoric.

411 – Electing a U.S. President

Every four years, the United States goes through the ritual of electing a President. I use the term ritual for two reasons. First, most Americans’ understanding of the election process is based in custom or rites rather than the law. Second, most of the customs Americans follow directly contradict the actual process of electing a President of the United States.

408 – Primaries, What Are They Good For?

I propose that all board elections for non-profit corporations should be run by the state at taxpayer expense. After all, we already have taxpayer funded elections for private organizations. We call them “Primaries”.

While this year’s presidential primary is pretty much a fait accompli, there are still hundreds, if not thousands of primary elections that will be held over the next few months. In some cases the race is so partisan that the primary effectively decides the race and the general election is moot.

What is the purpose of these taxpayer funded private elections? Why to limit your choices on election day of course. So why do we keep paying for someone else to take away our choices?

405 – The Real Insurrection in America

Although I’ve talked about the recent attempts to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot on the radio program, I realized I haven’t taken the time to do an in-depth article here. I apologize for taking so long to broach this extremely important topic in this venue.

Unless you’ve been hiding from everything politics in the United States, you are aware that there are actors in several states that have sued in their state courts to disqualify Donald Trump from being on their states primary election ballot for President of the United States. As of this writing, in only two states, Colorado and Maine, have those actors found some measure of success. While this case will undoubtably find its way to the Supreme Court, this truly is a state issue, even though it has national importance.

313 – We Need to Focus on State and Local Governments

Misdirection is the stock and trade of both magicians and politicians. Over the years, the American people have been conditioned to focus on Washington, D.C. as both the source of our problems and their solution. In doing so, we are allowing those in our state and local government to steal our rights and our liberties right out from under our noses.

278 – Arizona Voting Integrity Laws

There have been a lot of claims lately that all voter integrity laws from republicans are racist while all from democratic are a move toward free and fair elections. Beyond the partisan propaganda, a recent case at the Supreme Court asked the question, was Arizona’s election laws racist? Specifically does the out-of-precinct policy or ballot-collection law violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

223 – The Mode of Electing the President

While discussing the mode of electing the President of the United States in Federalist Papers #68, Alexander Hamilton said:

I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers #68
Yet a reasonable observation of the recent Presidential election shows that what we did is certainly not perfect, and could be described as far from excellent. So let’s look at how we have drifted from such an excellent process.

222 – A Repeat of the Battle Athens, TN?

Edmund Burke said “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” As I read the reports of, if not actual fraud, questionable vote counting practices, I am eerily reminded of a part of our past I’m sure most Americans would not like to repeat.