I am here to take issue with statements made by Mr. Gary Morrison of Valencia regarding the Electoral College (letters, Dec. 4).
I am mystified at just how many people continue to speak of the Electoral College as if it is something that was invented by the Founding Fathers to circumvent democracy itself from the very get-go. First of all, Mr. Morrison quoted the likes of comedian (and part-time constitutional scholar) Bill Maher to back up his position in The Signal. Bill Maher… Gary, that was good, but I think you can do better. I myself would prefer that you quote George Carlin from now on when it comes to matters regarding the operational structure of our country, but back to more serious business.
By citing a violation of the “one person, one vote” rule, you’re barking up the wrong tree. That Supreme Court ruling has nothing to do with how the Electoral College works or its intent. The one-person, one-vote rule refers to the rule that one person’s voting power ought to be roughly equivalent to another person’s within the same state. The rule comes up in the context of “equal protection.” The most relevant Supreme Court case is Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964). In that case, the Court held that states need to redistrict (or “gerrymander”) in order to have state legislative districts with roughly equal populations: “The Equal Protection Clause requires substantially equal legislative representation for all citizens in a state regardless of where they reside.” By the way, gerrymandering has the potential to benefit either side, so it does not violate the concept of equal protection.
But now that you mention it, Mr. Morrison, the one-person, one-vote provision is, in essence, a state-level equivalent to the Electoral College, which is at the federal level, in that no single state should have more power than any other state when it comes to electing the president of all of the United States. In short, Gary, if we didn’t have an Electoral College there could eventually come a day when all of the political eccentrics, yahoos and nut jobs who have congregated and clustered in the two states of California and New York, by the sheer size of their populations, could easily monopolize and corner the market on who elects the president, thus leaving the remaining states without political power at the federal level. So, before we get rid of the Electoral College I suggest that we get rid of the boundaries between the states and just call this country “America.”
We’re trying to form a “more perfect” union here, not a “perfect” one — as the latter is the stuff of dreams, fantasies and fairy tales.
P.S. The 96-hour telethon that Melody Kepler referenced in the letter to which Gary Morrison was replying, which was hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and called “Thanks-a-Thon,” was 96 hours of debunked voter fraud claims, conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, as well as Mr. Lindell’s reading of his 82-page complaint to the U.S. Supreme Court, which he hadn’t filed.
Mr. Lindell, creator of Frankspeak.com, also referenced in Ms. Kepler’s brief letter, is now the subject of a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. That’s a lot of pillows. Please read Mr. Lindell’s book, “What Are The Odds — From Crack Addict to CEO,” for a deeper look into this man’s mind and life.
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
