Alan Keyes
Can the people regain the power to elect the president?
Americans could use the method the Founders gave them, if they chose
By Alan Keyes
[Note to the reader: In my Daily Caller column last week, I promised to use this column to review the approach to presidential elections that rejects the elitist faction's sham "two party system." I have posted an article on my blog on the purpose of the "Electoral College." Reading it at some time, before or after reading this column, will be of use.]
Most American voters are aware of something we call the Electoral College. They know that it will meet sometime after the General Election in November. They may even understand that, on account of the U.S. Constitution, a distinction is made between the president-elect and the president actually elected. But in their minds it is a distinction without a difference.
They see no point in it. Indeed, they have been encouraged to believe it has no purpose. They are not encouraged to consider the possibility that failure to respect its purpose has everything to do with the obdurate disregard for their concerns being shown by elected officials who are supposed to represent them in Washington, D.C.
Elections occur – but on a slew of vital issues, the U.S. government's course remains substantially unaffected. The people's livelihoods, moral and religious sensibilities, and even their personal safety and security are all increasingly damaged or under threat, but despite institutions meant to assure the government's due dependence on the people's guidance, the government simply ignores them. The people are no longer being represented, despite the outward show of parties and elections. But the practice of representation is precisely what the Constitution's provisions for elections were intended to assure, particularly those for the presidential election.
Voters are no longer being represented because they have short-circuited the power of their votes through two political parties, political parties nowhere mentioned or recognized in the Constitution. These parties have, in our day, fallen under the control of an elitist faction, tacitly united by the ambition to overturn the constitutional sovereignty of the American people. This ambition is obviously adverse to the common good of the people. But in service to it, elitist faction intellectuals and media pundits have propagated the Big Lie which asserts that the U.S. Constitution entrusts the people-at-large with the constitutional power to select the president and vice president of the United States.
It's a lie because, when voters go to the polls in the November, the only candidates for office constitutionally involved in the election for president are those running to be presidential electors. When we cast what we are led to think is a vote for president, we are actually voting for candidates for elector. Yet only a few of us even know their names, and fewer still have any real knowledge of who they are.
We have been indoctrinated to believe that this ignorance doesn't matter, that it has no consequences. But what if the national government is out of control? What if the system for electing members of Congress no longer produces results that represent us? Then, by consciously reasserting our power directly to choose the presidential electors, we can lift up a tribune of the people to be our focal point as we wrest the sovereign power of government from the factious parties that are usurping it.
So when people frustrated with the continual betrayals of the GOP's elitist faction leadership ask me whom they should vote for, I have for years advised them to focus on the electors. Discard the elitist faction sham. Focus on deliberately choosing the right individuals to wield the power that, in the first instance, can actually elect the president, according to the Constitution.
"How can this be done?" they ask. Though the answer is easy, implementing it will be as hard as breaking the habit of a lifetime. The biggest hurdle is to get started; to summon and sustain the determination to do what's necessary. Once that's surmounted, the actions involved depend on the rules that govern access to the ballot in your state:
A. In some states it is still possible to field a slate of candidates under the rubric of "favorite son/daughter" candidates, but who are in fact committed to a common platform for the nation, not to any particular national candidate. There are requirements (fees that must be paid, a certain number of signatures that must be gathered in a prescribed manner), but with planning, and by making good use of the powerful networking tools now available through the Internet, citizens willing to invest their time and energy, and contribute their "widow's mite" to a common fund, can and will meet these requirements, as they do in many states that allow ballot initiatives.
B. In your state, some party or parties not controlled by the elitist faction may already have access to a line on the ballot. As you devise the platform that will act as your instructions to your electors in their search for a choice for president that truly represents you, reach out and seek the cooperation of such a party. Make sure they understand that they are joining to form a coalition of slates in states throughout the country committed to no national candidate, but pledged to consult together and vote for the most qualified person they can find whose citizen record (in or outside of elective or other government office) consistently indicates that they can be trusted to implement the agreed upon platform.
C. Identify better-known people in your state and throughout the country who seem likely to support the agreed-upon platform; ask for them to come into your state to campaign for the slate you have put together. As these people emerge and move about the country, they self-identify as people who should be considered for selection to the offices the electors are empowered to fill. But instead of promoting themselves with narcissistic demagoguery, they will be proving themselves by promoting the platform/standard you, the grassroots voters, have raised to serve and conserve the common good of the nation.
Some people will recognize this as the paradigm that was once taken for granted in the meaning of the term "political party." But especially in our presidential races, the elitist faction's de facto usurpation of the voters' direct selection of the presidential electors has effectively abandoned it. It is up to the people themselves to restore it. If voters continue their addiction to the elitist faction sham, it will destroy our character as a free people. Has it already done so? The people themselves must answer.
March 28, 2016
[Note to the reader: In my Daily Caller column last week, I promised to use this column to review the approach to presidential elections that rejects the elitist faction's sham "two party system." I have posted an article on my blog on the purpose of the "Electoral College." Reading it at some time, before or after reading this column, will be of use.]
Most American voters are aware of something we call the Electoral College. They know that it will meet sometime after the General Election in November. They may even understand that, on account of the U.S. Constitution, a distinction is made between the president-elect and the president actually elected. But in their minds it is a distinction without a difference.
They see no point in it. Indeed, they have been encouraged to believe it has no purpose. They are not encouraged to consider the possibility that failure to respect its purpose has everything to do with the obdurate disregard for their concerns being shown by elected officials who are supposed to represent them in Washington, D.C.
Elections occur – but on a slew of vital issues, the U.S. government's course remains substantially unaffected. The people's livelihoods, moral and religious sensibilities, and even their personal safety and security are all increasingly damaged or under threat, but despite institutions meant to assure the government's due dependence on the people's guidance, the government simply ignores them. The people are no longer being represented, despite the outward show of parties and elections. But the practice of representation is precisely what the Constitution's provisions for elections were intended to assure, particularly those for the presidential election.
Voters are no longer being represented because they have short-circuited the power of their votes through two political parties, political parties nowhere mentioned or recognized in the Constitution. These parties have, in our day, fallen under the control of an elitist faction, tacitly united by the ambition to overturn the constitutional sovereignty of the American people. This ambition is obviously adverse to the common good of the people. But in service to it, elitist faction intellectuals and media pundits have propagated the Big Lie which asserts that the U.S. Constitution entrusts the people-at-large with the constitutional power to select the president and vice president of the United States.
It's a lie because, when voters go to the polls in the November, the only candidates for office constitutionally involved in the election for president are those running to be presidential electors. When we cast what we are led to think is a vote for president, we are actually voting for candidates for elector. Yet only a few of us even know their names, and fewer still have any real knowledge of who they are.
We have been indoctrinated to believe that this ignorance doesn't matter, that it has no consequences. But what if the national government is out of control? What if the system for electing members of Congress no longer produces results that represent us? Then, by consciously reasserting our power directly to choose the presidential electors, we can lift up a tribune of the people to be our focal point as we wrest the sovereign power of government from the factious parties that are usurping it.
So when people frustrated with the continual betrayals of the GOP's elitist faction leadership ask me whom they should vote for, I have for years advised them to focus on the electors. Discard the elitist faction sham. Focus on deliberately choosing the right individuals to wield the power that, in the first instance, can actually elect the president, according to the Constitution.
"How can this be done?" they ask. Though the answer is easy, implementing it will be as hard as breaking the habit of a lifetime. The biggest hurdle is to get started; to summon and sustain the determination to do what's necessary. Once that's surmounted, the actions involved depend on the rules that govern access to the ballot in your state:
A. In some states it is still possible to field a slate of candidates under the rubric of "favorite son/daughter" candidates, but who are in fact committed to a common platform for the nation, not to any particular national candidate. There are requirements (fees that must be paid, a certain number of signatures that must be gathered in a prescribed manner), but with planning, and by making good use of the powerful networking tools now available through the Internet, citizens willing to invest their time and energy, and contribute their "widow's mite" to a common fund, can and will meet these requirements, as they do in many states that allow ballot initiatives.
B. In your state, some party or parties not controlled by the elitist faction may already have access to a line on the ballot. As you devise the platform that will act as your instructions to your electors in their search for a choice for president that truly represents you, reach out and seek the cooperation of such a party. Make sure they understand that they are joining to form a coalition of slates in states throughout the country committed to no national candidate, but pledged to consult together and vote for the most qualified person they can find whose citizen record (in or outside of elective or other government office) consistently indicates that they can be trusted to implement the agreed upon platform.
C. Identify better-known people in your state and throughout the country who seem likely to support the agreed-upon platform; ask for them to come into your state to campaign for the slate you have put together. As these people emerge and move about the country, they self-identify as people who should be considered for selection to the offices the electors are empowered to fill. But instead of promoting themselves with narcissistic demagoguery, they will be proving themselves by promoting the platform/standard you, the grassroots voters, have raised to serve and conserve the common good of the nation.
Some people will recognize this as the paradigm that was once taken for granted in the meaning of the term "political party." But especially in our presidential races, the elitist faction's de facto usurpation of the voters' direct selection of the presidential electors has effectively abandoned it. It is up to the people themselves to restore it. If voters continue their addiction to the elitist faction sham, it will destroy our character as a free people. Has it already done so? The people themselves must answer.
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
