Barrio,

I have wondered the same thing myself. I found an interesting article at boortz.com (a favorite website of mine) where he talks about this very topic. I pasted part of it here.

Bob

That, of course, brought us to the idea that Americans have a right to vote ... and that includes a right to vote in a presidential election. Sorry, folks .. but it just isn't so. I hate going over this again, but you can read the Constitution all you want, and you're never going to find any clause which grants a universal right to vote to American citizens. You will find a 15th Amendment where it is written that a person can't be prevented from voting because of their race, ethnicity, gender ... etc. All the 15th Amendment does is restrict the states and the federal government from turning voters away from the polls because of race, gender or religion. Nothing in the 15th Amendment says that either the states or the federal government must allow all people to vote. There are rights granted to all Americans. You can worship and express yourself as you please. Sorry .. no right to vote.

Now, as for presidential elections. Read the constitution. There is no constitutional guarantee that there will be any vote at all, let alone that everyone has the "right" to vote. The only people who have a right to vote for president under our Constitution are the electors from each state. There is no restriction placed on the states as to how these electors must be chosen. State legislatures may appoint the electors with absolutely no public vote if they so chose. Right to vote? It simply isn't there.

Now .. having covered the "right to vote" nonsense ... let's get to the point. The principal problem with the 2000 election in Florida was voter incompetence. There were thousands of voters in Florida who were so dense, so stunningly stupid that they couldn't even follow the simple instructions for filling out a punch-card ballot. Many were so void of reasoning ability that they couldn't figure out the mindlessly simple butterfly ballot. These people couldn't cope with the simple task of voting, and yet we celebrate the fact that they could have made the difference in who was in the White House on September 11th?

1) Some people don't really care that much because the government bureaucracy moves so slowly that it really doesn't matter that much who is in office.

2) Young people just don't vote.

3) Forcing people to vote is bad public policy. As you pointed out, some people just don't do their homework on the issues. An unintelligent vote is far worse than not voting at all, despite what Sean Penn says.

4) If you had a national voting holiday, I bet the turnout would decrease. I know I would be on the golf course... Seriously, though, with absentee voting and early voting in many (most) areas, inconvenience is really not a valid argument for not voting.

Article 1 of the Constitution syas that Representatives shall be chose by "the People of the several States." It doesn't specifically say each person votes, but I think it is interpreted to mean that. The 17th Amendment syas that Senators are elected by the people of their states.
Again, no direct mention that everyone has a right to vote, but it seems to be inherent in that amendment. As for resident, it doesn't say anything about the people chosing, but it does say that each state has to chose it's electors on the same day as every other state in the nation, I think implying that the electors will be chosen by the people of each state. You could derive the right to vote from that. Interesting issue.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

"Here it is difficult to vote for some. Should we have a national holiday or do we spread voting over a week or a weekend? Why do we restrict voting to just one tuesday in November?"

I don't know about other states, but here in Colorado we having early voting that begins about 2 weeks beforehand. This allows people who would not ordinarally be able to vote on election day the opportunity to vote. It also gives people a chance to avoid long lines. Then there are absentee ballots for people who are away. In this state there really is no excuse for not voting. People who don't vote are either lazy or ignorant - maybe both.

However, it could be possible that the reason so many people don't vote is because they have nobody to vote for. The major parties keep providing a choice between bad or worse and many smaller parties or independents are too far out on the fringe. I'm sure there are some well qualified people who are neither Democrat or Republican who won't run because they know they can't be elected unless they are from one of the major parties or have vast wealth. The current election process is unfair. We should not be limited to voting on the slimeballs the major parties give us. All candidates should be given equal time in the debates, in TV advertising, and in daily media coverage. Until this happens we may not see the best possible person heading our country or serving in Congress.

Don

I agree about the "implied" intent of the Constitution. It really leaves so much open to interpretation. In the Army we are often given commanders "implied" taks in an Operations Order. I also agree this is an interesting topic. Any other thoughts?

I think the electoral college is a problem when it comes presidential voting. In states that are a lock for one candidate or the other, there's very little impetus to go out and vote.

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I think you've got a decent comparison here. The point of Op Orders and, I think, of the Constitution, is to comply with the intent of the piece of paper. Unfortunately, it's sometimes difficult to ascertain the intent of the Founders. Fortunately, we have a whole branch of govt that's supposed to do that for us in the Judiciary. With Op Orders or mission plans, etc, there is frequently a statement of Commander's Intent to help direct subordinate units. The problem with Consitutional issues is that we are so far removed, and a lot of differing interpretations of the Founders intent have muddied the waters. Additionally, there is plenty of reason to argue that the Founder's intent only takes you so far, since the nature of the country is to change direction as it evolves.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

It would be constitutional for each state's legislature to choose the electors from that state, and if I remember correctly this is how it was done at first. There is no national vote for President, just local ones to decide a states electors.

I think the answer is to do away with pre-printed ballots. Every vote must be a write-in. If you don't know who you support and how to spell his or her name, you obviously don't know enough to cast an intelligent vote for that particular race.

Technically, this is how it's still done. Although we count up the national popular vote, it doesn't mean anything because it's the electors that count. There doesn't seem to be anything in the Constitution that would prohibit the States from choosing their electors however they wanted to, just so long as they do it on the day the Congress chooses (Nov 2nd). That's also why I don't understand the argument against allowing states to split their electors up by percentage of vote.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

The arguments against a state's apportioning its electoral votes according to percentages of popular vote are that doing so would be worse than the current system (either for the state or the country as a whole) not that doing so would be Unconstitutional. There is plenty of state and federal activity that is both constitutional and foolish.

I get the argument about it not working to well, but there are people who have said it would be unconstitutional, and that's the argument I don't necessarily agree with.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

there are people who have said it would be unconstitutional, and that's the argument I don't necessarily agree with.

I don't know who they are, but they're wrong, obviously. An argument can be made that apportioning votes that way actually undermines the intent of the electoral college, but it wouldn't be unconsitutional. (Violates the spirit of the law, but not the letter, perhaps.)

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I wouldn't even go that far. I think that would still be within the intent. A couple of states already apportion electoral votes. (Maine comes to mind) The intent was to let each state decide how it wanted to choose its electors. Most states have migrated to a winner-take-all format, decided by a popular vote of the whole state. That format seems to give them the most leverage with candidates. If they want to give up that leverage, though, I agree with you that the Constitution leaves it up to them.

"A couple of states already apportion electoral votes. (Maine comes to mind) The intent was to let each state decide how it wanted to choose its electors."

In Colorado this year we had a ballot question that would have changed us from winner take all to apportionment. It was defeated soundly. Wasn't the original intent of the electoral system to prevent small, but highly populated areas from exercising control over the rest of the country?

Don