A Third Party President
And The Electoral College

The Electoral College Would Have
Finally Been Exposed For What It Is
By The Only Person In America
Who Could Have Won The Popular Vote
For President Of The United States
While Running On A Third Party Ticket

by Mark R. Elsis, Lovearth.net, December 29, 2001

It has now been more then two years since the untimely death of the only person who could have run on a Third Party ticket for the Presidency of the United States, and won the popular vote.

If he had decided for whatever reasons to run in the 2000 presidential race against Gore and Bush, every woman, minority and youth would have come out and voted like never before, just for him. The voter turnout would have been at least 20% higher then the measly 51% of Americans who did turn out to vote for President in 2000. He probably would have received around 35% of the vote. Both Gore and Bush would have received about 30% each and the remaining 5% would have gone to Ralph Nader and the other third parties candidates.

His winning the popular vote by 5%, almost 7 million votes, would not however have won him the Presidency of the United States. Why, because neither he nor Gore or Bush would not have won enough states to gather a majority, the 270 votes out of the 538 Electoral College votes that are needed to win.

If this would have happened, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution provides for the Presidential election to be decided by the House of Representatives. The House would select the President by majority vote, choosing from the three candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. The vote would be taken by State, with each State delegation having one vote. If no Vice Presidential candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the Senate would select the Vice President by majority vote, with each Senator choosing from the two candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes.

In the House, 433 out of 435 members are Democrats and Republicans, in the Senate, at election time it was 100 out of 100, it is now 99 out of 100. Since the Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate at election time, Bush would have won this vote and became President, even though he could have come in third place in the popular vote, losing by almost 7 million votes. If the House and the Senate were controlled by the Democrats at the time of the election, Gore would have won, even though he could have come in third place and lost by 7 almost million votes. If neither Party controlled both Houses, it would have been a real bitter dogfight between Gore and Bush.

Finally, this would have exposed this clever antique law of the founding fathers, the Electoral College, for what it really is. Quite interestingly, I have never heard any political pundit, left or right, even once talk about the Electoral College regarding a Third Party Presidency. I thought for sure someone somewhere would have said something about this because of the hotly disputed results of the 2000 Presidential election made the Electoral College a household word.

The Electoral College law is kept in place by the oligarchy as the final insurmountable hurdle, in a long row of hurdles, so any Third Party candidate running for the Presidency, even if he wins by almost 7 million votes, can never become President. The Electoral College takes this power away from the American people by taking their votes away. It makes it nearly impossible for the American people to ever elect a Third Party candidate to be President of the United States.

There are only 3 ways a Third Party candidate can ever become President. The first way is to somehow miraculously obtain the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win. In a 3-way race with the billions of dollars these 2 corporately backed entrenched Parties now receive; this would truly be a miracle. If a Third Party candidate was ever a serious threat to the status quo, you know the corporations would give carte blanche to the 2 Parties so either could win. But if somehow a Third Party candidate did win enough States to capture 270 Electoral College votes, who knows how many of the 270 electors would actually vote for this candidate to be President? There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law requiring electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote in their States.

The second way is for all Third Parties to unite together under one Party, perhaps the Green Party. Then, by working unbelievably hard and smartly using the Internet in helping to connect together, maybe within the next 25 years they could gain the majority of seats, ( 146 out of 435 assuming there are 3 Parties ) in the House of Representatives. If they then had to vote in a 3-way race where no one obtained the 270 Electoral College votes, they could possibly win.

The third way would probably have happened soon after his winning the popular vote by almost 7 million votes, and still not becoming President. Learning the truth about the Electoral College would have started people to strongly protest this injustice and rebel to change this antique law. It would have finally sparked a populist progressive revolution in this country over the all important issue of having your vote count and that the winner of the popular vote is elected the President. It is about us being allowed to choose our President, ourselves.

By the way, there has only been one Third Party President in the history of the United States. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln won with a Party that was only 8 years old, the Republican Party. He also was the only President elected while receiving less than 40% of the popular vote -- he recieved 39.82%.

Now knowing these facts, you then of course have to ask yourself -- "Who had the most to gain in the untimely death of the only person in America who could have run on a Third Party ticket and won the popular vote for President?"

Bless you John F. Kennedy Jr.

Learn More:

A Procedural Guide To The Electoral College
Prepared by The Office of the Federal Register http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/proced.html

The Electoral College: Then, Now, And Tomorrow http://www.wikman.com/eric/electoralcollege.html

How The Electoral College Works
http://www.fec.gov/pages/ecworks.htm

2000 Official Presidential General Election Results http://fecweb1.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm

United States Presidential Elections
http://tinyurl.com/tizz