The Founding Fathers were a talented and farsighted bunch of guys. They thrashed out a new form of government after it became clear that the Articles of Confederation weren’t working. We’ve amended the Constitution a couple of dozen times since then reflecting the growth and change in American society. There is reason to believe that more modifications may be necessary as we move towards our 300th year as a nation.

The Electoral College was put in place because the Founders were concerned that a charlatan, popular with the people but with no experience or positive agenda for the country would hoodwink the masses into voting for him (they were all “him” in those days) and win the popular vote. The fact that candidates without a majority of the popular vote can win in the Electoral College is a feature rather than a bug of the system. However, it was set up so the electors could make a conscious decision to cast their votes for the more qualified candidate instead of blindly following their State’s popular vote. The Electoral Vote Compact is made up of fifteen states and the District of Columbia. The Compact simply says that in those states that have agreed to abide by it, their electors will automatically cast their ballot for whomever has won their respective state’s popular vote. Since the Electoral College doesn’t serve the purpose the Founder’s had in mind and we seem to wrangle about it every election cycle now; it may be time to amend it out of existence and accept the popular will of the people without the additional folderol and potential drama of the Electoral College.

The make up of the Congress was clearly a compromise between the large and small states when the Constitution was first proposed. Large states had the House of Representatives where representation is based on population while the small states had the Senate where every state is equally represented with two Senators. At the time of the founding the largest state was thirteen times the size of the smallest state. Today the biggest state is seventy times the size of the smallest state. Currently nine states have 50% of the US population but only eighteen Senators while twenty-six states have roughly 20% of the entire population but have fifty-two Senators. By 2040, 70% of the population will be represented by thirty Senators while seventy Senators will represent 30% of the population. That system seems to be unsustainable to me; this may be an area where further amendments to the Constitution may be desirable to better reflect majority rule.

Partisan redistricting has drawn congressional districts that are contorted in ridiculous ways and are not compact or contiguous as to shape or form. They’re drawn that way to concentrate specific groups of people together so that the main political parties have “safe” seats, ones where their party “automatically” will win. That distorts representation in Congress and also means that those in office need not be concerned with the wishes of Independents or those of the opposite party. All that office holder now has to be concerned about is the crazies on the Left (for Democrats) or the Right (for Republicans) in a primary. It makes for more poisonous and partisan politics in Washington, D.C. promoting gridlock and a lack of progress in solving our nation’s problems. The solution is a non-partisan commission in each state tasked with redistricting adhering to the following criteria for districts: equal populations, contiguous districts with a minimum of splits in cities or other anomalies of configuration. That would mean competitive districts with more attention paid to the totality of the district, not just your partisan cronies and crazies, and more turnover in Washington, D.C. That would also have the positive outcome of facilitating more compromise and progress in Congress.

Voting is a right and an obligation of citizenship. It should be made easier not harder to do. We need more people actively involved in democracy so that we can live up to the vision of Abraham Lincoln when he said we are a government “…of the people, by the people, for the people…” We have the greatest form of government on the face of the Earth but like a garden it needs regular tending and constant loving attention if it is to continue to flourish well into the future.