Quote from piezoe:
...The method of electing the President via the electoral College is obsolete, and allows for electing a President in contradiction to the wishes of the majority of citizens voting...
A red herring argument that's often cited. While electoral votes are not mandated to follow the popular vote, there's only been three times that a president won without winning the
nationwide popular vote.
The key to the process is that the members of the electoral college are elected by direct vote within each state
after they've declared which candidate they'd vote for. Generally speaking, the college members cast their votes according to the popular vote within their state.
But, the reason a candidate can win the nationwide popular vote while losing the electoral vote is due to the way the Constitution protects the interests of smaller states from being overrun by larger states.
The college levels the playing field for all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Without it a popular vote will always be slanted to the more populated areas over the sparsely populated ones.
...The second amendment -- woefully inadequate by modern standards and the source of endless debate and trouble -- can only have contemplated, by today's standards, rather primitive arms.
Actually, the second amendment is a codification of law that dates back to the 12th century when it comes to providing for armed militia at the state level.
It's actually the ninth amendment that enumerates the implicit individual right to bear arms for defense, hunting or sport.
The Constitution, backed by Supreme Court rulings, have held that each state may define laws and regulations regarding licensing and ownership of weapons consistent with the wishes of their residents.
The progression of weapons technology, be it an assault rifle, Tazer or some future phaser type weapon will similarly be the responsibility of the states to legislate accordingly.
...A third problem, one of greater consequence, is that the present constitution is silent with regard to a mechanism for apportioning voting districts within states to provide competitive House races. This ommission has admitted of , especially in recent years, rather ridiculous -- and very harmful-- Gerrymandering that has led to the undesirable creation of "safe House districts.".
Actually, reapportionment of congressional districts became law in '67 which requires redistricting after each census so that each area contains an approximately equal population. The Voting Rights Act made it illegal to gerrymander the district borders along racial and other minority lines.
Yes, a lot of house elections are essentially uncontested these days. Hard to say if it's due to voter apathy or because of political gerrymandering, which is somewhat different and not yet illegal.
However, you need to consider that the founding fathers split Congress in two; the House and the Senate, and gave unique powers to each, as well as different term lengths for the sole purpose of providing a check and balance between the two.
prevents meaningful election and campaign financing reform.
The first amendment is often used as an argument against it, but the most reasonable one is the unintended consequences that past attempts at reform have brought; less competitive elections, entrenchment of incumbents and discouraging grassroots efforts due to regulatory hurdles.
As with a lot of things, be careful of what you wish for because what you end up with is often nothing like what you expected.
Eventually, like a lot of things in the U.S., it gets so out of hand that you end up with a candidate like Lincoln, who bankrupted himself in the process of getting elected. Once we see a few of those people will try to put a serious effort into reform.
lobbyists whose interests often clearly conflict with the interests of a majority of citizens.
Lobbyists are hardly a new problem and much less than you're trying to make them out to be.
Madison observed and wrote about people being inclined to break off into factions in his Federalist papers.
Like he said, you can't stop them from doing it, the best you can do is limit their impact.
And, for every bad lobbyist that gets into the press there are many others who actually help the public by getting the clueless chuckleheads in Congress to make competent decisions on complex subjects that they could never hope to comprehend on their own.
The Twentieth Amendment (section 2) provides a clear solution to the problem we experienced with the Gore-Bush election in which the correct outcome was not available by January 20th.
That amendment only applies if the electoral college fails to elect a president. In the Gore-Bush race the problem wasn't with the electoral college, it was with Florida's popular vote, which was needed before you can assign their electoral votes.
The Supreme Court ultimately stepped in and ended it by stopping another recount.
