Donald Trump was right: the system is rigged. But it is rigged for the Republicans, not the Democrats, for conservatives, not progressives. And the result is the election of an extreme racist, misogynist authoritarian who may change the course of U.S. and even world history.
Belatedly we learn that Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by more than two million votes, yet Trump still won the Electoral College. The public burst into an uproar in 2000 when Gore beat Bush by 550,000 votes but lost the Electoral vote. This time the public, the Clinton campaign and the press are quiet. We are glad to see Jill Stein taking the lead in contesting the vote in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Sebenarnya sistem Kolej Pilihan Raya dicipta oleh pemegang hamba, dan kekal tidak demokratik dan perkauman, dan berat sebelah kepada Republikan. Obama menunjukkan bahawa sistem itu boleh diatasi dan malah beralih kepada kelebihan kita, tetapi kerugian Clinton dan Gore menunjukkan ia adalah pendakian yang menanjak.
Kolej Pilihan Raya yang Rasis dan Tidak Demokrasi
Pilihan raya 2016 hanyalah kali keempat dalam sejarah AS bahawa calon presiden kehilangan undi popular tetapi memenangi Kolej Pilihan Raya, dan dengan itu jawatan presiden. Dan margin kemenangan Clinton lebih daripada dua juta undi setakat ini adalah yang terbesar daripada mana-mana calon "kalah".
Why is it that, in the 21st century, the Electoral College keeps trumping the popular vote on behalf of Republicans? The pro-Republican bias of the Electoral College derives from two main dynamics: it over-weights the impact of mostly conservative voters in small population states and it negates entirely the mostly progressive votes of nearly half of African American voters, more than half of Native American voters and a major swath of Latino voters.
Selama beberapa dekad sekarang, dengan beberapa pengecualian, Republikan telah menguasai kawasan luar bandar, bandar kecil dan negeri berpenduduk kecil, dan Demokrat menguasai bandar besar dan kebanyakan negeri penduduk besar.
Nah, peraturan Kolej Pilihan Raya memberi sebanyak tiga kali lebih berat kepada Republikan yang kebanyakannya konservatif dan kulit putih di negeri luar bandar berbanding negeri yang mempunyai populasi Demokrat yang besar, pelbagai kaum dan majoriti.
This is because even the tiniest state has a minimum of 3 Electoral College votes, based on the rule that each state is allocated Electors based on the size of its congressional delegation (Senators plus Representatives). The Constitution provides that each state has a minimum of two Senators and one member of the House of Representatives, even if its total population is less than a single congressional district in a large state. (There are approximately 710,767 people in an average congressional district.)
Sebagai contoh, tahun ini hanya lebih 245,000 orang mengundi di Wyoming namun ia mempunyai tiga undian Kolej Pilihan Raya: satu untuk setiap 82,000 atau lebih pengundi. Sebagai perbandingan tahun ini lebih daripada 12 juta orang mengundi di California yang mempunyai 55 undi Pilihan Raya. Jadi California mempunyai satu undi Electoral untuk setiap 218,000 pengundi. Oleh itu, seorang pengundi di Wyoming membawa hampir tiga kali berat Pilihan Raya seorang pengundi California. Malah kerana setiap negeri mempunyai dua senator, peraturan umum ialah semakin tinggi penduduk negeri itu, semakin kurang kesan yang dibawa oleh setiap pengundi di negeri itu di Kolej Pilihan Raya.
And, since the Republicans carry all the small population states except Rhode Island and Washington DC (which also gets 3 Electoral votes), this rule strongly favors them. This year the Electoral outcome was able to reverse Clinton’s large popular vote margin because, for the first time in decades, the Republicans carried the large population states of Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan, in addition to Texas.
Meniadakan Undi Hitam Selatan
Sistem Kolej Pilihan Raya juga memastikan, malah memerlukan, memandangkan polarisasi pengundian kaum yang bersejarah, kira-kira separuh daripada semua pengundi kulit berwarna dipinggirkan atau diabaikan sama sekali.
Approximately 55 percent of all Blacks live in the southern states, and for decades they have voted about 90 percent Democratic in the presidential races. However, the pattern since 1960 is that white Republican voters defeat them in every southern and border state except Maryland and Virginia, and (in 2008) North Carolina. While whites voted 58 percent for Trump nationally in 2016, southern whites gave him over 70 percent of their votes. The white vote has been approximately the same since 1980.
Thus all Southern Electoral College votes, except those of Maryland and Virginia, went to Trump and the votes of almost half of African American voters basically do not count, according to the College rules.
For example, Blacks constitute about 36 percent of the Mississippi electorate, the highest Black voter percentage in any state in the country. About 90 percent voted for Clinton. But whites are 64 percent of the state’s voters, and about 90 percent chose Trump. Trump therefore handily won 58 percent of the state’s total vote and all of its Electoral College votes.
In 2016, as for decades, the Electoral College result was the same as if Blacks in all the southern states except Virginia and Maryland had not voted at all. Similarly negated were the votes of millions of Native American and Latino voters who live in overwhelmingly white Republican states like Arizona, Nevada, Okla- homa, Utah, the Dakotas, Montana and Texas. Further, the peoples of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam—territories ruled by the U.S.—get no Electoral College votes at all. The tyranny of the white, conservative majority prevails.
Thus, the Electoral College system violates the principle of one person, one vote, drastically undermines the impact of the Black vote and gives the Republicans a major advantage in presidential contests. Its abolition should be a key part of the pro- gressive agenda.
Asal-usul Pemegang Hamba Kolej Pilihan Raya
Bapa Pengasas, yang diketuai oleh pemegang hamba seperti George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison dan James Monroe, mencipta Electoral College untuk memenuhi kepentingan mereka.
They codified the notorious idea that slaves were non-humans, and thus deserving of no constitutional or human rights. The one exception to this rule was the constitutional provision that slaves were to be counted as three-fifths of a person, solely for the purpose of determining how many congressional representatives each state would be allotted. Thus, even though slaves had no right to vote, the three-fifths rule vastly increased the slave states’ power in the House of Representatives and therefore Congress.
Kolej Pilihan Raya, di mana setiap negeri menerima bilangan Pemilih yang sama dengan delegasi kongres mereka, telah dicipta sebagai cara institusi untuk memindahkan peruntukan kongres pro-perhambaan yang sama kepada penentuan jawatan presiden. Pemegang hamba memegang jawatan presiden selama 50 daripada 72 tahun sebelum Abraham Lincoln, yang dipilih pada 1860, menjadi presiden AS pertama yang menentang perluasan perhambaan. Selatan, yang biasa menggunakan kuasa politik melalui penghitungan selektif hamba, segera berpisah.
Sejak berakhirnya perhambaan, Kolej Pilihan Raya kekal sebagai instrumen perkauman dan konservatif. Ia telah memberikan Republikan permulaan yang cemerlang untuk memenangi jawatan presiden sejak orang Selatan reaksioner bertukar secara besar-besaran daripada Parti Demokrat kepada Parti Republikan sebagai protes terhadap perundangan hak sivil 1960-an.
The system is rigged and changing the system would take a constitutional amendment approved by three-fourths of the states. Consequently we are in an uphill battle that, if we master Electoral College strategy the way Obama did, we can win. Although the Electoral College is not on our side, history, including the rising progressive electorates, is. Let’s make Trump a one-term president
Z
Bob Wing has been a racial justice and peace activist since 1968. He was the founding editor of ColorLines majalah and Masa Perang newspaper. He is the author of Garis Pertempuran Dilukis: Neo-Secession atau Pembinaan Semula Ketiga and Notes Toward a Social Justice Electoral Strategy. Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a talk show host, writer and activist. He can be followed on Twitter, Facebook and www.billfletcherjr.com. He is the co-author, with Dr. Fernando Gapasin, of Solidarity Divided, dan pengarang They’re Bankrupting US—And Twenty Other Myths about Unions.