It's a Republic, Not a Democracy

If you grew up consuming education in the United States, I'm sure at some point you heard some smarty pants correct another student who erroneously referred to our nation as a democracy.  The smarty pants was correct.  You don't vote for a president, rather, technically you are indicating your preference to the state you live in about how you would like your state's electoral votes to be cast.  Recently, Shannon Manning commented...

One of the more interesting interpretations of the purpose of the electoral college I've encountered, based on close reading of the text of the Constitution, is that the President is not elected to represent the people to the federal government - he is elected to represent the Union, or the collection of states that constitute the United States of America. Members of Congress are elected to represent the people to the federal government. It's part of the system of "checks and balances." Because most states select their electors by vote of the people, the voice of the people is to some extent recognized in the election of the president while still leaving it up to the states (as individual governmental entities with their own sovereignty over all powers not granted to the federal government) to elect the Chief Executive who represents the Union as a whole. However, the Constitution actually does not require states to allow the voters to select the state's electors.

 So what does this mean?  It means a lot of things... in 2012 it means that unless you live in Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, or Florida; it means that your vote doesn't affect the election of the president very much at all.  The exceptions to this would be Nebraska and Maine who use a proportional allocation of their electoral college votes.

And it also means that unless you get out your checkbook and donate your time, the only people affecting the outcome of this election will be others who are willing to donate time and money.

Create your own electoral college map!