If they do not, Congress should refuse to accept the vote of the faithless elector and count that vote as it has been pledged, because faithless electors have deceived and disenfranchised those who voted for them. The Electoral College system prevents candidates with only regional appeal from winning. Statistically, having to prevail in a number of sub-elections produces a better result for the country. If team A wins the first game 11 runs to zero, and team B wins the next four games one run to zero, we all know that team B has won the World Series. After all, if Bush won 100 percent of the popular vote in his home state of Texas, thereby prevailing in the nationwide popular vote, those extra votes would not show he had more support nationwide, only that he is a candidate popular in one very populous state.
All eyes are on Florida.
Our Constitution, which is unclear in many matters, is clear about that. Congress determines the time for choosing the presidential electors, and that time is uniform throughout the United States. A new election, for either all or part of Florida, would not be the same time as the rest of us voted, Nov. 7. Ronald D. Rotunda is a visiting senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, a nonpartisan public research organization in Washington. The Macon Telegraph.