Voting: HOPE or HYPE???

So, yesterday after work I started looking up information on the Electoral College. For no other reason than to revisit my 7th grade civics days—and because math is and most definitely always was my strongpoint—I wanted to remember just what it was about this gathering of unknown individuals that was so important in the presidential election process. I am wholeheartedly more invested in the upcoming election than ever before, so I am trying to learn (or re-learn) all I can before our primary on Tuesday and the general Election in Nov. Starting my political re-education from the ground-up I visited the two most scholarly sources known to man…Google and Wikipedia (So, take everything I say from here on out with an appropriately-sized grain of salt).

For those of you who are like me, let me briefly explain how the Electoral College system works:
1) Each state is allowed as many Electors as it has Representatives and Senators. Currently, the total number of Electors is 538 (including DC), but this number changes every 10 years after the Census.
2) The Constitution allows each state to decide how its Electors will be chosen or nominated. Some states allow the citizens to vote for Electors during a primary election and the nominee(s) with a majority of the vote wins.
3) States with larger populations have a greater number of Electors (see the pretty graph)
4) IN THEORY, Electors are supposed to endorse a certain presidential candidate. So, when we vote in November, we are not voting for who we want to be the next president of the US. We are actually voting for the Electors who will in turn vote the way a majority of citizens in the state want them to…well, two states (Maine and Nebraska) don't follow the majority rule and are allowed to split the Electoral votes proportionately with the popular vote.

In all other states, here’s an example of how it would work: Georgia has 15 Electors. If 60% of the population votes for Senator Barak Obama, all 15 electors should vote for him and he will win Georgia.

This is the tricky part because the endorsement of Electors is not written in stone. We are to trust that these individuals will actually vote for who they say they are going to vote for (and for who we tell them to vote for). Typical case of de jure vs. de facto politics, right?

This is why it’s possible for a Presidential candidate to win the popular vote, but lose the election. At most, the popular vote is a guideline by which we can judge which candidate is closest to winning the Presidency. “Faithless Electors”—or liars as I like to call them—are the reason why W has been plaguing this earth for the last 4 years (Remember when Gore won the popular vote in Florida, but didn’t win the Electoral vote).

So, here are my questions to you: Is there sense in hoping that a Black man or a Woman will be the next President of the United States of America? Or, is this all just some kind of game? Are we being toyed with? Hoodwinked? Run-amok? [you know the rest…]
Or, should we just vote as we will and HOPE that whoever these invisible Electors are, they are honest?
Why have been told from day one in Kindergarten that we are citizens of the most wonderful, powerful, blah, blah, blah democracy on Earth? Why do we continue to call ourselves that when we are blatantly a Republic? We should be called The Peoples’ Republic of the United States of America. In a true democracy, the people make the decisions on policy-matters (again, majority rules). But in a Republic, the people elect representatives who vote on their behalf.

Alas, it seems our (and of course I mean their) forefathers were quite clever! They figured out a way to ensure that their great-great-great grandsons would always be able to finagle power and authority all they while keeping the masses full of hope that “A Change is Going To Come”. And now a word from Brother Sam Cook:

I was born by the river
In a little tent,
and ojust like that river
I've been running ever since
It's been a long long time coming, but I know
A change is gonna come, oh yes it will

It's been too hard living
but I'm afraid to die'
cause I don't know what's up there
beyond the sky,
It's been a long time coming, but I know
A change is gonna come, oh yes it will

(I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep tellin medon't hang around)
It's been a long time coming, but I know
A change is gonna come, oh yes it will

Then I go to my brother
and I say brother help me please
But he wind up knocking me
back down on my knees
There have been times that I thought
I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long time, but I know
A change is gonna come, oh yes it will