As stated in Lesson 1, the Declaration of Independence is the worst name for this government charter for these united States[sic]. That name makes it too easy to forget. It is far more than just a declaration of Independence. It details voter eligibility and vote counting. This is in accord with how corporations are established (also see Lesson 1 in the July 3 issue of Street Sense).
The declaration references the entire body of citizens when it uses the words “the governed” in the clause “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Later in the document, the list of grievances identifies tyranny and despotism as actions taken without the approval of the citizens, like “imposing taxes on us without our consent.” We know both of those statements refer to citizens and not to officers or representatives in government, because of another grievance: “He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.”
Every citizen, no matter their race, sex, age, religion, previous condition of servitude, homelessness, etc., possesses a legitimate right to vote. But all of them also possess the right to not participate in the voting process. This means the government has to register voters who qualify in accord with The Declaration, and desire to participate; much the same as any corporation maintains a list of people registered as voters.
Some special measures should be taken to register homeless citizens and housed citizens as voters. In order to prevent voter fraud, there should be a waiting period of six months to a year to prevent mass populations from registering on voting day, and then leaving the next day. Proof of citizenship and proof of residency should be established before the waiting period. If a person waits until the last minute to try to register and cannot present proof of citizenship or residency, they should have to wait for the next election cycle to vote.
Generally, the voter registration list should be purged at the end of the last election for the year. This automatically removes all the names of people who died, people who moved out of the area, and people who lost interest, as these people are not likely to re-register. Those who register will know they possess a vote that will be interpreted as either consenting to or withholding consent from candidates, making it more important for the voter to get a ballot to the polls if they want anything to pass or win. Otherwise, their vote will be counted against everything and everyone on the ballot. This demands that any balloted item received consenting votes from the total number of registered voters; or fail for lack of consent
There should also be a national database of registered voters that requires a current photo and fingerprint to better eliminate multiple registrations in different political jurisdictions.
None of the above requirements violate any citizen’s right to vote. They give any citizen interested nearly a full year to re-register for the next voting cycle and they keep the elections as honest as possible, for all.
Now, what are citizens voting on? What does it mean to get the consent of the governed? A registered voter can either consent to or withhold consent from any balloted item or candidate, or all of them.
Old dictionary time:
Consent: 1. The act of yielding or consenting. 2. Concord; agreement; accord. 4. Tendency to one point.
To Consent: 1. To be of the same mind; to agree. 2. To cooperate to the same end.
Yielding and abstaining are not the same as consenting.
To Yield: 1. To resign; to give up. 2. To give up the conquest; to submit.
To Abstain: To forbear, to deny one’s self any gratification.
The yield definition applies to those who choose to not participate in voting from the start, by not registering as a voter. They yield to the will of the majority of the registered voters.
When a registered voter decides to not participate, they abstain by denying themselves any gratification from voting for or against something. To abstain, they must physically have their name removed from the list of registered voters.
As for how the votes are supposed to be counted: We are now dealing with registered voters only. The definitions of consent tell us what must happen for anything or anyone on the ballot to win.
The body of registered voters in a city, precinct, town, county, state, or congressional district has a known number of people registered as voters. It is a number established before the polls open. To get the consent of that population, the majority of the total number of registered voters must mark the same boxes on the ballot for the same issue or candidate. This is how it works mathematically.
Imagine a fictitious political jurisdiction that has exactly 100 registered voters. Like in the real world, several people, let’s say 60%, did not submit a ballot before the polls closed.
According to the consent of the governed, the majority of the total number of registered voters in this situation physically withheld their consent. On this ballot, everything and everyone failed due to lack of consent.
Enforcing the consent of the governed clause alone would keep well over 90% of all of the people presently in our elected offices out of office due to lack of consent. This also would remove the majority of people in appointed offices, because those who appointed them should not have been there to do so.
Unfortunately, we’ve allowed our government employees to destroy the sovereignty of our votes. We allowed them to declare the popular vote is a first-past-the-post type system where the winners must get just the majority of registered voters who submit ballots to the polls, not the majority of all registered voters.
If first-past-the-post were a horse race, a lot of people would be scratching their heads and wondering how can this be an honest race. No one knows where the finish line is until someone declares that the race has ended.
But the first-past-the-post vote count is still too slow at putting bad politicians into office. So, while we slept, our government destroyed the sovereignty of our vote count even more by using what they call a simple plurality.
With the simple plurality system, we are allowing issues to pass and people to be sworn into office who quite literally may have received just one vote more than nothing at all (or at the least, one more than the next closest competition.)
This is an even worse horse race. Here, when the race is declared over, still, no one has a clue where the finish line actually was. Only when someone else declares that all the ballots have been counted is this finish line established.
If the citizens of the united States of America[sic] want to return our sovereignty over government; we must enforce the law of the contract clause in The unanimous Declaration of the united States of America. This simply means helping protect the rights of those voters who are going to vote in opposition to you. This introduces the next civics lesson on our nation’s pledge.
As a declaration of Independence, few people ever consider the tremendous value the charter has for us, beyond an independence that we really, in action have never enjoyed in these united States of America since 1776. Make certain to ask the editor for more on this topic.
This link https://www.cleanhonestgov.com/glossary-of-old-word.html takes you to a glossary of screenshot definitions. This way, you can check my accuracy. For the entire, downloadable dictionary https://www.cleanhonestgov.com/older-dictionaries.html
If anyone wishes to debate or challenge any content within, please email Daniel Kingery via danielmkingery[at]gmail[dot]com.
