No matter what the outcome of the November 2nd election, the abiding rulers of this country are We the People. The Framers of our Constitution made sure that all powers ultimately returned to We the People every few years so that we could decide anew who should be the captains of our ship of state.

Unfortunately, We the People have watched helplessly as this 2004 electoral season was hijacked by a process that was too long, too costly, too staged, and too unfair. The major party candidates started out the primary season in a process that honors the tiny, mostly-white, barely urban states of Iowa and New Hampshire. No offense to my brothers and sisters in those states, but why must you always go first?

Once that process ended, the presidential campaign began in earnest, and the two major party candidates figured out that, because of our 18th Century artifact called the Electoral College, they only needed to speak personally to a third of us in so-called “swing states.” They conducted polls to see what issues these people cared about, and tailored ads and speeches to those issues.

Adding further insult to injury, all of us, no matter what our points of view or where we lived, were forced to choose between only two colors: red and blue. Is there any other aspect of life where we put up with such limited choices? What if all cars, houses, and clothes came in only two colors?

Our antiquated winner-take-all system, when combined with a patchwork of electoral laws and voting machine systems, reminded us during Campaign 2004 that we must face up to a grim reality: we who propose to export democracy overseas have one of the most backward democracies in the industrialized world.

Why, for example, do we allow people to assume office who have the support of less than 50% of the voters? Why do we accept a system where women are 51% of the population but only 14% of the members of Congress? Why do we accept personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussions about issues? Why do we accept a system where teachers, nurses, and others rarely serve as candidates because they lack the wealth and the ability to leave their day jobs for extended periods?

No matter who we supported this campaign season, we must come together as Americans to fix our democracy and bring it into the 21st Century, or we may be destined to continue living with the deep divides that resulted in schisms in 1800, war in 1860, and upheavals in 1948. The greatest danger we as Americans face in November 2004 is not Osama bin Laden or foreign terrorists, but an unwillingness to address the weaknesses that increasingly are undermining our democracy.

Whether our favored candidates are Republican, Democratic, Reform, Libertarian, Independent, or Green, we should press our lawmakers to convene later this month to pass House Joint Resolution 109 (http://www.fairvote.org/irv/jacksonelectoralcollegebill.htm), which would add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution eliminating the Electoral College and allowing the American people to directly elect their President and Vice President.

Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., chief sponsor of the legislation, stated, "It's time the American people did to the election of their President and Vice President what they did by adding the 17th Amendment with respect to U.S. Senators - let the American people elect them directly instead of having state legislatures select them for us. Similarly, it's time the American people, our republican form of government and our representative democracy were allowed to elect their President and Vice President directly instead of indirectly through the Electoral College.”

Part of the rationale for establishing the Electoral College in the first place was to make sure that the slaving-owning southern states would have disproportionate power and, therefore, a disproportionate say over who would be elected President and Vice President. Today, people living in small, rural states have a disproportionate power over people living in larger and more urban ones. As a matter of fundamental fairness, it is time to end the urban-rural and red state-blue state dichotomies, and have direct elections where each of us can participate equally.

There are other ways we can improve our democracy, including instant runoff voting, proportional representation, public financing of elections, shortening of campaign seasons, and free media access for candidates. Groups such as the National Voting Rights Institute (www.nvri.org/), the Center for Voting and Democracy (www.fairvote.org), the Center for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org), the White House Project (www.thewhitehouseproject.org), and similar groups have resources and insights that can help us as we seek to rebuild and strengthen our democracy in the aftermath of Campaign 2004.

The first step, however, is direct elections. While there are entrenched interests who will fight aggressively against direct elections, there also are principled legislators all across the political spectrum who will see the merit in this proposal.

We should not wait for business-as-usual legislators to vote on direct elections in 2005. While the memories of election 2000 and 2004 are fresh in our minds, we should join together as a first step toward true one-person-one-vote democracy in this country and push for passage of House Joint Resolution 109 and a similar measure in the Senate before Congress recesses for the year.

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