Dear United States of America,

Remember me? Red from Redsaid in Baltimore, Maryland?

I last wrote to you on the 4th of July 2004, but since I haven't heard back from you yet, I've decided to try again. This time I have a few more questions and I would be ever so grateful if you could answer them for me.

As an alien within your beoooootiful borders, I've never been able to grasp the use of the electoral college. That being said, I also haven't been able to grasp the meaning of life, the concept of mathematics, physics or the need for the clocks to fall back every autumn. I have to respectfully declare that I don't like the fact that the sun still sets at 6:15 pm one day, and the VERY next day it sets at 5:13 pm. It's disturbing and it makes me crave chocolate even more than I usually do, and I think we both agree that craving too much chocolate isn't good for anybody's sanity, and then eating all the chocolate isn't good for that same body's weight or teeth.

Anyway, pardon my digression. Back to the matters at hand: the election and the electoral college.

Now, I'm pretty clear on why the college was founded all those years ago. I know that long ago, in ancient times before Starbucks was invented, some of your Founding Fathers wanted Congress to choose the President, while some of the other Founding Fathers wanted voters to choose. The history books I've read didn't go into the gory details of how they proceeded to fight over this (why do history books always seem to leave out all the fun parts?). I was just informed that the electoral college was the compromise they reached.

I also understand that during that same historic time, before the final frontier was reached and while some of your state borders were therefore very fluid and seemed almost neverending, that having an electoral college kinda made sense. I also realise that more people lived in one state than another (as they still do today) and so your Founding Fathers wanted the people in the most populated states to have the most say in who would lead all of them.

However, as the saying goes: that was then and this is now. So isn't that practice a bit as archaic as beheadings?

In my humble opinion, democracy should be one woman (or man, if he is sufficiently trained), one vote.

You see - and again, I point this out with the greatest R-E-S-P-E-C-T - it doesn't seem fair to me that one state should count more than another, and that if you happen to live in a non swing vote state, then you are largely ignored by the candidates.

You know that I love you with all of my heart (except for those bits of it which are reserved for my family, the boy, South Africa, dogs, coffee and How-to books), but in the eight years that I've had the pleasure of living within your borders, I've never been able to wrap my mind around this bizarre spin on democracy where the popular vote doesn't determine the outcome of the election.

I really hope you can help me out here by explaining it to me?

Anyway, since I know that tomorrow is a big day for you and your people, I won't take up any more of your time. I just want to say that I hope that everyone who is elligible to cast a vote will do so, because many of us who live here don't have a say, and they should do it on our behalf. And, in the event that they're xenophobic, then they should do it for their own futures. And for you.

Respectfully yours,
Redsaid

P.S. Oh, just wondering if that Green Card I asked you about last time got lost in the mail or something, because I haven't received it yet.