My thoughts have turned to elections.  We have been tasked with giving the USAF some ideas of what can be deleted in order to save money and my thoughts have turned to election (not that it falls within the USAF's realm, but I was thinking).

  First, we should eliminate the Electoral College.  We already have to count the votes in each state/district, why not stop there.  Why spend the money to actually send people to Washington, DC to cast the Electoral College votes?  When it took weeks for the wagons to collect ballots and days to count them, the Electoral college might have made sense.  Now it is a way to disenfranchise voters who are of a minority opinion in the area that they live and help the Two big parties concentrate the money spending in a few "key states".  Doing away with the Electoral College would save money, truly make the "one person, one vote" really count, and force the parties to address the entire population equally.

  Second, why do Tax Payers pay for Primary elections for the Democrats and Republicans?  There are many Parties who choose their candidates with spending millions in Tax Payers money. The Primary Election just serve to force the smaller parties into further obscurity with tax supported advertisement.  If a party needs to pick who should run between more than one candidate, let them foot the bill.  They can draw straws, Indian Leg Wrestle or vote, but they should do it without Tax payer's dollars.