Earlier this year I attended a lecture at the Coeur d'Alene Library conducted by constitutional scholar Dr. David Adler and sponsored by the Coeur d'Alene Press. Dr. Adler's presentation focused on the escalating unconstitutional power that has been implemented by our Presidents since the Cold War. Authority, Dr. Adler asserted, has been granted to the Oval Office because Congress is not doing its job.

Referring to Presidential power as "Imperial Presidency," Dr. Adler warned that we should be very concerned because Presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama have skirted the Constitution on decision making responsibilities with regards to immigration reform, energy policies, fiscal contexts and most critically, foreign affairs including acts of war. Dr. Adler also noted that the blame is not just the President's, it's Congress; more to the point, he asserted, it is Congress's willingness to pass the buck to the Oval Office and to not act. Dr. Adler emphasized that it is Congress that has the Constitutional authority to address these issues, not the President. Dr. Adler reminded us that this is precisely what the framers of the Constitution tried to avoid when they gave those authorities to Congress; however, a culture of inactivity in Congress has gained steam over the last fifty years because lobbying and big money campaigns make taking a stand on tough issues a roadblock to re-election.

Dr. Adler concluded by emphasizing that Americans need to cease looking to the Presidency as the problem solver and that the core of the solution rests with the voters who need to hold their congressmen accountable.

I agree with Dr. Adler; however, I believe we also need to seriously examine the current election system and as well scrutinize our responsibilities to become better educated voters ... thus enabling us to stimulate constitutional due diligence from Congress.

Presently in America, to elect a political candidate each voter picks a single candidate, and then the challenger with the most votes wins. This is called a simple plurality vote. Plurality referring to the requirement that a candidate only needs the most votes, not necessarily a majority to win. Even the sometimes confusing Electoral College in the course of Presidential elections is typically based on combining the states' simple-plurality votes.

Because we function as a pluto-democracy ... an expression I created from plutocracy and democracy ... we usually have only two well-funded candidates to choose from which has fashioned the frustrating idiom, "I voted for the better of the two evils." When we do have more than two candidates to choose from often they are the product of the "spoiler effect" which is when a non-winning candidate whose presence on a ballot affects which candidate wins. Candidate spoilers split the vote, and occur when an election has three or more candidates.

If that seems intangible, recall the 2000 presidential election where Gore and Bush were in a close race that came down to a disputed count in Florida, which Bush won by 532 votes. Meanwhile, Green party candidate Ralph Nader received more than 97,000 votes in Florida. In post-election opinion polls, Nader voters preferred Gore to Bush by 2 to 1. So without Nader as the vote-splitting spoiler, it is plausible that Gore would have won Florida and the presidency. As well, at least five of our presidential elections have gone to the second-most-popular candidate because of spoilers.

Spoilers are enough of an inherent problem, but for decades they have been engineered by campaign consulting organizations armed with high tech strategists and big money brokers. In exceedingly too many political races either local, state or federal as with the Gore, Bush marathon, the big money exponents and their bipartisan campaign teams, sponsor a competitive campaign as a spoiler against a lead candidate to insure the victory of their candidate.

As voters we must ask the fundamental question, is the current system the best way to execute an election? Many political analysts believe it is not. The good news is there are many honest crusaders in politics and academia that are seriously examining our current election system as well as the paradox of the legally-corrupt campaign funding practices. Tactics that have created a dangerously unstable and inequitable design that has the potential to destroy our nation ... but only if we let it.

Now more than ever in America's history, we need to carefully do our homework before voting and not just review the campaign rhetoric. Proactive and thorough research before you vote is a great deal more effective and rewarding than the coffee clutch complaining after the winner steps up to the podium.

Julius Pekar is a Hayden resident.