The Will of We the People

By: Michael Teninty, AMAC Action’s Chief Policy Analyst

There are three seminal things to consider in a discussion that concerns the future of a nation and her government, all center around the concept of sovereignty. Please review the next sentence completely. Sovereignty is the embodiment of the soul of a nation in a person; for example, a king, queen, or other elite governing body; or in our case, national sovereignty exists in our citizenry; in We the People. In the manifest truth expressed by James Madison (1800)¹, “the people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty.” Next, the sovereign will is the sum total of the concerns, thoughts, and intentions of that sovereign. Finally, the expressed will of the sovereign results in the actual mechanics of governing, the sovereign will made manifest over a nation. These three concepts are central to the establishment and continuance of a nation, and all are subject to the innate imperfect nature of humanity.

Consider, it is because “The history of kings is nothing but the history of folly and depravity of human nature”² that the embodiment of sovereignty in a single person or small group of people is a reality that disregards the well-being and intentions of the citizenry. And note that, tyranny can be exercised by a ruling class as much as any tyrannical person in history. It seems that the narrower the physical body of the entity in which sovereignty lies, the further the intentions of the sovereign will are from the people the sovereign governs. And this separation sews strife. That strife worsens when the expressed will of the sovereign is imposed on the people of a nation without their consent, their understanding, and worse, their concerns unaddressed.

In shifting the paradigm from a limited sovereign body to a universal one, in which all the citizens of a nation are sovereign, there must still be a government to coordinate the will of the sovereign people, indeed there must be a way to measure the sovereign will, and then to also express that will. The leadership of that government has a sacred charge in this, they must understand the will of the people, and they must comply with it.

In the United States, citizens of this nation, by our status as the sovereign of this nation, exercise a process of voting to express our sovereign will. That is to say, it is by voting in these United States of America that the will of We the People is heard. Consider the words of the First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Whereas “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech… or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble… and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” We the People speak through our vote, when we peaceably assemble at the voting locations, and as applicable, we redress our grievances by choosing new leadership, and/or policies that align more closely with our sovereign will. The freedom to vote is granted by God and guaranteed by the provisions of the First Amendment and cannot be restricted by a government of men.

With great freedom, comes great responsibility. Voting is not just a guaranteed right and freedom, it is a sacred responsibility. As every citizen is a member of the sovereignty of our nation, every citizen is accountable for the course of our nation, and responsible for making their will known; they cannot be a quiet monarch. If a citizen is restricted from voting, not only is their right to freedom of expression violated, but their interests are unjustly attenuated from the sovereign will. On the other hand, if a person chooses not to vote, they choose to withhold their portion of the national sovereign will from expression. Worse, their good will is not accounted for in the progress of our nation. It is then philosophically, and morally unreasonable for them to express displeasure with the conduct of government affairs as they did not contribute to the expression of the national sovereign will, although they have the guaranteed right to express that displeasure.

By voting in an election, we participate in a great survey to determine who will represent our will, and who will carry out that will, and in some cases, how they will do it. But how to conduct the survey is a difficult question. The survey method chosen must result in an accurate presentation of the actual will of the people. It is critical that the “sense of the people” is transmitted with high fidelity to the governing body lest that governing body, in exercising power not representative of the will of the people, become tyrannical and no better than that of a foolish and/or depraved king or queen.

One of the first questions in ensuring an accurate read on the will of the people asks, “who can participate in the survey, who can vote?” A valid and deceptively complicated question. In considering suffrage in our representative republic regarding electing a president, Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist 68 that “It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided.”³

The answer to who can vote lies in defining who a citizen is, and in ensuring that only citizens can vote. In these United States, and expressed simply, you are a citizen if you were born here, and or naturalized here. So, for the sake of this consideration, only a citizen of this country can vote. Why this restriction? This measure, ensuring only citizens vote, is made to ensure the purity and fidelity of the will of the people before the government, to ensure that only those with a stake in our nation, a vested interest in the positive future of the United States, who have paid their just due, and those who have something to lose if our nation fails, can exercise their sovereignty over the course of our nation.

How do we ensure that only citizens are recognized when they step forward to vote? In an ideal world, “if men were angels,”⁴ no one would lie, no one would advance their individual ambitions over the good of our nation; but that is not the case for humanity. It is possible however for our government, at any level, to verify someone’s status as a citizen and to generate picture and signature identification to support that effort before election day.

Assuming that only citizens can vote, eliminating the interests of non-citizens, how should the vote be measured? In that “all men are created equal,” and that they were blessed to be born or naturalized into the United States, each person should have one vote, the epitome of equality. One vote for any candidate for any office, one vote for any measure before them, this is the method by which our human equality is built into our elections.

There is no perfect method for measuring the vote, each system has vulnerabilities. Digital systems can be manipulated and/or hacked, vote by mail removes identity verification with a living person at the polling location, voter rolls can, and are in many cases inaccurate. Ranked choice voting offers a method of molesting the expressed will of the people by applying complicated and inaccurate counting methodologies, in violation of the First Amendment, to the final tally in a vote.  These vulnerabilities can be significantly mitigated by requiring in person voting, with paper ballots that may be counted electronically and retained for verification. In addition, the high fidelity of the expressed will of the people can be better preserved with voter identification verified by a human, and by matching one vote to one count, always, faithfully, objectively, and clearly. Indeed, counting is not new technology. Imagine if banking were as inept as our current voting system, no one would use banks.

And how should this high fidelity will of “We the People” be transmitted? Publicly, without filter or delay, with stark transparency, before the entire nation; in a manner secure from manipulation by dark forces. The will of the people as measured by the great survey we call an election, is recorded as data; and that data should be made available as with any other scientific process, for the purpose of verification.

Individual Americans will never agree fully on any issue, and candidate for office, or any national course. But by exercising our sovereignty, by exercising our freedom of expression through voting, by restricting the vote to citizens, and by counting the vote with strict objectivity and transparency, we manifest our collected sovereign will and command the government to express the will of We the People.

Citations:

1. Founders online: The report of 1800, [7 January] 1800. (1800, January 7). National Archives, Founders Online. Retrieved August 6, 2024, from https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-17-02-0202
2. The Annals of America: Vol. 2. 1755-1783 Resistance and Revolution. (1976, p.283). Encyclopedia Britannica.
3. Great Books: Vol. 43. American State Papers, Federalist, J.S.Mill. (1986). Encyclopedia Britannica. Thomas Jefferson, 1788, Federalist 68
4. Great Books: Vol. 43. American State Papers, Federalist, J.S.Mill. (1986). Encyclopedia Britannica. James Madison, 1788, Federalist 51