LIRR's Third Track and the Electoral College

As the Long Island Rail Road’s $2.5 billion Third Track opens after decades of debate, planning and construction, many who live along the Oyster Bay line and use Brooklyn Atlantic Terminal will not see any benefit [“LIRR’s Third Track fully open,” News, Oct. 4]. In fact, their commute will be worse.

I am a huge fan of the LIRR. Watching the Third Track being built has been exciting. That is why, in part, I am so disappointed. I have been commuting to Brooklyn via the Oyster Bay line for 11 years.

After decades of planning and billions of dollars spent, it is disappointing that the eastbound Oyster Bay line now has to slow down and stop to make a slow approach to Mineola. Many nights, it adds five to seven minutes to our trip home.

Additionally, the newly proposed schedules starting in December will adversely affect the commutes into Brooklyn. They will have a longer wait at Jamaica, and riders will be relegated to a new, inconvenient designated track. Commuters via the Oyster Bay line will no longer have a convenient option to leave Manhattan or Brooklyn at 5 p.m.

Although some may benefit, many will not. And that’s a shame.

 — Ian R. Siegel, Glen Cove

Electoral College is truly outdated

We’re once again talking about the Electoral College’s role in our presidential elections and how it enables a candidate with fewer votes to win the presidency [“Keep our Electoral College the way it is,” Letters, Oct. 6].

Any attempt to change it runs into an issue: It is in the Constitution and can only be changed by an amendment. It is unlikely that such an amendment would pass because the less populated states would most certainly not vote to reduce their influence.

There is a proposed National Popular Vote Interstate Compact that would require member states to give all their votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The compact would be activated when the electoral votes of the member states exceeded 270. If this happens, I foresee a huge problem. If a Democrat wins the national popular vote but the Republican won a state, then the state votes would go to the Democrat. Of course, the Republican would sue. The current Supreme Court would then likely call the compact unconstitutional.

Perhaps try an amendment requiring a state’s electoral votes to be assigned proportionately. Currently, a Republican voter in New York is effectively disenfranchised as is a Democratic voter in Texas.

— Joe Squerciati, Hicksville

The reader expressed interesting thoughts, such as fundamentally denying a basic democratic principle — one person, one vote. Our Founding Fathers were imperfect humans who established the framework that later became the Electoral College.

Most people could not vote; i.e., women, slaves, poor citizens, citizens without property, and American Indians were excluded. Some states even imposed religious tests. Times and reality change, generally for the better.

Does the reader want us to go back to those 1788 rules? Maybe, but most would say no because we have gotten better. The reader’s view would drive deeper divisions between people who live in one place versus another.

We live where we live and vote for one president for all. In every other true democracy, it’s one vote equals one vote.

Our previous president sought to recast just a few thousand votes in several states. If successful, he’d have won the Electoral College, meaning he’d have won with millions fewer votes than the other candidate (again).

One vote equals one vote. It’s not just for the local dogcatcher.

— Ed Silsbe, Blue Point

The reader argues that without the Electoral College, California and New York will decide the presidency, and that would not represent the wishes of the majority.

In 2016, the Electoral College gave Donald Trump the presidency in an election in which he got 3 million fewer votes. His presidency did not represent the wishes of the majority under the Electoral College system that the reader says should be kept.

The Electoral College is outdated, blatantly undemocratic, and should be abolished.

— Ted Pafundi, South Huntington

The voters of both New York and California, just like every other state, are not made up entirely of Democrats or Republicans or even Independents. By forcing each state to marginalize the votes of those who ultimately didn’t vote with the majority, you are disenfranchising those voters in each state.

If you truly wanted to elect a president of the majority of the people, you would count every vote in the country. That would be a true reflection of one vote per person. Anything else is a myth.

— George Peters, Wantagh

The Electoral College was an appeasement to Southern slave owners to keep them in the Union. It’s time this abomination is abolished. It is a plague on our society, not to mention it lets a small, extremist minority dictate life for the rest of us.

— Larry Wexler, Old Westbury