The ballot is worthless without the gun to back it up. Just go vote against the popularist party operatives in Russia and see how much your ballot counts. Somedays I am afraid that Americans will have to learn that lesson again. people forget so quickly the 2000 Presidental elections in Florida and the 2004 elections in Ohio.

No politican has to respect the ballot simple because you say so. It is just a piece of paper. The United States Constitution does not even reconized the popular ballot cast for the President of the United States. He is elected by Congress, who are NOT bound to cast their vote as the people of their states have directed them to do. Heck, dead people have been voting in Chicago and St. Louis for decades.

So much for the power of the ballot and the myths held by the unrealistic.