It’s been a wild past month for politics, so you decide to catch up on recent events. You check Youtube, read news sites, and glance at news networks.
And they all say the same thing–Harris is able to put these other states into play. Pennsylvania is important for both candidates with its huge 19 electoral votes. In 2016, Trump was able to win Michigan with only 11k more votes. This state could be crucial in deciding the outcome of the election.
This talk is everywhere. We have all seen this. But why? Do you see the massive issue?
In supposedly the best democracy in the world, we use an inherently unjust and undemocratic winner-take-all Electoral College system to decide the most powerful person in the world that doesn’t need to be the most popular (psst…who now has immunity).
This system should not exist today…
The Electoral College has undergone changes, such as the 12th Amendment, various state-level adjustments to elector selection, and the damaging Apportionment Act of 1929. Yet it is still an outdated system still not adapted to the United States of today or tomorrow.
It has some major faults that need to be corrected to uphold democratic principles.
First, it is clear the Electoral College is outdated. It was built for a United States, where only white, property-owning men could vote. A society when women were denied to vote, and slavery was legal. A time when they believed a slave was not a person, but counted as ⅗ of a person to give slave states political influence.
Many people have questioned the system, but no changes were made to remove or revamp it. In 1820, attempts to reevaluate the system were stopped, because it would reduce the influence of southern and slave states. While the Electoral College gave slave states increased votes with the census data including slaves, a popular vote wouldn’t, because slaves could not vote.
In the 50s, attempts to replace the Electoral College with a popular vote were stopped. Why? One reason is that a popular vote would reduce the influence of southern states with their voter suppression through Jim Crow, which prevented people of color from voting. There would be less votes from southern states leading to less influence, and these states were obviously not willing to give up political power.
Do we still believe in the principles the Electoral College was built and defended?
Second, the United States is a democracy, so we should have democratic voting systems. In a democracy, how can the Electoral College exist, when it can give a person in Wyoming over three times the voting power than a person in California?
A common defense for the Electoral College is that the United States is not a democracy; it's a constitutional republic. But no, the United States is a democracy. The Constitution establishes a democratic republic form of government.
We need to defend the democratic principles this country stands on. But with the Electoral College, we undermine the democratic principle of equal representation. In the Supreme Court case Baker v. Carr, the idea of “one person, one vote” was upheld for state legislative districts. This principle should apply across all political systems, including presidential elections. The Electoral College should follow the same standards. If we truly believe in a democracy, each person should have an equal say.
The winner-take-all aspect worsens the problem by disregarding votes from minority parties within a state. In California, 35% of people are Republicans, but their vote is ignored. They have no say in the vote for president, since all electoral votes support the Democrat candidate.
And that is not the only way a popular vote will give each person a say. Currently under the electoral college, only those in swing states matter. Candidates tailor their campaigns to swing states instead of addressing the broader national electorate. Ideologically solid states matter much less to campaigns, even though they make up a greater share of the population. A popular vote will force candidates to speak to majorities of people, and even in states where the majority oppose them.
To summarize, the Electoral College is severely outdated and unrepresentative. There is no good reason for a person to become president without winning the popular vote, in today’s world. The United States was the first example for a democracy in modern society, but no other country currently follows its Electoral College system.
There should be more support for abolishing this faulty system, and more support for current initiatives, such as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
The United States has progressed too far to be using a system not built for modern America or the ideas we believe the U.S. stands on.
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