The Electoral College: Fundamentally Flawed
One of the reasons democracy in the U.S. is shallow is that voters don’t actually elect the President. Every Presidential election we’re reminded about this thing called the Electoral College, and it only becomes an issue when the winner of the popular vote (the person who actually gets the most votes) doesn’t win the Electoral College vote. The Electoral College System has four very problematic issues, all of which erode democracy and contribute to a feeling of powerlessness and unfairness.
1. The Electoral College makes some votes worth more than others.
Often we are told that the reason the Electoral system is necessary is to protect the rights of smaller states, giving them more power so their voices won’t be drowned out by larger and more populous states. That sounds reasonable, right? It’s not true. That problem was already addressed by giving each state 2 senators, regardless of size. Unfortunately the number of Electors in each state isn’t based on population, it’s based on the number of Senators and House Reps, plus population. Since that number of Senators is already skewed to balance the rights of small states, the Electoral College is fundamentally and unnecessarily skewed in the same way.
All small states have a minimum of 3 Congress people (2 Senators, plus at least 1 House Rep) so they get a minimum of 3 Electors, but they don’t all have the population to justify it. If Electors were based on population, some states would only have 1 or 2. Since the number of total Electors always remains the same, Electors are, in some sense, missing from more populous states. The following states have fewer Electors than they should: Georgia (1), Virgina (1), Michigan (1), New Jersey (1), Pennsylvania (2), Ohio (2), North Carolina (2), Illinois (2), Florida (4), New York (5), Texas (6), California (10). Those votes are redistributed not just to states like Rhode Island, which is small, but states like Wyoming, which is large but sparsely populated. This means the vote of one person in Wyoming is worth the vote of 4 Californians.
Some say that’s ok, that not only do we need to protect the rights of small states by giving them the same number of Senators as everyone else, we need to protect less populous areas by giving them more power during elections to prevent them from being overlooked by candidates. This is nonsense. Candidates routinely ignore both small and large states, if they are considered “safe” and focus all of their attention on “swing” states, to the detriment of the rest of the country. Two-thirds of all campaign events take place in only 4 states: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and either Iowa or Pennsylvania. Swing states receive more federal funding: 7% more Presidentially-controlled grants, twice as many disaster declarations, more Superfund and No Child Left Behind exemptions, more Small Business Administration loans, and they are able to shape Federal policies on things such as steel quotas.
2. The Electoral College is rooted in racism.
You might remember from History class that slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person, but for what purpose? It was to give white, Southern slave owners more political power. Slave owners wanted slaves to count as full people for representation purposes so they’d have more seats in Congress, even though the slaves themselves were obviously not allowed to vote, but wanted to count them as property when it came to taxation. The North and South agreed on a compromise, counting slaves as 3/5 of a person which resulted in slave states gaining a third more seats in Congress, which meant a third more Electoral Votes (and they did have to pay taxes on their slaves, though not as much as if slaves were counted as a whole person).
Once slavery was outlawed and the compromise was repealed, former slaves were counted as full humans for representation purposes. Yay, right? No. This gave the slave states even more disproportionate power because they enacted voter suppression laws that prevented former slaves from voting. Attempts were made around 1900 to strip the Southern Block of congressional seats, but failed. The effects of this insidious racism are still being felt today. African American voters wait twice as long to vote as white voters, experience “structural disenfranchisement” and are often outright harassed and intimidated at the polls. The votes of that community are always minimized to the advantage of the dominant class. The one exception is when there is a candidate with overwhelming African American support (which has happened only once, with Obama), in which case the normal suppression of that vote wasn’t enough. It essentially takes twice as much community support in order for the votes of African Americans to nullify the effects of vote suppression and count as much as white votes, and it’s shameful.
3. The Electoral College gives votes to states, not people.
If a slim majority of voters in a state choose a particular candidate, ALL of that state’s votes go to that candidate. It’s as though everyone in the state who didn’t vote for that candidate is having their “No” vote changed to a “Yes” vote. The state appears as a solid color, essentially redwashed or bluewashed, when really it’s a purple mix. All of the votes for the minority candidate become meaningless on a national level, although they are tallied and recorded as the “popular vote” which doesn’t actually get anyone elected. Considering the Presidential election is a national one, rather than a state one, this is quite unfair and makes little sense. Having national candidates win a state-wide contest and then having those states, with unequal voting power, cast the votes (instead of people casting their votes directly) is undemocratic. It is possible to become President with only 21% of actual votes from citizens. This convoluted, outdated, winner-take-all system means the votes of hundreds of thousands of people do not count on a national level, depending on which state they happen to live in. Statewide elections should be determined by states. Nationwide elections should be determined by the entire nation.
4. Electors choose the President, not the voters.
Not only does the winner of the popular vote not become President, the winner of the Electoral College vote doesn’t automatically become President either. The 538 Electors will gather more than a month after the election and actually choose the President themselves. They could go rogue and vote for whomever they want, perhaps choose the candidate who received a majority of the popular vote (in fact this is one of the reasons given to keep the system as it is, this ability for electors to reject a dangerous or unfit candidate). It’s rare,although electors do sometimes randomly vote for someone else or withhold votes. It’s only really a possibility if new and damaging information about a candidate comes to light between when the election happens in early November and mid-December, when the Electors actually vote.
Why do we have this buffer layer, this middleman? Many of our Founding Fathers were suspicious of Democracy, didn’t trust the “unwashed masses” to make informed decisions. They wanted to ultimately reserve the right of choosing the President for the upper class. Electors “tend to be composed of decidedly Caucasian, middle-aged, wealthy individuals. Males and the college-educated are also overrepresented in the Electoral College. In 2008, nearly 60 percent of electors were male, 73 percent college graduates and 55 percent had household incomes of more than $100,000 per year. More than 80 percent were Caucasian, and the average age of an elector was 58. In many ways, the Electoral College looks a lot like the U.S. Congress.” –Robert M. Alexander
What Can We Do?
The Electoral College doesn’t promote fairness and equality. It has historically been manipulated by racist factions and upholds a system where some votes count for more than others. Our failure to abolish it prevents our country from realizing its democratic potential. While systems such as the Electoral College remain in place, our nation will remain a thinly democratic Republic, rather than a true Democracy. The Electoral College is “the product of an 18th century compromise forged over issues that no longer apply and resting on assumptions about the wisdom of the average person we no longer hold, and it has not worked the way it was intended almost from the very beginning.” –Baltimore Sun
There have been a few attempts to abolish the Electoral College at the national level but they have always failed. A better way to tackle it is at a local, grassroots level. Ten states have already enacted legislation, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, requiring their state Electors to cast their votes for the winner of the national popular vote. That way, no matter where you live, your vote will be counted. The compact only goes into effect when a majority of states have passed similar legislation. To see what you can do in your state to make the Interstate Compact a reality (which would essentially make the Electoral College obsolete and easier to remove), visit the website for National Popular Vote.
Democracy Guide
www.democracyguide.org
One of the reasons democracy in the U.S. is shallow is that voters don’t actually elect the President. Every Presidential election we’re reminded about this thing called the Electoral College, and it only becomes an issue when the winner of the popular vote (the person who actually gets the most votes) doesn’t win the Electoral College vote. The Electoral College System has four very problematic issues, all of which erode democracy and contribute to a feeling of powerlessness and unfairness.
1. The Electoral College makes some votes worth more than others.
Often we are told that the reason the Electoral system is necessary is to protect the rights of smaller states, giving them more power so their voices won’t be drowned out by larger and more populous states. That sounds reasonable, right? It’s not true. That problem was already addressed by giving each state 2 senators, regardless of size. Unfortunately the number of Electors in each state isn’t based on population, it’s based on the number of Senators and House Reps, plus population. Since that number of Senators is already skewed to balance the rights of small states, the Electoral College is fundamentally and unnecessarily skewed in the same way.
All small states have a minimum of 3 Congress people (2 Senators, plus at least 1 House Rep) so they get a minimum of 3 Electors, but they don’t all have the population to justify it. If Electors were based on population, some states would only have 1 or 2. Since the number of total Electors always remains the same, Electors are, in some sense, missing from more populous states. The following states have fewer Electors than they should: Georgia (1), Virgina (1), Michigan (1), New Jersey (1), Pennsylvania (2), Ohio (2), North Carolina (2), Illinois (2), Florida (4), New York (5), Texas (6), California (10). Those votes are redistributed not just to states like Rhode Island, which is small, but states like Wyoming, which is large but sparsely populated. This means the vote of one person in Wyoming is worth the vote of 4 Californians.
Some say that’s ok, that not only do we need to protect the rights of small states by giving them the same number of Senators as everyone else, we need to protect less populous areas by giving them more power during elections to prevent them from being overlooked by candidates. This is nonsense. Candidates routinely ignore both small and large states, if they are considered “safe” and focus all of their attention on “swing” states, to the detriment of the rest of the country. Two-thirds of all campaign events take place in only 4 states: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and either Iowa or Pennsylvania. Swing states receive more federal funding: 7% more Presidentially-controlled grants, twice as many disaster declarations, more Superfund and No Child Left Behind exemptions, more Small Business Administration loans, and they are able to shape Federal policies on things such as steel quotas.
2. The Electoral College is rooted in racism.
You might remember from History class that slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person, but for what purpose? It was to give white, Southern slave owners more political power. Slave owners wanted slaves to count as full people for representation purposes so they’d have more seats in Congress, even though the slaves themselves were obviously not allowed to vote, but wanted to count them as property when it came to taxation. The North and South agreed on a compromise, counting slaves as 3/5 of a person which resulted in slave states gaining a third more seats in Congress, which meant a third more Electoral Votes (and they did have to pay taxes on their slaves, though not as much as if slaves were counted as a whole person).
Once slavery was outlawed and the compromise was repealed, former slaves were counted as full humans for representation purposes. Yay, right? No. This gave the slave states even more disproportionate power because they enacted voter suppression laws that prevented former slaves from voting. Attempts were made around 1900 to strip the Southern Block of congressional seats, but failed. The effects of this insidious racism are still being felt today. African American voters wait twice as long to vote as white voters, experience “structural disenfranchisement” and are often outright harassed and intimidated at the polls. The votes of that community are always minimized to the advantage of the dominant class. The one exception is when there is a candidate with overwhelming African American support (which has happened only once, with Obama), in which case the normal suppression of that vote wasn’t enough. It essentially takes twice as much community support in order for the votes of African Americans to nullify the effects of vote suppression and count as much as white votes, and it’s shameful.
3. The Electoral College gives votes to states, not people.
If a slim majority of voters in a state choose a particular candidate, ALL of that state’s votes go to that candidate. It’s as though everyone in the state who didn’t vote for that candidate is having their “No” vote changed to a “Yes” vote. The state appears as a solid color, essentially redwashed or bluewashed, when really it’s a purple mix. All of the votes for the minority candidate become meaningless on a national level, although they are tallied and recorded as the “popular vote” which doesn’t actually get anyone elected. Considering the Presidential election is a national one, rather than a state one, this is quite unfair and makes little sense. Having national candidates win a state-wide contest and then having those states, with unequal voting power, cast the votes (instead of people casting their votes directly) is undemocratic. It is possible to become President with only 21% of actual votes from citizens. This convoluted, outdated, winner-take-all system means the votes of hundreds of thousands of people do not count on a national level, depending on which state they happen to live in. Statewide elections should be determined by states. Nationwide elections should be determined by the entire nation.
4. Electors choose the President, not the voters.
Not only does the winner of the popular vote not become President, the winner of the Electoral College vote doesn’t automatically become President either. The 538 Electors will gather more than a month after the election and actually choose the President themselves. They could go rogue and vote for whomever they want, perhaps choose the candidate who received a majority of the popular vote (in fact this is one of the reasons given to keep the system as it is, this ability for electors to reject a dangerous or unfit candidate). It’s rare,although electors do sometimes randomly vote for someone else or withhold votes. It’s only really a possibility if new and damaging information about a candidate comes to light between when the election happens in early November and mid-December, when the Electors actually vote.
Why do we have this buffer layer, this middleman? Many of our Founding Fathers were suspicious of Democracy, didn’t trust the “unwashed masses” to make informed decisions. They wanted to ultimately reserve the right of choosing the President for the upper class. Electors “tend to be composed of decidedly Caucasian, middle-aged, wealthy individuals. Males and the college-educated are also overrepresented in the Electoral College. In 2008, nearly 60 percent of electors were male, 73 percent college graduates and 55 percent had household incomes of more than $100,000 per year. More than 80 percent were Caucasian, and the average age of an elector was 58. In many ways, the Electoral College looks a lot like the U.S. Congress.” –Robert M. Alexander
What Can We Do?
The Electoral College doesn’t promote fairness and equality. It has historically been manipulated by racist factions and upholds a system where some votes count for more than others. Our failure to abolish it prevents our country from realizing its democratic potential. While systems such as the Electoral College remain in place, our nation will remain a thinly democratic Republic, rather than a true Democracy. The Electoral College is “the product of an 18th century compromise forged over issues that no longer apply and resting on assumptions about the wisdom of the average person we no longer hold, and it has not worked the way it was intended almost from the very beginning.” –Baltimore Sun
There have been a few attempts to abolish the Electoral College at the national level but they have always failed. A better way to tackle it is at a local, grassroots level. Ten states have already enacted legislation, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, requiring their state Electors to cast their votes for the winner of the national popular vote. That way, no matter where you live, your vote will be counted. The compact only goes into effect when a majority of states have passed similar legislation. To see what you can do in your state to make the Interstate Compact a reality (which would essentially make the Electoral College obsolete and easier to remove), visit the website for National Popular Vote.
Democracy Guide
www.democracyguide.org