Volume 5, Number 1: November 2020| Op-Ed
As of writing this piece, the 2020 national election for the 46th U.S. president has just passed. However, the results of the election will not be confirmed until December. This delay is not because the U.S. has a slow system to count votes. Instead, it is due to the process used to vote, the Electoral College. Sadly, the delay is the least you have to worry about when it comes to this election process. In this piece, I will argue that the Electoral College is undemocratic by design. Specifically I will be examining how the system distributes its votes throughout the country, the Winner-Takes-All approach, and the role of electors. It is hoped that this piece will inspire the consideration of reform or the abolition of the Electoral College.
Let’s begin by explaining how the Electoral College works. Basically, the Electoral College is 538 votes (made up of 100 senators and 438 representatives) that is divided between the 50 states proportionate to their population. When Americans vote, they are not directly voting for a candidate to become the president. Instead, they are voting for how their state will vote. In order to win, a candidate must get a majority of the electoral votes, or 270 votes. This is an oversimplification which leaves many important aspects out but they will be covered in the following sections of this piece.
Firstly, the Electoral College makes it such that some people’s votes count more than others. This is due to how the 538 votes are distributed between states. As a rule, every state starts with 3 electoral votes regardless of population before the rest of the votes are distributed. The implication of this is that the least populated states that should be getting 1-2 votes are getting much more at the expense of the more populated states. At worst, this means that 1 vote from Wyoming and Vermont (the least populated states) are equivalent to 3 and 4 votes from Texas and California respectively (the most populated states). And this is bound to get worse as larger states are usually urban states which tend to have much more rapid population growth than rural ones.
This is not even mentioning the over 3.5 million U.S. citizens without the right to vote. As the electoral votes are distributed among states (and Washington, D.C.), it ignores the U.S. territories, namely: American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In fact, the U.S. territories are the only place in the whole universe where U.S. citizens cannot vote as American expats can vote outside of the U.S. and so could American astronauts from space. This is especially shocking when you consider that Puerto Rico alone has a larger population than 21 U.S. states. In a democracy, every person should have the right to vote and equal representation?
Secondly, despite every state having at least 3 votes, it still does not represent the vote of the state. This is because the majority of the states (excluding Maine and Nebraska) work on a Winner-Takes-All system. The implication is that the state will give all of it’s electoral votes to the winning candidate regardless of how its population voted and the margin of that victory. This was most prevalent in the 2000 U.S. elections where George W. Bush won Florida by only 537 votes from over 5.9 million votes (or a margin of 0.009%). However, he still received all of the state’s 25 electoral votes. Those electoral votes mattered as Bush won the presidency with 271 electoral votes, only 1 vote to gain the majority and becoming president.
Another problem with the W-T-A system is that it discourages voters whose political alliance does not align with the one that dominates their state. When following the election, the states are categorized as either blue states or red states. However, looking at the results of each state would lead to a different conclusion. In the 2016 elections, 32 percent of Californians voted Republican despite it being known as a blue state. Alternatively, 43 percent of Texans voted Democrat despite being a red state. Although these votes do not align with the state’s political beliefs, they are still votes casted by its citizens. The W-T-A system is damaging democracy by disregarding the significance of these votes.
Lastly, there is the issue which gave this system its name, the electors. When it was explained that people vote for how their state will vote, that is not exactly the case. Instead, the people are voting for which group of electors the state will send to the electoral college. These electors are a group of politicians chosen by each political party who pledge to vote for the party. For instance, if the majority voted Democrat in California, they will send a group of 55 electors chosen by Democrats to the Electoral College, and vice versa if Republicans won. These electors are the ones who truly decide who the next president will be as they will meet in early December. In a sense, it cheapens the national vote in November knowing that those who actually decide are a small group of elites. However, it gets worse.
Although these electors pledge to vote for the candidate that was most popular in their state, they are not required to. This meant that electors could vote against the wishes of their state. These electors are known as a ‘faithless elector’. When the Electoral College was first created over two centuries ago, faithless electors were allowed as information travelled extremely slowly across the young nation and it was assumed that the most informed individuals would be the electors in the capital where all political activities were happening. However, this system has since been made obsolete as the internet is capable of teleporting information from one side of the world to the other instantaneously. Leaving this system gives this small group of electors enormous power to influence the presidential election. It is undeniable that this is undemocratic.
The main argument for the Electoral College is that it was designed to protect smaller states making candidates care more about them. However, this does not seem to be the case. Firstly, if we examine how often candidates visit each state during their campaign, they are still visiting the ones with larger populations. In fact, smaller states may get no visits from a candidate at all. This can partly be explained by the W-T-A system built into the Electoral College. As mentioned before, there are states which are labeled red or blue according to whether they are more likely to vote Republican or Democrat, respectively. Knowing this, presidential candidates choose to mainly campaign in states known as ‘Swing States’. As the name suggests, these states tend to swing between parties after each election and could be won by either parties. However, smaller states tend to be ‘Safe States’ such that the party they favour do not have to put their resources towards campaigning there as they know that they will win; on the other hand, the opposing parties will not campaign there as they know that they cannot get enough votes to get that state’s electoral votes.
Finally, it is important to remember that there currently exists an election system that would allow its country to be run by a candidate that is not chosen by the majority of its population. This has happened twice in the last four elections. As a non-American, we are powerless in changing this system, however, it does not mean that it will not have a direct impact on us. We are in the age of globalization and interconnectedness and this is the election for arguably one of the most powerful and influential positions in the entire world. While no election process is perfect, the Electoral College is one of the least democratic and should be abolished.
Material for Further Study
Below is a collection of videos which was the inspiration for this piece. It will present a more virtual presentation on the Electoral College and may be easier to understand. Additionally, there is much more information which I did not have enough space to cover within the piece including a simulation of how a candidate can become president with only 22 percent of the popular vote.
A very useful topic! I think it is important for us to take a closer look at the US elections since America is one of the big countries which can influence many things happening in other countries. In fact, it’s actually sad to know that America, a country known as land of the free, also has the same problem faced by many other developing nations. However, for the part where you said that ‘the least populated states are getting much more at the expense of the more populated states’, isn’t this a good thing? I mean isn’t it one of the ways to make sure that the small states wouldn’t be dominated by the large one? Or in other words, without the Electoral College, a presidential election could be controlled by a small number of large states and we can’t be sure that these large states would vote in the national interest and not their state interests. Moreover, since most of the time the presidential campaign would focus more on the large states, isn’t it right to give the small states something from this election. In this sense, I think it would be fairer to give states with small voices more votes.
I am glad you found my topic useful. It is contradictory that a champion of democracy like the USA would use such a system to elect their highest office.
I do acknowledge your concern about small states. In fact, this argument has been one of the main arguments for keeping the Electoral College. However, I do not think that this reason alone is enough to justify keeping this process. Firstly, as I’ve discussed above, the Electoral College does not make a presidential candidate care more about small state. If giving more power to smaller state does truly work, presidential candidates should campaign there more often. Instead, most of them do not get any visits, for reasons discussed in the piece. Additionally, you mentioned that presidential campaigns focus on large states, this is not entirely true. California and Texas, two of the largest states, also received no visits from presidential campaigns. This is for the same reason smaller states don’t get any visits; they are “safe states”. Florida, the third largest state, is highly contested because it is a “swing state”, a condition created by the Winner-Takes-All system embedded within the Electoral College.
Due to the word limit for this piece, I have decided to focus on the problems with the Electoral College as my arguments instead of the reforms or alternative electoral systems. However, if I had more space I would have made my beliefs more explicit. Primarily, I believe that a democracy should represent the people, not states. This reason alone is why I am against the Electoral College.
Very interesting topics! I agree with you that this system can result in a president who does not win the majority voted. Personally, I think that this electoral system needs some updates from its original form. However, I disagree with what changed need to be done to solve this problem. In my opinion, the problems of the electoral college come from the Winner-Take-All system and faithless elector, which could be changed without changing the whole system. First, the W-T-A system is more to blame for the ‘safe state’ problem. Without the W-T-A, every vote would have a direct effect on the number of electoral voters. Second, the problem of faithless elector makes the whole electoral college system useless as the American voters cannot trust their elector to choose the same candidate as them. Without the problem of a faithless elector, every vote to a candidate would go to that candidate rather than the other one based on the preference of the elector. In conclusion, While an electoral college system is partly to blame for those problems, there are ways to solve those problems without changing the core idea of the electoral college, which remain the same since its creation.
Firstly, I agree that the mechanics of a faithless elector is severely outdated and is in need of an update. Thankfully, 33 states have already passed a law which forces electors to vote for the party they pledged for. However, the enforcement mechanism for this is still weak. In some states, the law states that that elector will be punished but their vote will still count.
Additionally, I agree that the Winner-take-all system is one of the main mechanics of the Electoral College that is responsible for the undemocratic nature of the US presidential election. In fact, 2 states, Maine and Nebraska, has stopped using a WTA system since 1972 and 1996 respectively. Instead, they are using a Congressional District Method. Essentially, this system works by separating the state into district, each represented by an elector. The winner of each district gets the vote of that district, and the winner of the state-wide election is award 2 additional votes. Although this is more or less a state-level electoral college, it may be the steps we need to get closer to the results of a popular vote.
However, this system is still not without some flaws. Gerrymandering is a serious issue here as district boundaries are drawn by the government. This is the case where political parties draw up district boundaries such that it will result in their favour.
Secondly, smaller states with the minimum 3 votes will not be able to split their votes up into districts. Doing so in the traditional way (1 for each district and 2 for the state-wide winner) will result in less competition in the state.
Due to these issues, I still prefer abolishing the electoral college altogether.
Thank you for explaining the complicated election system!!
As I have watched this year and 2016 U.S. election, I agree with you that this system should be updated. I think that the problem is at W-T-A system since the vote of voters are undermined from their state. And the faithless electors are in controversial, some people who anti W-T-A will agree with but it also does not fair for the people and who still agree with W-T-A and other politicians that play under W-T-A. Faithless electors show that the politician have power over people and we can see this problem from 2016 election. In addition, I also agree with you that this system does not encourage for the care for small state as the supporter claims since the politicians like to focus on the swing state rather. I strongly disagree with the winner takes all.
However, For the issue about the territory lands, if we think in political perspective, i think it’s not strange that territory land citizen cannot vote. But the U.S. citizen who lives outside the country should have right to vote since they can comeback to the U.S. every time and many of them still have to pay tax to the U.S.