The Electoral College has been a prevalent matter of discussion throughout the past months. For the second time in the past five elections, a president was elected despite losing the popular vote. The Electoral College has lifted the United States out of slavery and entirely shaped the development of the country to this day. The Founders put it in place for a reason and it has served the people well, but it hasn’t changed since 1787, and strong arguments are being brought to the table for an amendment.
When American citizens step into the ballot box, they don’t directly vote for the president. They vote for a state selected ‘Elector’ to cast his or her vote in favor of the states chosen candidate. Most of the Electors have sworn to keep their word and vote for the candidate that the citizens of their state have chosen, but that is not always concrete. A study from fairvote.org discovered there has been 157 unfaithful Electors throughout the history of the Electoral College. By law, 21 States do not require their Electors to be faithful.
The Founders decided to implement the Electoral College based off of two primary factors: the fear of the tyranny of the majority, and to hand power to the states. The concept of the fear of the tyranny of the majority stems from the ideology that majority decision is not always the right decision. The Founders had seen true Democracies fall in the past and wanted to implement a system that would keep large majority rule from having total power over the minority. They also wanted to shift power across the country to the more rural areas so the heavily populated areas, such as New York, can’t constitute every decision. The Founders wanted to put more power in the hands of the State governments and take power away from the individual people, because they were frightened by majority rule.
A feeling has developed since the Electoral College chose Trump. There is a sense in the minds of liberals and some conservatives alike that the American people decided on Mrs. Clinton yet received Mr. Trump. Those feelings are supported on paper. Clinton routed Trump in the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, yet the Electoral College decided to give Trump a commanding 304 to 227 point victory. This begs the question; do citizens of the United States equally elect a leader based on majority opinion?
The weight of votes has shifted and become convoluted over time. Two citizens living in different States simply don’t have balanced voices. To keep states with low populations from being ignored, the Founders gave each state a minimum of three electoral votes. A single vote from a citizen in Wyoming has three times the impact of a single vote from a California voter. A study from fairvote.org informs the public that Wyoming has one Elector for every 177,556 people and Texas has one Elector for every 715,499 people. Wyoming isn’t the only state that has been unproportionately deemed electoral votes. There are seven states with the minimum: 3. When the constitution was being composed the population dispersion was much different than today. Urbanization plays a huge role in why the Electoral College is antiquated. Conservatives would resist passing a bill to re-allocate electoral votes to give votes equal weight in urban regions because that would make the results nearly always democratic. So, if an amendment to give votes equal weight is out of the question would the simplest and fairest thing to do be to get rid of the Electoral College altogether? That would effectively give every voter the same power.
The Electoral College also plays a dynamic part in campaign trails. There are a mere eight to ten states that politicians consider swing states, and these states, such as Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and more can decide an election. The incentive to win the swing states drives campaigns away from the other 40 states. Ignoring states results in few to no campaign visits and fewer political advertisements. California, Texas and New York make up an immense chunk of the United States population, yet they are consistently forgot by campaigns. Only 58 percent of registered voters voted in the 2016 election. The preconceived idea that a state will vote for a set party every single election can drive down voter turnout. There is a strong argument that eligible voters are turned away from the polls because they don’t think their vote matters.
While many people are frustrated with the electoral college, the majority of people still argue to preserve the Federalist voting system that the Founders so carefully constructed. Defenders of the Electoral College argue that throwing out the Electoral College would dismantle federalism. Allen Guelzo and James Hulme in their defense of the Electoral College in the Washington Post go so far as to say, “Those who wish to abolish the Electoral College ought to go the distance, and do away with the entire Federal system and perhaps retire the constitution, since the federalism it was designed to embody would have disappeared.” Guelzo and Hulme also state that without the Electoral College there would be no point in having a Senate or even states. While the Electoral College has done the United States a lot of good in the past, including the abolition of slavery, which Guelzo and Hulme also point out, there are a lot of flaws in the argument of preserving it.
There would be no need to abolish the Senate or the states. The Senate and all of Congress was created to represent state’s voices. This established a system of checks and balances within the national government. The Legislative branch holds the Executive branch in check, and idealistically represent the voice of the people. Senators are elected by a state’s majority vote. The call for a popular vote to determine the President does not advocate the abolition of the legislative branch, it is merely asks for an entirely democratic system to elect the president of the United States.
A very fair and prevalent point that Guelzo and Hulme address in their argument for maintaining the Electoral College is the risk of a large amount of third party candidates and the chance that someone could be elected with a small amount of votes. This is a viable concern but it seems to already be relevant. In the primary elections the winner almost never has more than half of the votes, yet the system allows for this. In the general election legitimate third party candidates still can have a detrimental effect on the outcome. Third party candidates steal votes from the two party system and can swing states in directions that they wouldn’t normally sway. For example: if there is a left leaning third party candidate that has a strong backing in New York, a consistently left leaning state, that third party candidate could steal enough votes from the democratic candidate to result in a majority vote in favor of the Republican candidate. It would then be fair to say that the majority opinion does not side with the candidate elected. Generally, third party candidates do not garner enough votes to have a significant influence on an election. Additionally, the call for a popular vote does not abolish the two party system. There will still be primary elections.
A majority vote would give equal voice to every American citizen, give candidates reason to campaign in every state, increase voter turnout, and elect a President that the American people decided on. Keeping the Electoral College would preserve the ideas of the Founders. The Constitution has geared the United States to be the most affluent country in the history of the world and one of the most influential. Sometimes it is best to leave good things untouched. It has been the glue of the United States since 1887, but now is a time where the country seems very divided and it just may be time to do away with a system that elects presidents without majority approval.
