Category: Electoral College

The electoral college has been an important part of our election system for over two hundred years. This is a call to fix an antique system, that is holding us back from social progression. We must eliminate the electoral college, and further prepare our society for all challenges ahead. The electoral college is far broken than repair, and by replacing it we’ll achieve the benefits of direct popular vote.

By abolishing the electoral college, we would be improving our democracy.

In the electoral college there is a discrepancy in equality this creates negative effects on the participation of citizens voting. According to Representative Roberts, Daniel from the University of Tennessee, “To begin with, the Electoral College should be put to rest. Perhaps the institution served its purpose initially, but it has now become a relic. Instead of relying on electors, the United States should adopt a national popular vote, where the candidate with most votes actually wins. In this way each person has the incentive to go out and vote for the candidate of their choice for example, no longer would democrats in Tennessee feel like staying home on Election Day because of the feeling that they can’t make a difference. In any case, abolishing the electoral college would at least make every voter feel as if his or her vote counted.” Another study by Damon M, From the University of Georgia, “However, if the number of visits and GRPs observed across all states in 2004 were allocated so that each state has an equal number of visits and equal media saturation, the average predicted state turnout is .618 an average increase of 3.1% in voter turnout.” This is crucial to a democracy because the greater majority of citizens participating create the favored decision, if we use the previous statistic we see that more than half of the people would actually be voting on what matters vs. less than half presented by the Electoral College, thus leaving direct popular vote the better option for a stronger democracy.

By eliminating the electoral college, direct popular vote will eliminate the two party system.

The two party system in America, fitted its needs for the majority of our history, but in modern day society we see that we need to break free from that system. According to USA Today, “Domestic politics affects trade decisions in every administration, Eizenstat from the European-American Business Council says, “‘The very closeness of the election sent a chill down the spine of the administration and convinced them that they needed early on to shore up their political support, “‘ he says. “‘But it comes at a cost and in this case really a cost of U.S. leadership on free trade.” The importance of this evidence is the fact that it provides an example of how politics affect the actual benefits of a decision to get re-elected, an example that can be linked back to the two party system which allows for this to happen. The essence of competition to do what the other side is doing better or do what the other side can’t, as shown in the U.S leadership on free trade example. Another example given by U.S.A today exemplifies the negative issues created through the two party system specifically polarization, “When California suffered rolling blackouts in an energy crisis last year, the Bush administration rejected calls to intervene. In February, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced it was moving hundreds of jobs from Southern California to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Over California’s protests, the administration last year ordered the state to add ethanol to its gasoline to reduce air pollution — a step that would be expensive for California’s drivers, but good for Iowa’s corn growers.” These all are providing the example of how the two party system is creating polarization where they will do more negatives to states that already are sealed on the other side of the political race to benefit them on the swing states to gain those votes.

This is distorting policies and politics which go against the framers intent, whereas direct popular vote wipes out the variables that create the two party system. According to the Committee on the Judiciary, “Under direct election, most of the incentives toward moderate, broadly based, two-party competition are removed. It is true that a sizable popular plurality 40% would be required for victory. But that, without more is insufficient to sustain two party competition of the kind we have known. Under direct election, it is not the distribution of the vote which matters, but only the size. Votes would be sought without regard to the states which happened to contain them. Interest groups would face no necessity to moderate their views or to compromise with other groups within their resident states. Candidates, in turn, would face no necessity to present a broadly based platform within each state.” This piece of evidence is reciting the fact that competition in states would not exist, therefore leaving the individual groups less of a need to run under a political party to gain any power in government, but leave them to run as their own person. When there is not the competition for presidency that limits it to two parties you see multiple other parties being introduced into the presidential race, without creating polarization because no matter what every single vote in each state counts.

For all the aforementioned points the electoral college needs to be abolished, and we need to look at the solution. The solution, stands clear, as an improvement for our country. Direct popular vote, ultimately, will reinforce democracy.

I think that the electoral college should be taken away. I don’t think that the popular vote would be the best choice to replace it with. But I don’t think that the electoral college is working very well. There has been multiple times when the person who got the popular vote did not win when they got a lot more votes than the other person. For example in our 2016 election Hillary had around 3,000,000 more votes than Trump but he still won because he got more electoral college votes . I think that this crazy and the people should have more of a say in who becomes president.

I think this is important because the electoral college is out of date and should not be used anymore and replaced but a more up to date accurate system. I think that deciding who will be president is a very big deal and it should be taken very seriously. There are also “faithless electors” which are electors who vote against the will of the people. If the power was back in the people then we wouldn’t have to worry about faithless electors and it would just all be in the people’s hands and they would just vote for whoever they think would be best.

I think that the bad thing that comes with this is that some people do like the electoral college and wouldn’t want that to go away. Also no one would want to spend the time to find a new system because it would be very hard for everyone to agree on one. Another thing that wouldn’t work is that states with more electoral colleges wouldn’t want it to go away because they feel like they have more of a say then other states.

If we did use something like the popular vote then everyone who votes would feel that they have a say in who becomes president. I think that a decision like this should be put in the hands of the people. I understand that there would be a lot of arguments against this. But I think that we should be able to trust the people to choose the best candidate for the country. Especially after what happened in our last election, the 2016 election I think people would be extra against letting the people have the say. I personally still have a little bit of faith in the people and think that they would take it seriously and pick the right candidate.

Although the popular vote wouldn’t be the best solution, it would be much better than the electoral college vote. I also think that this should be taken away because it will force the candidates to campaign everywhere. Right now the candidates don’t campaign everywhere, they only campaign swing states or maybe states that are for the opposite party. I think that if a candidate really wants to be president that they should have to work hard to win so they should have to go to a lot more places than they already do to campaign.

I think that this will be able to pass in the future or maybe even soon. I think that people have finally started to realize that this system is not working. I don’t think that the electoral college should have ever been created or put into place. If we get rid of the electoral college then everyone’s vote will finally count and everyone will feel like they have a say in who becomes president. Even though the popular vote isn’t exactly the best solution it would be a good replacement for now. The popular vote puts the power back into the people, where it should have always been.

The 2016 election of Donald Trump put many things in motion. The 2020 election might do the same thing—especially if President Trump is re-elected in a manner similar to his 2016 victory. That’s because his election led to ongoing attacks on an invention of our constitutional founding fathers. That invention, of course, is the electoral college.

For the fourth time in our history a Democrat presidential candidate who won the popular vote was denied the presidency by failing to win a majority in the electoral college. Would-be presidents Samuel Tilden, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton all won the popular vote only to be defeated by a creation of the founders.

The same thing happened to an actual Democratic president, Grover Cleveland, who was defeated for re-election in 1888. Once again, the culprit was, you guessed it, the electoral college.

Does that mean that Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump have all been illegitimate because they lost the popular vote? Not at all. Each had broader support in the country at large than did his opponent. And each demonstrated that support at the ballot box.

So let’s keep this curious invention of the founders. It really does do its job. This is the case even though that job doesn’t entirely square with the full intention of the founders.

To be sure, those who drafted the Constitution did want to assure that another of their creations, namely the presidency, would have general appeal throughout the country. As one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, John Jay, put it, the office of the presidency should be occupied by those of the “most diffuse and established character.”

But the creators of the electoral college had something else in mind as well. They sought to put in place a kind of filtering system. What does the Constitution say? If no candidate wins a majority in the electoral college, the final arbiter will be the House of Representatives, where each state will cast a single vote.

So what went wrong? Why have so few presidential elections wound up in the House? What interfered with this piece of the plan to assure that presidential power would always wind up in the hands of those of the “most diffuse and established character”? The answer is political parties. More specifically, the answer is a two-party system.

In short order that very system was established—and still prevails. First it was Federalists v. Democratic-Republicans (Jeffersonians). Then it was Democrats v. Whigs. And since the 1850s it has been Democrats v. Republicans.

Of course, there have occasionally been third parties of consequence. Think of Theodore Roosevelt and his 1912 Progressive party or George Wallace in 1968. But our venerable two-party system has repeatedly foiled the founders. Not since 1824 and the collapse of the first two-party system has a presidential election been decided by a vote in the House of Representatives.

Still, the electoral college has at least indirectly done its work by helping to assure that a successful presidential candidate would have broad support throughout the country, as opposed to simply being the overwhelming choice of only a section/slice of the country.

Think of Grover Cleveland in 1888 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 1888 President Cleveland carried the eleven states of the Old Confederacy by nearly a two-one margin. The gap was nearly 39%. In 2016 Ms. Clinton’s popular vote margin was just under three million votes. She carried California by more than 4.2 million or better than a 30% margin. In each case the vote of the Old Confederacy in 1988 and the California vote in 2016 amounted to just over 10% of the total vote.

In the case of Trump v. Clinton an irony of sorts intrudes. The goal of the founders was to keep two types of presidential pretenders from gaining this office: 1) those with powerful, even overwhelming support in only a small portion of the country; 2) complete outsiders/upstarts.

In that regard, a case could be made that either a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton victory in 2016 would have foiled the intent of the founders. Ms. Clinton had overwhelming support in only a small portion of the country. And Mr. Trump, while well known, was the ultimate outsider/upstart.

Might the same thing happen in 2020? It’s entirely possible. But this time around Mr. Trump is neither an outsider nor an upstart. And Mr. Biden? He is the ultimate insider. Still, at this point both qualify as men of “diffuse and established character,” even if neither would ever be mistaken for, say, either Thomas Jefferson or John Adams. (Of course, some may say that both are simply characters, but that’s another matter.)

In 2016 candidate Trump used the electoral college to subvert at once the founders’ intention—and to confirm it. In 2020 he may well use it to his advantage again. But this time he is a known quantity, if not to everyone’s taste. As such, if he repeats his 2016 success, he would confirm the founders’ goal of assuring that the office would be occupied by someone who has broadly-based support and, at least, established presidential character.

Where does this leave Mr. Biden and the Democrats? A President Biden would be a match for his rival in the John Jay sweepstakes. But if he loses, he likely would also prove to be a match for Cleveland and Clinton in that his support had proved to be too limited because it was too concentrated.

And what will the Democrats likely do then? No doubt they will pursue their continuing campaign against the infernal electoral college, rather than work to accomplish what the founders required, namely building a broadly based national coalition advanced by the sorts of candidates John Jay had in mind.

The Electoral College has been around since the beginning of democracy in America. The Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College in order to vote for a president every four years. The Electoral College gives each state, and D.C., a number of votes based on population. November 8th every four years, any citizen 18 years of age or older can vote for the candidate of their choosing. Based on the number of popular votes that candidate receives in each state, their matching Electors are activated to submit the final votes for a candidate. The president is decided off of the votes of the Electors. The method of the Electoral College in order to pick a president brings up issues with electors not being faithful, candidates will not visit every state, and the popular vote not counting.

The Electoral College is the deciding factor in who becomes the next president. Parties when looking to nominate a candidate for presidency have to take into consideration, whether or not they will be able to get the most electoral votes in election. That issue alone leads to the possibly of a “not-so-great” person getting the nomination. The parties look at whether the candidate would be reliable and loyal to their party while in office, whether they are an obscure candidate or a celebrity, and whether they are prompt and firm or high-minded. A celebrity who is high-minded may be the better choice but because an “eminent man makes more enemies, and give those enemies more assailable points…they are far less desirable candidates” (Bryce 70). With that issue at hand the party has to decide which candidate will be the best for them in the end of the election. The party may go with either an obscure candidate or a celebrity, but they may have not been the better president.

The way the electoral college works is that each state receives a minimum of three electoral votes in each election, but the state may have the population to only receive one. In order to combat the issue, the votes are taken from larger states with more electoral votes and give them to the states that need it. “Because of this process, the appointment of electoral votes always over-represents some states and underrepresents others” (Edwards 2). Electors are given authority with the power to give the vote for their state. The question is whether they are “to think and act dependently, or are they merely agents of the people who choose them” (Edwards 19). This can be an issue for the people if their electors go against the wills of the people. Faithless Electors can lead to a “not-so-great president” coming in to power because their vote, going against the will of the people, can lead to the candidate people did not want to win to victory. Although this has never been a successful strategy in the past for some electors, it is still very possible. An elector can agree with the party’s views but not the candidate’s, so they could vote against them. If enough electors believe the same way, the electoral system can lead to tensions between the people and the Electoral College. Even though there are efforts to avoid a faithless elector, it can never be certain to stop. The Electoral College allows for the possibility of the “not-so-great” candidate to win in a state.

The Electoral College decreases the chances of the more popular to candidate to always win. The number of votes per state leads to swing states where less people are voting for a candidate, but they are getting more electoral votes. A smaller state with more electoral votes can vote Republican and a larger state Democrat, but due to the vote distributions the Republican will win more votes in the end. The electoral votes are in favor of the candidate who may, in fact be the least liked candidate across the country. Without direct election of the candidates, the president who is “not-so-great” or popular amongst the people can win.

Looking at how the Electoral College is set up, distributed, and mandated, it can be determined that it is flawed when it comes to picking the best candidate for the presidency. The better many may not even become the candidate because they will not get the votes, population is a hindrance in voting power, and the popular man may not win due to votes. In the end, the whole process of the Electoral College allows for issues when it comes to voting for the presidency and makes it possible for a “great” president to never get nominated.

The 2016 Presidential Election rekindled the debate over the fairness and democratic legitimacy of the Electoral College system. Despite losing the national popular vote by almost 2.9 million votes to opponent Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2016 Presidential election due to his 304-227 Electoral College victory (New York Times, 2017). It is this said potential of producing a so-called ‘wrong winner’ that invokes much of the controversy surrounding the current electoral system, and as such sees many call for its replacement with a National Popular Vote as the main mechanism. Whilst the difficulty of amending the constitution has been the primary obstacle standing in the way of reform, such a system is still not without its own flaws (Gringer, 2008: 182). As such, investigation is required in order to assess the electoral system that would best promote, and not sacrifice, the core American values of democracy, liberty and tradition.

This essay will aim to outline the main points of such a debate, so that a conclusion may be reached both as to whether the current Electoral Collegiate system should be replaced, and if so, whether the National Popular Vote mechanism is the most suitable choice for its replacement. Starting with a general background and history of the Electoral College, this paper will then move on to assessing the merits and flaws of the current system, before investigating the potential benefits of replacement with a National Popular Vote. From this, we can then hope to draw a balanced and reasonable conclusion as to whether electoral reform should be mandated, and as to how this reform should present itself.

Origins and Background of the Electoral College System:

The method of electing the President and Vice President was the object of considerable discussion at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. As Max Farrand commented in 1913,

Whatever difficulties might have been encountered in other directions, they paled into insignificance in comparison with the problem before the convention of determining a satisfactory method of electing the executive (Farrand, 1913: 160).

Whilst some delegates favoured a national popular vote, most felt that individual citizens lacked sufficient knowledge of the characteristics of candidates to make an informed and reasonable decision. Additionally, with federalism and state’s rights at the height of the agenda at the time, most delegates felt that it was up to the states to mandate how they voted for the President (Whitaker, 2001:1). Similarly, delegates from smaller states were worried that the elections would simply be dominated by a few populous larger states, and as such, it would be their issues that were given priority by the executive. This is an issue still relevant to the debate today.

In the end, the convention settled upon the compromise plan of the Electoral College system. Under this plan, electors appointed by the legislatures of each State would vote for the President and Vice President of their choosing. Whilst the provisions did not enforce the selection of these electors by popular vote, they did not forbid it either, and as such electors were chosen almost exclusively by direct popular choice in every state other than South Carolina since the beginning of the eighteenth century (Whitaker, 2001:2). These electors would be proportioned amongst the states by virtue of state population, but with each state receiving a minimum of three electors, this would go some way to alleviating the fears of smaller states as to big state domination.

In the end, whilst of course not a perfect system, it’s fair to say that the framers likely did as good a job as possible at the time. Having to balance a myriad of competing interests, as well as considering the issues of the time that would have concerned candidate exposure to the public and the difficulty in widespread vote counting, the framers created a system that has so far lasted the course of the nation. But whether the contemporary system’s survival is due to its merits, or simply the difficulty faced in amending it, remains to be seen.

In Favour of the College:

Opponents of the Electoral College system, and to some extent the majority of the left-leaning media publications in the US, would likely argue that there are no benefits to be found in maintaining the current electoral mechanism. Any system which has the capability to produce a winner who does not receive the plurality of votes is a system that is fundamentally flawed. Whilst this viewpoint is certainly a reasonable one, I would still argue that there are still a number of benefits associated with the current system that should at least be considered.

The first, is that the Electoral College does a good job of satisfying the key players in the American pillar of federalism, the States. It is important to not forget that most basically, the US exists as a union between formerly independent states, and as such the States can still be seen in some sense as individuals competing for power with each other within the Union. The proportional method of assigning each state electors based upon their population, with a minimum of three per state, achieves the difficult outcome of satisfying both the small and large states. The states with the largest populations still clearly hold the biggest say, but not to the point that small states are completely irrelevant or ignored. As Alexander Bickel wrote,

The Electoral College can satisfy, at once, the symbolic aspirations and distant hopes of the small states, and the present, practical needs of the large ones. Not many human institutions work out as artistically as that (Charles, 2002: 894).

Relative to the culturally distinct federal system of the USA, the Electoral College does a perfectly admirable job in this sense.

Secondly, the current system satisfies the need for certainty of the outcome of results soon after the close of an election very effectively. Primarily, the Electoral College protects against an ambiguous outcome, often providing a clear winner quickly even in close elections. An exception to this was of course the most recent 2020 election, where results took a number of days to come in, but that can perhaps be explained largely by the troublesome character of President Trump as well as the difficulties arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Sullivan, 2020: 5).

A direct election would likely require multiple rounds of voting, keeping the outcome of an election ambiguous for much longer. Additionally, at present, the recounting of votes is only required on a county or perhaps state basis, such as with the Florida recount that almost occurred in 2000 (Elving, 2018). Imagine the time and potential problems that would arise if a nationwide recount had to occur in a country the size of the US.

Thirdly, the Electoral College favours the two-party system, ensuring that candidates and parties have to flatten their level of support. Whilst not to say that third-party candidates cannot influence the outcome of elections, as Ross Perot famously did in the 1992 election (Burden and Lacy, 1999: 234), the winning requirements of the Electoral College system mean that a candidate must have widespread support from across the country in order to be successful. As a result, in the absence of a strong third party, candidates must flatten their support and try to represent the interests of individuals from all over the country, generally ensuring that the candidate with the strongest popular following will win the election (Charles, 2002: 894). Whilst of course this may reduce voter choice, it ensures that successful candidates are often seen to represent the wills of significantly larger portions of the country, which is much better for stability and legitimacy.

The final argument in favour of retaining the current mechanism, and perhaps the reason held by most that still support it, is faith in the Burkean style value of tradition. Edmund Burke talks of the value of tradition, and that the practical nature of the science of Government means that any institution which has performed successfully for a long period of time should be shown respect and altered only cautiously (Burke, 1790: 50). With the Electoral College performing largely successfully in its function of unambiguously appointing the executive since its inception, it is fair to say that it is an institution deserving of respect when in the discussion of its replacement. As Martin Diamond states, ‘we should preserve the Electoral College…simply on grounds of its nearly two century’s long history of tranquil popular acceptance’ (Diamond, 1977: 2). This is perhaps the most appealing and widely held reason for keeping the electoral system as it currently is; respect for the traditional institutions of the nation.

Against the Current System:

Despite the above points, the Electoral College has unsurprisingly received much criticism, both popular and scholarly. Below, I will outline the major criticisms most commonly labelled against it.

The first, and most publically relevant, is the occurrence of the ‘minority winner’. In this instance, due to the mechanisms of the Electoral College, it is possible for the winner of the election to receive fewer popular votes than their nearest challenger but still win by virtue of Electoral College votes. Whilst admittedly a relatively rare occurrence, happening only 5 times in 55 elections since 1804, its simple existence could realistically be considered a problem. Can an election outcome truly be considered democratic if it does not accurately represent the will of the majority? (Whitaker, 2001: 6).

The second major objection is that the current system gives an advantage to the votes cast in smaller states and as such should perhaps even be considered unconstitutional. The guarantee of at least three electors afforded to all states at the 1787 Convention regardless of population can be said to favour the small states, as they cast, in effect, more electoral votes per voter. For example, in 1996, voters in Wyoming cast 209,250 votes for President or one electoral vote (Wyoming is allocated 3) for every 69,750 voters. By comparison, Californians cast 9,663,105 votes, or one electoral vote (California is allocated 54) for every 178,946 voters (Whitaker, 2001: 7). This as such could be considered to be undemocratic and to some extent even unconstitutional due to the ‘one person, one vote’ rule established in Reynolds v. Sims (1964). In this landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled that election systems should give equal weight to each vote cast, and as a result, it could be fair to argue that the current system does not do this (Reynolds v. Sims, 1964).

A further criticism involves the existence of faithless electors. Whilst electors are often appointed through state-wide popular votes, the Supreme Court ruling in Ray v. Blair (1952) made it clear that electors are under no constitutional obligation to vote for the candidate as indicated by the popular vote in their state, and so can technically vote for the candidate of their choosing (Ray v. Blair, 1952). This is clearly undemocratic, and to some extent could perhaps even be considered somewhat tyrannical, with faithless electors giving the potential that citizens votes could count for absolutely nothing in the election itself. Whilst admittedly this has been an incredibly rare occurrence throughout electoral history, the fact that there were 7 faithless electors in the 2016 election demonstrates that there is certainly a potential for major controversy (New York Times, 2017).

An additional criticism relates to the ‘wasted vote’ born out of the unit voting system. This criticism is essentially the idea that the winner-taker-all rule unnecessarily ‘wastes’ votes when compared to say a direct-vote system. Effectively, most states ‘waste’ votes when the unit winner wins by more votes than required, as these excess margins could then be used to make up the difference in units where the candidate has lost (Charles, 2002: 903). This is the major drawback of unit voting, as a direct nationwide-constituency vote would help to ensure fewer wasted votes.

A final, but admittedly rather defenceless objection, is that claim that the Electoral College system is simply too complicated for the average American to understand. As an ABA commission on electoral reform concluded, the College is ‘archaic, undemocratic, complex, ambiguous, indirect, and dangerous’ (Charles, 2002: 897). Opponents of the system would argue that the lack of understanding in the system reduces the legitimacy of any outcome obtained by it, as citizens are not truly aware of what they are voting for. However, Diamond argues that the idea of a ‘long-standing constitutional arrangement’ being undemocratic simply because it is complex is absurd. He goes on to ask,

‘If a kind of prissy intelligibility is to be made the standard for deciding what should remain and what should be simplified in American government, how much would be left in place? (Diamond, 1977: 14).

In this instance, it is hard to disagree with Diamond. How different realistically is the argument that the Electoral College system is illegitimate due to a lack of general understanding from the point advocated by the framers that average citizens did not have enough knowledge of the characteristics of the candidates to select an effective Executive. It seems to me to be somewhat of a contradiction.

The Case for a National Popular Vote:

The question, therefore, arises as to whether the benefits of the mechanism of a National Popular Vote outweigh the benefits of the current electoral system. The case in favour of adopting a popular vote is rather simple. Primarily, the system would remove any controversy surrounding the victory of a minority winner, as in this system it would become physically impossible. Promoting the ideals of democracy, the system would ensure that the candidate received a clear plurality of votes, more unambiguously representing the will of the people. Additionally, every vote would be seen to be of equal weight, removing the importance of the state in which it was cast (Whitaker, 2001: 16).

The growth in minor and third-parties that would almost certainly accompany such an electoral change could be seen to provide the voter with a wider choice, whilst a second-round ballot of votes between the two leading candidates would go some way to ensuring that the winning candidate still had to receive a significant margin of support to secure victory. However, opponents would also argue that such a growth in minor parties could lead to the destabilisation of the current two-party system and relative stability that accompanies it, and perhaps result in governance by less stable coalitions as seen in many parliamentary democracies (Whitaker, 2001: 16).

Furthermore, dispensing of the appropriating of electors to the states would severely damage the value of federalism that the country was founded upon. The use of a National Popular Vote would see the role of states become completely irrelevant in the election of the President, meaning that candidates need much less focus on the interests of citizens in the smaller more rural states, marginalising a significant proportion of the electorate. Additionally, the scale of time and organisation that would be required should the results be close enough that a recount be triggered would be exceptionally burdening on the country (Charles, 2002: 894).

Conclusion:

Whilst the Electoral College system certainly appears to exhibit enough flaws to convince me that reform would likely be beneficial, I do not believe the case in favour of a National Popular Vote is strong enough for it to present itself as the solution. Although the dispensing of victory by a minority winner is certainly a strong and appealing point in favour, it also appears to be the only such major benefit. At the cost of both tradition and the pillar of federalism that the country was built upon, I would argue that it is not worth it.

That is not to say that I am against partial reform of the current system in an attempt to fix some of the certainly visible flaws, just so long as it does not stray too far from its current model so as to lose popular acceptance (Diamond, 1977: 2). For example, the District Plan would preserve the Electoral College method of electing the President and Vice-President, with each state still proportioned the same number of electors. However, electors would be chosen by the winner of each individual congressional district, with an additional two ‘senatorial electors being assigned to the winner of the state as a whole. This method would have the benefit of more accurately representing the popular vote, helping to reduce the likelihood of a minority winner, whilst still maintaining the Electoral College system (Whitaker, 2001: 17). It is the system already successfully utilised by Maine and Nebraska.

Additionally, a simple amendment mandating that electors must follow the electoral outcome of their voting unit would also completely irradiate the problem of faithless electors.

Despite the significance of this debate on the political landscape of America, I do believe it also important to put it into relativity. Since it was first introduced, there have been 752 proposals to enact constitutional electoral reform, with the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804 acting as the only successful attempt (Congressional Research Service, 2017: 4). Throughout history, attempts to enact electoral reform have proven almost impossible. Therefore, whilst this debate is certainly an important one, it may also be considered largely irrelevant due to the current political environment of the country. Instead, attempts for reform should perhaps be focused on more pressing, non-constitutional developments, for example in the realm of campaign finance, as this could provide equally important, yet realistic positive change.

The Constitution of the United States (U.S) was ratified and signed on September 17th 1787. The aim of the Constitution was to establish a central government with sufficient power to act on a national level, whilst not having too much power that fundamental rights would be at risk. The U.S Constitution was at its time, very reflective of the citizens and their political needs at the time. However, it is not my belief that the U.S Constitution creates a democratic political system, and fails to express the “Will of the People” as we see it today. Indeed, the three main aspects of the U.S Government, the Executive, Legislature and Judicial, seemingly appear democratic, however, over time these attributes have since transformed into a system of government the Founding Fathers would not recognise themselves.

Article II Section 1 of the Constitution sets out the Electoral College, which is the formal method of electing a President and Vice President. Whilst this has been the method used since the Constitution’s inception, the method is flawed, and in some cases has failed to uphold its democratic principles. The Electoral College allows for the President elect to be chosen even if they have lost the popular vote of the nation, this winner takes it all approach undermines the democratic elements of one man one vote, causing significant political splits, seen 5 times in history, and twice this century with Al Gore vs. Bush (2000) and Clinton vs. Trump (2016). The Every Vote Counts amendment of 2005, if successful, would have started the process of abolishing the Electoral College, however, the process was strenuous and difficult, hence it failed and left a system that a winner in the popular vote, could still lose the office of President.

According to the Constitution, “The Congress shall have Power To… provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”US Const. Article 1, Sec 8, Clause 1. In theory, this is an extremely democratic process as it ensures the majority of the government is in favour of declaring war. However, Congress itself has not declared war on a nation once since 1941, whilst the U.S has been called into military action multiple times since then by the President, who doesn’t hold power to declare war, leading the US into decades of foreign military unrest.

Another element of the Constitution that has undemocratic elements is Congress. Congress is composed by the Senate and the House of Representatives and acts as the US Legislature. Congressional elections don’t always result in functional governments, though, as the Presidency, Senate and House are usually split between Republican and Democratic control. As a result, a divided government usually results in there being no legislative body, as laws need a united control of the House and a super-majority in the Senate (60100 votes – or ⅔) to get past the filibuster, which has only happened trice since the Second World War. The failures to uphold democracy within Congress are, over time, becoming more difficult – bipartisan compromises used to be common, however, over time these compromises are occurring less often due to extreme polarization, making it excessively hard for both parties to work together for the good of the American people. The proportionality of the Senate also creates controversy, with every state earning 2 Senators, regardless of its sizepopulation – creating a situation where smaller states may have more exposure and power than they would otherwise have. Furthermore, in the Constitution, Senators were appointed by States rather than direct elections. Quite progressively, however, this has since been overturned through the 17th Amendment.

The Judicial branch of the government additionally holds undemocratic principles. The Constitution is quite vague on the power of the Judicial branch. Therefore the Supreme Court has gained too much power over time, essentially becoming an imperial judiciary with judicial review founded in Marbury vs. Madison (1803). More prominent issues with the Supreme Court are the life tenure that Judges experience. Life terms and high barriers to remove a Judge make them inherently undemocratic. If term limits existed, nominations to the Supreme Court wouldn’t be so politically driven and contentious, such as Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination by Trump on October 27th 2020. The Supreme Court has also caused American citizens to have some declining trust in the government, as the Supreme Court ruled that political donations are protected by the First amendment of free speech, causing politicians to potentially be more loyal to companies rather than their constituents.

The constitution struggles to sufficiently express the “Will of the People” in today’s social terms. Founded over 230 years ago, the Constitution was ratified for a simple society of just over 4 million citizens, including 700,000 slaves. Of the free population, 95% were farmers (REFERENCE) Although the Constitution can be amended, it definitely struggles to remain democratic for its citizens, now at 328.2 Million citizens as of 2019 (REFERENCE), the African American community has reached over 44 Million, and the original Constitution would have tolerated these citizens being enslaved. The ⅗’s Compromise tolerated slavery based on population size of the individual State. It wasn’t until after the American Civil War had ended that this was overturned – How can a Constitution originating with slavery represent the Will of over 44 Million of its citizens?

The voting rights of women and other ethnic and social minorities were left out of the Constitution, and it took until the 19th Amendment of August 26th 1920 for these issues to be addressed and fixed. The Constitution does not include inalienable rights for nature, healthcare, food, housing and income. Should the Constitution have these rights enshrined, Climate change would be a much more bipartisan topic and would not be so politicised, and the cost of the COVID-19 Pandemic wouldn’t be so apparent if these were standard rights to all American’s, like they are in many other MEDC’s such as UK, Germany, France and many others. (REFERENCE?) Many social problems in today’s landscape are heavily politicised from both parties, such as the fight against racial inequality and immigration. The Black Lives Matter campaign, predominantly in 2020, aims to dismantle White supremacy – however, on the political landscape is viewed very differently from both parties, Former President Trump had condemned the protests, tweeting “LAW AND ORDER!” whilst then Democratic President Nominee Biden had said ‘I will seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country — not use them for political gain,’ With these subjects being so political tense, it undermines the Will of the People as it ultimately prevents from these issues from being sufficiently addressed, and destroys all hope at a positive outcome.

“We the People” (REFERENCE) from the U.S Constitution does not reflect well in today’s terms as it fails to include various social groups that have historically been excluded from the social forefront. Immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, People of colour and women have been subjected to neglect through border control and ICE, the Church, police brutality and racism, and sexism, respectfully. “We the People ” indicates the government, who run the country, However, the majority of Congress do not represent America as a whole: only 23.6% of Congress are women, compared to the 50.8% in the country. Additionally, 22% of the eligible voting members of Congress, are people of colour.

Another major failure of the U.S system is the duopoly of its two party state. As Founding Father John Adams puts it: “There is nothing I dread So much, as a Division of the Republic into two great Parties” With only two parties, voters are limited to the amount of political viewpoints that they can vote for and will have to compromise on their major political views. For example, if an individual supported higher taxes to support universal based income and healthcare, whilst also disagreeing with abortion, that voter is completely alienated from any single party and will have to compromise with a candidate who most likely, does not share the same views. The two party state also creates and promotes a vicious and competitive atmosphere, which aids in the breaking down of bipartisanship and the ever-growing problem of polarization. Whilst a two party state does allow for true governmental majorities, and makes the voting process easier, it tends to create more problems than it solves.

An electoral college is a set of electors who are selected to elect a candidate to particular offices. Often these represent different organizations, political parties or entities, with each organization, political party or entity represented by a particular number of electors or with votes weighted in a particular way.

While most other Germanic nations had developed a strictly hereditary system by the end of the first millennium, the Holy Roman Empire did not, and the King of the Romans was elected by the college of prince-electors from the late Middle Ages until 1806 (the last election took place in 1792).

In the Church, both the clergy and laity elected the bishop or the presiding leader. But for different reasons electoral power became restricted to the clergy and, in the case of the Church in the West, exclusively to a college of the canons of the cathedral church. In the Pope’s case, the system of people and clergy was eventually replaced by a college of the important clergy of Rome, which eventually became known as the College of Cardinals. It has had exclusive authority over papal selection, since 1059.

In the 19th century and later years, it was usual in many countries that voters did not directly vote for the members of parliament. For example, In Prussia during the years of 1849–1918, the voters were original voters, appointing with their vote a elector. The group of electors in a district elected the deputy for the Prussian House of Representatives. Such indirect suffrage was a means to steer the voting, to make sure that the electors were able people. For electors, the requirements were usually higher than they were for the original voters. The left wing opposition was very opposed to indirect suffrage. Even today in places like the neverlands Netherlands, the deputies of the First Chamber are elected by the provincial parliaments. Those provincial parliaments form the many electoral colleges for the First Chamber elections; the lists of candidates are national.

The United States Electoral College is a system in which an executive president is indirectly elected, with electors representing the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The votes of the public determine electors, who normally choose the president through the electoral college. Under this system, the electors generally cast their votes for the winner of the popular vote in their respective states. However, there are some different states where this is not at all required by law. In the United States, 270 electoral votes, of the 538, are currently required to win the presidential election. There are five ways electoral college representatives are chosen, whic are listed here below: presidential nomination appointment, and party nominee by appointment, and gubernatorial appointments, and state chair appointments, and hybrid methods for the elector selection.

Colleges of electors also play a role in elections for other countries. In Germany, with the members of the federal parliament joined with an equal number of people elected from the state parliaments they can constitute the Federal Convention which exists for the only purpose of electing the head of state. Also, in India the members of both houses of parliament combined with the weighted votes from the members of the state legislative assemblies can constitute an electoral college that also elects the head of state. Other countries with electoral college systems include Burundi , Estonia , India , Kazakhstan , Madagascar , Myanmar , Pakistan , Trinidad , and Tobago , and Vanuatu. The Senate in Ireland is chosen by an electoral college.

Historical examples of electoral colleges include Finland’s, which elected the country’s president from 1925 to 1988, exceptions are 1944 (exception law), 1946 (parliament) and 1973 (extended term by exception law). The electoral college was replaced by direct elections (consisting of two-round voting) since 1994.

Argentina had an electoral college established by its original Constitution (the constitution of 18530), which was used to elect its president. The constitution was amended in 1949 and the electoral college was replaced with direct elections by popular vote used in the elections of 1951. After the –“Revolución Libertadora” the 1957 reform repealed the 1949 Constitution and the electoral college was used again in the elections of 1958 and 1963. The elections of March 1973 and September 1973 used direct elections by popular vote and a not used two-round system according to the Temporary Fundamental Statute enacted by the military junta in 1972. The elections of 1983 and 1989 used the electoral college. The constitution was amended in 1994 and the electoral college was replaced with direct elections by popular vote, using a two-round system since 1995.

In France, the president was elected by the legislature from 1875 to 1954. The first presidential election of the Fifth Republic which elected Charles de Gaulle was the only presidential election where the winner was determined via an electoral college. The electoral college was replaced after the 1962 referendum, with direct elections by popular vote, using a Two-round system since 1965.

In Spain, during the Second Republic period (1931–1936/39) the President was elected by an electoral college comprising the Parliament members and an equal number of democratically elected members.

In South Korea, the President was elected by an electoral college under the dictatorships of the Fourth and Fifth Republics from 1972 until 1987 when democratization brought the current system of direct elections.

Another type of Electoral College was used by the British Labor Party to choose its leader between 1983 and 2010. The college consisted of three sections: the votes of Labor MPs, and MEPs, the votes of affiliated trade unions, and socialist societies, and last but not least the votes of individual members of Constituency Labor Parties. Early in the history of the United states, state legislatures were essentially electoral colleges for both the U.S. Senate and even the federal Electoral College itself. Prior to 1913, U.S. state legislatures appointed U.S. senators from their respective states, and prior to 1872, U.S. presidential electors were in many cases chosen by state legislatures (though most states had switched to popular elections for electors by 1824). Because state legislatures had so much influence over federal elections, state legislative elections were frequently proxy votes for either the Senate or the presidency. The famed 1858 Lincoln and Douglas debates, which were usually held during a U.S. Senate campaign in Illinois actually occurred during an election for the Illinois state legislature, so neither Lincoln’s or Dougla’s names appeared on any of the ballots. During the American Civil War, the Confederacy used an Electoral College that was functionally identical to that of the United States, it convened just once during 1861 to elect Jefferson Davis as president.

There were 158 million Americans who voted in the past 2020 election but only 538 votes decided our next president. The Electoral College was established in our Constitution in 1804 and was created by the Founding Fathers. The way the system works is there are 538 electoral votes among all the 50 states and it takes 270 votes for a candidate to win. We the people do not vote directly for the president but we are voting for a group of “faithful” electors who then cast their votes to where their states electoral votes should go to. The Founding Fathers compromised for the Electoral College over a Popular Vote because the system was made in a time where the US government did not fully trust their citizens on making important decisions such as electing the next president. America prides itself on having a working democratic country/government but one of its most crucial systems strips the democratic label away. One of the definitions of democracy is “rule of the majority”(Merriam-Webster.com). This obviously does not apply to the Electoral College because it has been shown many times throughout history that the country’s popular vote or majority vote doesn’t really matter. This system restricts the people’s power in such a major decision so why isn’t there some kind of change. The Electoral College has been tarnishing the principles of democracy because it unfairly represents each individual’s vote, it shows the amount of trust the government has in the people, its history is tied to slavery, therefore the Electoral College needs to be abolished

A big flaw that the Electoral College consists of is the amount of power swing states have in a presidential election.”The two main political parties can count on winning the electoral votes in certain states, such as California for the Democratic Party and Indiana for the Republican Party, without worrying about the actual popular vote totals. Because of the Electoral College, presidential candidates only need to pay attention to a limited number of states that can swing one way or the other”(Vox.com). The system creates an unbalance of power between all the states where the swing states hold all the power on their shoulders. From this it creates voter suppression in the states because the people believe that their vote doesn’t matter. The only votes they believe matters are the swing states and if this mentality spreads among the people then predictions/outcomes of elections can drastically change. In democratic elections the people should hold all the power and must not need to feel like their vote doesn’t matter. A prime example of the Electoral College defying the principles of democracy is in the presidential election of Trump versus Hillary.”Clinton’s final tally came in at 65,844,610, compared to Donald Trump’s 62,979,636, with a difference of 2,864,974….Although Clinton captured nearly as many votes as Barack Obama did to win in 2012 (65,915,795), she lost the electoral college by a wide margin, clocking in at only 227 votes compared to Trump’s 304”(Time.com). Although Hillary Clinton had 2 million more votes than Donald Trump she still lost because of the Electoral College. An event where the candidate who wins the election but does not win the popular vote has happened 4 other times in 1824,1876,1888,and 2000. This shows that someone’s vote can be worth more than others due to the population of the state they live in. This goes directly against our democratic system where every individual has an equal representation in our elections. The saying “ One-person, One-vote” does not apply to the Electoral College system and that is morally and lawfully wrong. If the Election system was a popular vote then everyone’s vote would be equal(which it should be) and the representation in power of the states would be balanced. It would create a fair playing field for all the candidates to campaign where they want and speak their ideas without preaching to the choir.

The main purpose for the Founding Fathers creating the Electoral College was to try and combat against uneducated voters. This system placed the power onto educated people who were called electors to really decide the fate of the election. As society transitions into a technological age the excuse for having uneducated voters starts to decline. This is due to “Modern technology and political parties allows voters to get necessary information to make informed decisions in a way that could not have been foreseen by the Founding Fathers”(ProCon.org). It is clear that the Founding Fathers did not anticipate for information to be so accessible to the people. Those who do have access to information and knowledge from the internet can finally be labeled educated and have more power in the electoral system,right? No, the people who are finally educated still have the same amount of power as they would if they were voting 200 years ago. This purpose for the Electoral College existing is no longer relevant anymore because of how available knowledge is on the internet with just a couple of clicks. Popular vote or majority rules is a very easy form of making decisions that we use on a daily basis and in many parts of the government. Many government systems have ”several voting laws that limited direct democracy in the Constitution have been modified or discarded throughout history, so should the Electoral College. As a result of Constitutional amendments, women and former slaves were given the right to vote, and Senators, once appointed by state legislatures, are now elected directly by popular vote”(Factcheck.org). The use of a direct democracy is becoming more prevalent in our Constitution and it is shown throughout history that it has brought good outcomes. Although numerous things in the government have been modified to be closer to a democracy the Electoral College has not been touched. The process in which we pick our president has not been reformed in any way to be suitable for our time. It’s reasons to exist and perform its job are stuck 200 years ago.

One reason the Electoral College was made in the first place was to take advantage of the millions of slaves the South owned. James Madison did not support the NPV(National Popular Vote) because “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes”(Madison). The population of the Northern states were far greater than the Southern states therefore allowing the North to always win the elections. The South did not approve so they wanted to exploit their millions of slaves in any way they could. They created the Electoral College in order to overtake the amount of power they have in elections. The Electoral College’s history is strongly linked to slavery and racism against Africans. During the process of implementing slavery they came across the” Three-fifths compromise” which ruled that each slave would count as ⅗ of a person in representation and taxation. This was a very racist and manipulative policy that allowed the South to obtain more power over the North by making their population larger. During the 1800s, the Electoral College was used and created to benefit regions with a high population of slaves letting them receive more points than they would without counting slaves. The enslaved were just property to white men but then were considered actually people through the Three-Fifths compromise , but only ⅗ of a person not for the benefit of the slaves but for the benefit of their owners. Although this disgusting policy was abolished in 1864, the Electoral College will forever be stained by the racist principles it was created on.

Many Americans may believe that the Popular Vote system is already implemented in our Presidential elections. This is “When citizens cast their ballots for president in the popular vote, they elect a slate of electors. Electors then cast the votes that decide who becomes president of the United States. Usually, electoral votes align with the popular vote in an election”(loc.gov). The Electors we vote for are supposed to obey the will of the people therefore making the Electoral College more of a democratic system. Alexander Hamilton said that electors are ”free from any sinister bias”, so they should do their job in voting with what the popular vote decides. While it may be true that we already utilize a Popular Vote system, using electors ruins any form of democracy in the Electoral College. There have been 165 cases of faithless electors who did not vote with the will of the people throughout US history. It creates the problem if we are really using a Popular Voting system because these faithless electors get in the way of that. Faithless Electors are a big flaw in the Electoral College system by undermining the will of the people and ultimately having the power to change the outcome of an election.

For more than 200 years the Electoral College has been deteriorating the core values of democracy that our country stands on. Due to the system being made so many years ago a lot of reasons why it was created is no longer relevant in our time. The Founding Fathers believed that their citizens were not educated enough to vote for a president but for how accessible information is now that problem is solved. The way the Electoral College works creates an unequal representation between the people all because of the population they live in. Everyone’s vote should be represented equally by law and by importance. During the 1800s African slaves were represented as ⅗ of a person only as a way to obtain more electoral votes in their region. These are what our beloved Electoral College is tied to and the government has not done anything to reform or eliminate this system in order for it to be most effective in the 21st century. There have been ”more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College”(archives.gov).

Every four years our country participates in the most thrilling and suspenseful race of all time, the Presidential elections. One of the most anxious times that leaves all Americans anxious and eager to know who will be elected President. On the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, every four years the presidential election is held. Around 138 million voters race to their local voting polls to submit their ballots for who they want to be their next President. New voters, those who have just turned of age, many who have fought so long to have the privilege to vote in our country, and even those who recently have grown a desire to vote, are all ecstatic to have their voices heard, or so they think. Many believe that their vote directly affects the presidential election but it is not as simple as that. The Electoral College is an inefficient and ineffective process that does not fairly allow the President to be elected, and allows presidential nominees to selectively target certain states to gain the most electoral votes.

Before the Electoral College, the Presidential Elections were a direct vote, the President was elected by popular vote, and whoever placed second would become Vice President. When George Washington became the first President of the United States, John Adams became his Vice President, because he gained the second most popular vote by the people. The last President of the United States voted into office by popular vote was Thomas Jefferson. The concept of the Electoral College was originally presented at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787. Originally the Founding Fathers believed the Electoral College would create a promising way to elect the President without the fear that a future presidential candidate could manipulate the public’s perspective and unfairly be elected President. The Founding Fathers also believed that this concept would provide smaller states with an equivalent amount of power to that of the larger states in 1787, for example, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Although, controversial today, it was believed at the time to be the best way to ensure a safe and fair presidential election, yet most of the decisions generated at the Constitutional Convention had the be defended by the Federalist Papers in 1788, written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The Founding Fathers disagreed and congregated for five months to try and find and agree on the best fundamentals and amendments to building this country on, but unfortunately, times change, and so does our country. 154 years ago the 13th amendment was put into place and our country finally abolished slavery, less than 100 years ago women were legally allowed to vote, our country has changed, and so have the people that call it their home, they deserve a system that respects their right to vote and allows them to have their voices heard, not have someone else speak for them. The Electoral College does not allow voters to be heard and silences their opinions with the votes of the nominated Electoral College electors.

Although the Electoral College was originally put into place in 1804 to create a way to represent each state equally no matter its size, like most political systems, it is not operating as it was intended to. The Electoral College works on the population of each state, in total there are 538 electors whose vote determines the President. A state’s number of representatives in Congress equals its number of electors, so there are 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 United States Senators, and 3 representatives from The District of Colombia, therefore 538 electors. Electors are generally nominated by the parties’ political committee or are a part of a list of potential electors. When voters submit their ballot for who they would like to be their next President for 4 years they are actually voting for who will be their state’s elector, based on the party who they voted for. While on paper the Electoral College may seem to represent states equally and ensures voters are heard, unfortunately, that’s not the case. The Electoral College does not allow voters to justly determine who they would like to be the next United States President, it falsely claims a fair and equal system, and allows for favoritism of swing states and states with large electoral votes, for example, California, Texas, and New York.

While many supporters of the Electoral College claim the system creates a fair system for states no matter their size, ensuring Presidential candidates do not neglect smaller states, in reality, it creates a map for candidates, to where they can selectively target states who have a greater number of electoral votes. Presidential candidates’ goal is to reach 270 electoral votes, the number of votes required to elect the President of the United States. If candidates know how many votes they need, and which states have the most votes what’s to stop them from focusing on states with the largest votes? The answer is nothing. In 2016, “two-thirds of general campaign events were held in 6 states” (National Popular Vote), Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan, all of which are swing states.

Many states today including Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico have begun to attempt to abolish the Electoral College, but many stand against them and support the outdated system. Not only have entire states begun to demand change, but so have government officials, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Brian Schatz, and Senator Dick Durbin. In 1804 our Founding Fathers created the Electoral College as a way to ensure that the next President was elected based on educated decisions and votes since most United States citizens at the time did not get an equal education. Seeing as today, “90 percent of those 25 years and older have completed high school. In 1940, less than half of the population age 25 and older had a high school diploma.” (High School Completion Rate is Highest in U.S History). With the growth of knowledge in our country, and how much has changed in the past 215 years, from cars, phones, planes, and even how we pay our bills, our system for how we select our country’s leader should reflect the votes of those within our country, not the votes of anonymously nominated electors.

Since the Electoral College was put in place 5 Presidential Candidates have won the popular vote from U.S. voters, but have lost the presidency due to not providing enough votes from the electors of the Electoral College. The most recent example of this is the 2016 Presidential election when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, but only received 277 electoral votes, therefore Donald Trump was elected President of the United States by the Electoral College slate of electors. Also in 2000, when Al Gore beat George W. Bush in a popular vote by approximately 500,000 votes, Bush won the Electoral College since Al Gore only received 266 electoral votes, and Bush served as the United States President from 2001 to 2009. Even though there are over one hundred million voters currently in our country, we are still letting 538 people determine the leader of our country, 538 people who are not elected by the people, which is what the Founding Fathers originally intended. Although this system is outdated and an outrageous process for electing President, it still holds a place in our government system for the simplest answer that society relies on the old processes to avoid the difficulty, time, and patience to construct new ones. We advertise and campaign for our innovations and inventions of the future but we lack the perspective that our entire way of government, and many other systems in our country, have outgrown the basis on which they were created yet we continue to allow them to control our voices.

America is full of a million voices, a million opinions, and a million flaws, we advocate this country’s freedom for its citizens and preach that “We are the greatest country in the world”, you see it on t-shirts, hats, socks, even coffee mugs, the red, white, and blue, an eternal representation of the pride our country has, but we should be as great as we say we are. We should be allowed to vote on our country’s leader, the one who represents us all, it should not be based on the opinion of electors, it should be the voice of the people, this is an age of change, and this country deserves a change on how our President is elected. We are the future of this country, we need to change for the future in order to ensure we leave behind a successful one for the following generations, who will create an even better country.

In November 2020, the United States Elections were held, Joe Biden won the election with 305 Electoral College votes compared to Presidential Incumbent Donald Trump’s 232. For centuries the United States utilized the Electoral College voting system. A simple description of the system is that each state gets a certain number of electoral college votes partly based on its population and there are a total of 538 electoral votes, the winner of the election would be the candidate that wins 270 electoral votes or more. This means that the winner is determined not by who has the most votes, but is determined by the number of “points” garnered from each state. There are numerous instances wherein a candidate has the popular vote, yet lost the election due to said system, a recent example being Hilary Clinton losing to Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Elections. This system makes people question whether or not their votes truly mattered in a democratic society like the United States and whether this system, which was formed by the Founding Fathers during the 1780s, is obsolete and in need of abolishment or change.

The main rationale behind the creation of the Electoral College stemmed from the need to balance the interests between high-population and low-population states during the early years of the United States of America. According to founding father Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper Number 68, the body (Electoral College) was formed as a compromise at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia between large and small states (West, 2019). Many of the members of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia worried that large states such as Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania would dominate the presidential elections and as such, they devised a body or an institution to make sure that each state had voted in proportion to its number of Senate and House members (West, 2019). There were also some major considerations as to whether congress or the state legislatures should choose the chief executive. The delegates also had an anti-majoritarian policy in mind as there was a concern regarding that voter intelligence. In the context of the time period, the lifestyle of Americans was still rural and local, many people had not yet received education leading to politicians having little trust in the wiseness of the public’s choices. The premise of this objection was to prevent the exploitation of the lack of voter intelligence by populist candidates or policies as the Founding Fathers wanted intelligent politicians in seats of power. The main objective of the creation of the Electoral College is to minimize social havoc, disturbance, and corruption, and to rely solely on the people themselves during the president’s tenure.

In the beginning period, because of Washington’s status, the Electoral College system’s operation has been steady. However, after Washington’s reign as president, the emergence of political parties had a significant effect on the system of voters’ congregations. Ultimately, the idea for the formation of the institution was proved to be obsolete with the emergence of presidential parties wherein there was a distinction between them and present were a clear set of political beliefs, platforms, and ideologies that were made known to the masses (Amar, 2020). With the people’s willingness to participate in the election, most of the states adopted the popular election system in 1824 (Xiao 2018). The problems of the Electoral College system became even more apparent over time, as studies delved deeper into the complexities of the aforementioned system. Kaitlyn Marlowe (2020) identified three (3) major flaws in the Electoral College system as well as other minor problems that hinder the democratic process in the United States.

The first flaw in the system of the Electoral College is that the popular vote does not guarantee that a candidate is automatically elected by the Electoral College. Marlowe (2020) argues that the popular vote is the most democratic means of election because it gives citizens the opportunity to directly control an election, while the Electoral College could potentially change the outcome against the nation’s will. She also states that the Electoral College is a complex process, but complexity does not equal democracy. The United States is a democratic republic therefore the Electoral College was never designed as direct democracy. Throughout the U.S. presidential elections, there were four instances that the candidates with the lower number of popular votes won the national election and eventually became the presidents. In the years 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016, such an event did occur with the most recent case being Republican candidate Donald Trump versus Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton. More people regard Hilary as the ideal president, with her having the popular vote, but the winner-take-all system chose Trump as the victor. If the popular votes conform to the electoral votes, the design of the Electoral College can be regarded as logically self-consistent. However, this inconsistency has led to a serious and reflective question: the president of the United States is the president of the people or the president of every state? (Xiao 2018).

The second problem of the Electoral College as posited by Marlowe (2020), is that it takes away the ability of citizens to elect the presidential ticket. While most states use the popular vote, there are still issues with this form of vote. According to Marlowe (2020), the issue is that even if a candidate receives only 30% of the popular vote, if that is the plurality, then the candidate received all the votes of the state. This gives the candidate a small number of votes to win over in order to secure the win and only represents a minority in the total population of the candidate’s respective state. This means that the remaining 70% will not be represented as they did not vote for the winning candidate. The winner-takes-all system might be good in alleviating some issues in dividing the votes, it ultimately creates unequal representations for the citizens with some voices mattering more than others. This can be an issue in diverse states as the system can indirectly enforce further divisions along political and social lines among its citizens that can be detrimental to the democratic process. One of the negative results this process may produce is a leader who only represents a minority of the population.

The third flaw brought about by Marlowe (2020) is that the Electoral College favors the two-party system. There is no possibility for a third-party candidate to receive an electoral vote. The first reason for this is the plurality problem. If an independent candidate received 10% of votes in a state, they would not receive electoral votes. The second reason is that electors are chosen by the two major parties so even if a candidate were able to get the plurality of votes in a state, the faithless elector punishments are not severe enough to discourage an elector from voting for their party, even if they manage to win a large number of votes. Since electors are decided by the state and the state almost always has a Democratic or Republican-leaning, it would be virtually impossible to have an elector for a third party or independent candidate chosen to be an elector. Then if the candidate was chosen, they would be considered a faithless elector if they did not vote for the candidate that won the plurality in the state they are in. In each state, because of the winner-take-all policy, the third party can barely win the majority votes. So, it is impossible for the third party to tap the door of the White House, which hinders Political diversity (Xiao 2018).

Another problem would be regarding the candidates’ campaigning and platforms. The Electoral College causes candidates to focus on states with large populations and a large number of electoral votes; exactly what the Founding Fathers aimed to prevent in the first place through the formation of the institution. When a candidate is aware they need to win Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, they will visit those states, speak with those citizens, and even develop a platform regarding policies that will favor those states even if those same policies have negative effects on states like Vermont and Rhode Island that are small, with small populations, and lower electoral votes, these states tend to be ignored. The effect of this is very apparent in states like Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) where the majority of the population is located in a small number of large cities, while the rest of the state is sparsely populated by comparison. In constituencies like Wisconsin, candidates will focus more on major metropolitan areas and less on the more rural areas. (Froom 2014). Marlowe also argued that the potential for election results to differ between the Electoral College and the popular vote proves the undemocratic nature of the system. The U.S. functions as a democracy in state elections, but never gave citizens’ the ability to directly elect their President and Vice President. This system is also undemocratic because it allows states, like Florida during the 2000 Election, to individually determine the results of a presidential election. By prioritizing one state, in some cases, or a handful of states in others, there is a loss of democratic practice and results in lower voter turnout in some states.

A system that favors the elite or more densely-populated states is inherently bad for democracy (Marlowe, 2020). The dilemma of the Founding Fathers not being able to determine the best way to elect the president has created a temporary system meant to address the flaws present in their time period but which has ultimately run its course in today’s context. The short-sightedness of their decision is apparent in the numerous flaws in the system they created. In their defense, the Founding Fathers did not fully see their goal of transforming the United States of America into a bastion of democracy where every person is represented and involved in the country’s democratic process. One of the issues holding back the democratic process in the United States is the antiquated system of electing the chief executive which is in dire need of reform or change.

There have been many possible alternatives to the current Electoral College winner take all system. The most common solution given by abolitionists of the Electoral College is to use a direct election to determine who is elected President. Direct elections are defined as the most representative of the national will; with each vote having equal strength there is little question about who should win an election.