America needs a new electoral system. Popular vote losers George W. Bush and Donald Trump are well aware of this fact. Each presidential cycle, we witness candidates and mouthpieces tour battleground states in an attempt to garner the magic number, 270. It is all that matters in the modern political era, leaving citizens in solidly Republican or Democrat states unheard and unconsidered. The system that facilitates such an approach from candidates, the Electoral College, is not undemocratic and needs to be changed.
As recently as 2016, American citizens have witnessed a candidate lose the popular vote, yet still become president. It is time we classify our presidential voting system as what it is: unfair. The Electoral College does not ensure equal representation, and it was not originally intended to. The institution was created as a compromise between having Congress vote for the president and holding a popular vote.
Historically, leaders of smaller states looked to increase their say in the larger federal government. The Electoral College afforded them this opportunity. This has resulted in a mess of deception and political gaming. The Electoral College and winner-take-all elections have reduced our decision-making power since then, by restricting citizens’ choices to a pair of mainstream candidates and limiting third-party impact.
Based on population and electoral share, citizens in New York hold nearly 0.0000014 electoral votes each, while citizens in Wyoming hold roughly 0.000005 votes each. While millionths of a percent may seem minuscule to some, the differing representation enables the primary issue with our presidential process: the loss of elections by candidates who won the popular vote.
Massive population centers’ voting power is largely nullified through the Electoral College, which some may argue is the intended purpose. Voters in swing states are constantly pushed and pulled by massive interest groups. In this system, billionaire lobbyists can further increase their current leverage within our political system.
An all-or-nothing approach to elections is uniquely American, and it is not a good thing. Many nations do not directly elect their heads of state through typical elections. Citizens in other nations, such as Germany, elect parliament members in federal legislative elections. The leader of the party who has a majority in the legislature becomes the head of the Executive branch. In this model, usually employed in Parliamentary systems, seats in the legislature are proportionally allocated per the Party’s popular vote share, instead of their victory within a specific electoral district which is the case in the US.
Despite the Electoral College being established in the Constitution, there is a way for each citizen to truly have their voice heard. A constitutional amendment to establish proportional representation is what the nation needs to ensure that elections are truly fair and democratic.
An electoral system based on proportional representation means that the number of seats each party receives in Congress is proportional to the votes the party gets in the election. American states like Nebraska and Maine use a similar method in their presidential elections, where electoral votes are split between sections of the state.
A system combining the two approaches, where all states divide their electoral votes by district, could provide more reflective results and political diversity than our current winner-take-all electoral process.
The Electoral College is the source of a massive injustice. A candidate can lose the majority vote and still gain power. A billionaire could spend all of their money in a single state to transform a federal election. A single party can represent a country that is populated by over 330 million people. It is all antithetical to the “democracy” and “freedom” that is constantly spoken of by our leaders. We have witnessed twice this century, in 2000 and 2016, that the opposite of the collective American will be done. Without change, we are bound to this cycle for the duration of our nation’s existence.
