The electoral college: a threat to our democracy
By Megan Suchet, Staff Writer
Voter fraud has been repeatedly called into question in the recent months as president Donald Trump attempts to invalidate mail-in voting, a long-standing practice whose importance rises in the wake of COVID-19. The real challenge to our democracy, however, lies in the Electoral College.
The Electoral College, as currently structured, encompasses that each state has two electoral votes regardless of population, plus additional votes to match its number of House of Representative members. In theory, the candidate with the most votes in a particular state gets all the electoral votes for that state, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska which allocate votes at a congressional district level.
When establishing the Electoral College, the founding fathers, a racist and elitist group of white men who penned a number of influential governing documents, had an anti-majoritarian concern in mind as most people at that time were not well educated and thus wanted a body of wise men to choose the best man to lead the country. In short, they explicitly rejected the popular vote because they did not trust voters to make the right decision. Now, in a day and age where about 85 percent of Americans have at least a high school education, it is safe to say that this mode of thinking is outdated and a checking system need not be implemented for the presidency any longer. In fact, the Electoral College takes away from the votes of the people.
Controversy regarding the Electoral College is not uncommon. Throughout U.S. history there have been numerous occasions where conflict arose, most recently seen in the presidential election in 2016. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton beat Republican candidate Donald Trump in the popular votes by almost three million votes. Even so, the latter won the Electoral College by 74 votes and thus, on Jan. 20, 2017, Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. Having a president who loses the popular vote completely undermines electoral legitimacy and it is becoming the norm. In two of the five last presidential elections, the president with the popular vote lost. The people’s president, the one that they chose, the one that they are entitled to under the defining principles of democracy, that the authority to choose governing legislation is in the hands of the people, was not adhered to. We need to abolish the Electoral College so that Americans may eventually vote as though they live in a modern democracy.
Additionally, the Electoral College suffers from “faithless elector” where electors cast their ballot in opposition to the dictates of their state’s popular votes. In the 1796 presidential election, Pennsylvania elector Samuel Miles, though pledged to vote for John Adams as Adams had won the state’s popular votes, cast his vote for Thomas Jefferson. Miles was the first in 157 electors in U.S. history who voted contrary to their state’s chosen winner. In 2016, seven electors defected from the dictates of their state’s popular vote, the highest number in any modern election.
An elector’s one vote is supposed to be determined not by personal morals and beliefs but by the state. That practice can be difficult to uphold, especially if the state you represent does not “vote right”. Democracy, however, is about giving a voice to all rather than a select few. When we see that the votes of a small percentage of the population are valued over those of the people, we see the beginnings of the end of democracy.
It’s likely that we’ll continue to see higher rates of faithless electors because of the Baca v Hickenlooper Supreme Court decision. The federal court ruled states cannot penalize faithless electors no matter the intent of the elector or the outcome of the state vote. Basically legalizing voter fraud, this ruling completely nullifies the popular vote. Electors, whose vote carries more weight than the average American’s, are not even bound by the will of the people. They can do whatever they want. At this point, the only ones who actually need to vote are the 538 electors in the college.
In the wake of our declining democracy at the hands of the Electoral College, a solution presents itself: abolish it. The idea of direct popular votes has garnered much support over the years. A poll in March conducted by POLITICO and Morning Consult revealed 50 percent of Americans were for it, 34 percent were against and 16 percent did not have a preference. Two months later NBC News and Wall Street Journal wrote that 53 percent were for and 43 percent against.
The United States voting system is not the same as when first established in the 1800s. Women were only granted the right to vote with the 19th amendment in 1919, as before women lacked franchise. Many Black Americans were barred from voting until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, despite emancipation in 1870 that theoretically made them equal to whites. Time and time again, we have attempted to fix the outdated aspects of our voting system. Now we need to amend the Constitution itself to abolish the Electoral College before its many shortcomings shatter confidence in American democracy all together.
Featured art by Sam Kohn, Editor-in-Chief