Can we please get rid of the Electoral College?
Regardless of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, one aspect of American democracy has become abundantly clear for all to see: the Electoral College is an antiquated relic from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that needs to go.
Corrective action, i.e. abolition of this abominable system, is indicated.
It is unfair both to candidates and citizens.
With the partial exceptions of the states of Maine and Nebraska, choosing electors to the Electoral College is based on a winner-take-all system. A candidate can win 49% of the votes in a state yet still lose 100% of that state’s electoral slots if his or her opponent receives just a few more votes.
This is terribly unjust to losing candidates who are really close in big states and to those citizens who voted for them. For example, in the infamous 2000 election, Al Gore lost Florida and all of its then twenty-five electoral seats despite receiving 2,912,253 votes (only 537 votes separated Gore from George W. Bush, who controversially carried the state and, as a result, won the presidency).
Bush, of course, lost the popular vote.
The Electoral College system grants voters in small states a bigger say in the outcome of the election. Each state is granted electors on the basis of the number of congressional districts (i.e. congressional representatives) they have and the two senators they all have. That means that every state has a minimum of three electors: two representing the senators and one representing a congressional district (Washington, D.C. was granted three electors in 1961 but has no representation in Congress).
States with larger populations have more electors because they have more congressional districts (i.e. representatives in the House). But as we all know the fact that there is a set minimum means that often an elector from a smaller state is representing far fewer voters than his or her counterpart in a bigger state (i.e. a voter in North Dakota is a lot more powerful than a voter in New York, Texas, or California).
The problem with this system is that it has led to the election of several presidents who were not voted in by a majority of the American people: Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
To be noted is the case of John Quincy Adams who got fewer electoral and popular votes than Andrew Jackson 1824. Jackson did not win a majority, only a plurality, of votes, however, leading to a contingent election in 1825 which Adams won. Additionally, one ought to remember, the popular vote was not tallied before 1824. Women could note vote in federal elections until 1920. And, in practice, African-Americans were only enfranchised as voters in 1965.
The alarming aspect of the electoral college system today is that it has led to the election of two of the most problematic presidents in recent memory: Bush Jr. and Trump. Their election damaged the international credibility of the United States. They were both responsible for poor decisions which led to great suffering both at home and overseas. The tragedy of it all is that both in 2000 and 2016, a majority of voters did not want these two men to be president. Bush won the election fair and square in 2004, which helps mask the injustice of the 2000 election a little.
But imagine if a candidate wins the presidency twice without once winning the popular vote. That outcome would be utterly divisive and fundamentally at odds with the spirit of democracy.
