The Undemocratic Foundation of American Democracy
Donald Trump did not have the people’s vote in 2016. He won, only because of an out-of-date and overall problematic system: the Electoral College.
The Electoral College, at the time of its creation, made sense. The founding fathers feared the consequences of democratic despotism; the uneducated (those who did not have formal schooling) and isolated man that made up the “average American” gave rationale to that fear. The possibility of large factions manipulating the uninformed (those who were unknowledgeable on current politics) farmers and transforming the lofty democracy the founding fathers had created into the same tyranny they despised in another form was a genuine concern.
To combat this, they created the Electoral College; a collection of people, chosen by a means created by state legislatures, that vote for a presidential candidate and a vice-presidential candidate. The electors are meant to be the “smartest” and/or “most-informed” people capable of making such complex and important decisions. Most of the time, the electors are state politicians, retired politicians, or prominent figures that have a strong affiliation with certain parties.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was practically impossible to be a well-informed voter. Most Americans lived in isolated areas, were uneducated, and did not have the money nor the time to actively try to learn more about politics or presidential candidates.
In addition to this problem, most candidates also did not have the time or resources to campaign across the country for their cause, mostly staying within the limits of their local State. To go even further, at the time the expansion westward was beginning to pick up real steam; new territory was being acquired and more States were being added to the Union.
However, because these States were young and lacked proper infrastructure, information was even more difficult to distribute in these areas than in the original thirteen States, further contributing to this dilemma. So, the average American did not have the opportunity nor even the ability to become informed about running candidates.
The founding fathers knew this would be problematic; the voting population of the country was not capable of intelligently voting and they were prone to manipulation. So, they created the Electoral College as a safeguard; these electors were meant to be people (usually elites) who had the means to be well-informed about current politics as well as having the intelligence and education to make such important decisions on which candidate would be best for the country.
However, when you look at modern America, it’s very different compared to two centuries ago. We now have a multitude of tools such as the internet, social media, and even the basics like widespread news media that can reach even the most isolated American. Whether the information spread on those tools is good or bad is subjective, but it remains that being unable to be informed is no longer a real issue.
Additionally, candidates now have the means to travel across the country in a matter of hours to campaign to Americans outside of their State. The problem that the system was meant to solve no longer exists in modern America, and it causes more harm than good.
A major problem that exists in the system is one that is not written down. In fact, the Constitution is completely silent on this topic: faithless electors. The Constitution provides no requirement for an elector to vote pursuant to the vote of the people they represent. For example, in a State where its popular vote was a Republican victory, a chosen elector can instead vote for the democratic nominee, without any constitutional punishment.
Now, many States have laws that prohibit faithless electors and many times parties will legally attack electors who break their pledge, but the principle still remains. In the past few elections, there have been increasingly more instances of faithless electors, and I don’t expect it to stop anytime soon. The extremely close margins between the two current presidential candidates in recent polls puts more importance on electoral votes, and faithless electors may play a huge role in this year’s election.
Another major problem with the system is its lack of proper representation. Practically every State has the “winner takes all” rule, where a candidate that wins the direct popular vote of a State gets all its electoral votes.
Only two States don’t follow this rule: Nebraska and Maine. The flaw with this rule is that it only requires a simple majority; in a State where the direct vote splits 51/49, the party with the majority receives all the electoral votes even though almost half of the State didn’t support them. Moreover, the system gives unproportional value to certain states in presidential elections. Because the system grants each State a number of electors equal to the total congressional representatives it has, States with larger populations (meaning more House Reps) get an immensely larger number of electoral votes relative to some of its peers.
This dynamic between States creates a platform of inequality among Americans. The vote of an American from a small state, for example Delaware, does not nearly have the same value that the vote of an American from a large State, like New York, does. Not only does this contradict the core of American democracy — every vote is equal in value — but it also motivates candidates to prioritize certain States over others. It is more logical for a candidate to spend a lot of resources and effort towards winning a large swing State such as Pennsylvania over a smaller State with a practically insignificant amount of votes such as Wyoming.
Lastly, recent presidential elections have shown that the electoral college does not represent the will of the people. The only Republicans to win the presidential election in the last three decades won the electoral college, but lost the popular vote: George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
In both cases, the majority of voters picked the Democratic candidate to be the winner, yet the Republican won. How is this democratic? Both candidates gamed the system, prioritizing certain States with more electoral votes in order to surpass the 270 votes needed in disregard of the rest of the country.
The integrity of those two Presidencies is not a topic for this place, but it still stands that they were Presidencies not awarded to them by the people, but rather by a more than 200 year-old system designed to combat uninformed farmers. This paradox is inherently undemocratic, giving the decision of the Presidency to the discretion of elites, rather than that of the people. Only when this system is gotten rid of will our democracy make substantial strides towards the perfect democracy this country strives for, giving the people’s vote the supreme power it deserves.
The Electoral College should be abolished. It is an out-of-date system that takes the fate of our country’s highest office out of the hands of the people. With more recent elections beginning to show a pattern of the paradox where a candidate does not have the will of the people yet still enjoys its spoils, it has become ever more vital to rid this corrupt system of our democracy, and ensure the promise of the Constitution is finally granted to the American people.
