By Chase Wheaton
The Electoral College is a relic. A fossil of sorts. An outdated artifact that belongs in history books, only, and an archaic remnant of our original democracy, where the only light came from candles and news was delivered by horse-drawn carriage. And it’s about time we update our presidential election process to be aligned with the 21st century needs of our country and its citizens.
The original reason for the Electoral College’s existence is not relevant anymore. In the late 18th century, when the Electoral College was created, it was uncommon for the average American to be fully literate, and the means of communication that existed were much slower and more limited, making it exponentially more difficult for that common citizen to be informed and educated about the candidates running for president. Therefore, our founders deemed it appropriate to establish the Electoral College as a group of upper-class elites that were meant to use their education and knowledge to vote for who they thought to be the most qualified candidate for office. In fact, originally in presidential elections, Americans voted for an elector who was then free to debate, discuss, and vote for whichever presidential candidate they felt was most qualified for office, and it wasn’t until many decades later that Americans were able to vote directly for the presidential candidate of their choice, who then still needed to be formally voted for by the electors of that state. In the 21st century, however, with national news media, 24/7 access to information through television, social media, and the Internet, and our current education system, it’s absurd to believe this system still has a place in modern-day democracy.
If the history behind it doesn’t convince you, mathematically speaking, the Electoral College simply isn’t fair, and it does away entirely with the principle of “one person, one vote.” Take Wyoming, California, Florida and Texas for example. By doing some quick math with populations and numbers of electoral votes, you’ll find the ratio of people per electoral vote for each state, and you’ll see quite the disparity. Wyoming, for example, gets one electoral vote for every 192,920 people, but California gets one for every 718,182 people, Florida gets one for every 740,690 people, and Texas gets one for every 763,157 people. That means that one person in Wyoming has 3.7 times more voting power than someone in California, 3.8 times more voting power than someone in Florida, and 4 times more voting power than someone in Texas. The numbers don’t lie, and these numbers show us that the Electoral College diminishes the voices of Americans that live in more populous states during presidential elections, while unfairly amplifying the voices of those living in less populated states.
Facts and history aside, even public opinion supports abolishing the Electoral College. A Gallup poll released in September 2020 shows that 61% of Americans support amending the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College and instead use the national popular vote to determine the winners of our presidential elections. Unfortunately, if you dive deeper into the results of this poll, you’ll see a deeply partisan divide that spells out a longer future for the Electoral College than most Americans would seemingly like. While an overwhelming 89% of Democrats wish to abolish the Electoral College, only 23% of Republicans would like to do the same, and sadly, the reason for that couldn’t be clearer. If we abolished the Electoral College and used the national popular vote to select our president and vice president, the current GOP would never again win another presidential election unless they realigned their values and beliefs to be more representative of those of modern-day America.
So, unless we expect the GOP to relinquish its hold on American politics in favor of progress (which seems as likely as fish learning to fly), we can expect to continue seeing the Electoral College rear its ugly head every four years. Still, we eventually transitioned from candlelight and horse-drawn-carriage to light bulbs and cars, so in time, I believe we’ll see the progress that Americans want.