The Electoral College: A Problematic and Unreliable System

Every four years our country participates in the most thrilling and suspenseful race of all time, the Presidential elections. One of the most anxious times that leaves all Americans anxious and eager to know who will be elected President. On the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, every four years the presidential election is held. Around 138 million voters race to their local voting polls to submit their ballots for who they want to be their next President. New voters, those who have just turned of age, many who have fought so long to have the privilege to vote in our country, and even those who recently have grown a desire to vote, all ecstatic to have their voices heard, or so they think. Many believe that their vote directly affects the presidential election but it is not as simple as that. The Electoral College is an inefficient and ineffective process that does not fairly allow the President to be elected, and allows presidential nominees to selectively target certain states to gain the most electoral votes.

Before the Electoral College the Presidential Elections were a direct vote, the President was elected by popular vote, and whoever placed second would become Vice President. When George Washington became the first President of the United States, John Adams became his Vice President, because he gained the second most popular vote by the people. The last President of the United States voted into office by popular vote was Thomas Jefferson. The concept of the Electoral College was originally presented at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787. Originally the Founding Fathers believed the Electoral College would create a promising way to elect the President without the fear that a future presidential candidate could manipulate the public’s perspective and unfairly be elected President. The Founding Fathers also believed that this concept would provide smaller states with an equivalent amount of power to that of the larger states in 1787, for example, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Although, controversial today, it was believed at the time to be the best way to ensure a safe and fair presidential election, yet most of the decisions generated at the Constitutional Convention had the be defended by the Federalist Papers in 1788, written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The Founding Fathers disagreed and congregated for five months to try and find and agree on the best fundamentals and amendments to build this country on, but unfortunately, times change, and so does our country. 154 years ago the 13th amendment was put into place and our country finally abolished slavery, less than 100 years ago women were legally allowed to vote, our country has changed, and so have the people that call it their home, they deserve a system that respects their right to vote and allows them to have their voices heard, not have someone else speak for them. The Electoral College does not allow voters to be heard and silences their opinions with the votes of the nominated Electoral College electors.

Although the Electoral College was originally put into place in 1804 to create a way to represent each state equally no matter its’ size, like most political systems, it is not operating as it was intended to. The Electoral College works by population of each state, in total there are 538 electors whose vote determines the President. A state’s number of representatives’ in Congress equals their number of electors, so there are 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 United States Senators and 3 representatives’ from The District of Colombia, therefore 538 electors. Electors are generally nominated by the parties’ political committee or are a part of a list of potential electors. When voters’ submit their ballot for who they would like to be their next President for 4 years they are actually voting for who will be their states elector, based on the party who they voted for. While on paper the Electoral College may seem to represent states equally, and ensures voters are heard, unfortunately that’s not the case. The Electoral College does not allow voters to justly determine who they would like to be the next United States President, it falsely claims a fair and equal system, and allows for favoritism of swing states and states with large electoral votes, for example, California, Texas, and New York.

While many supporters of the Electoral College claim the system creates a fair system for states no matter their size, ensuring Presidential candidates do not neglect smaller states, in reality it creates a map for candidates, to where they can selectively target states who have a greater number of electoral votes. Presidential candidates’ goal is to reach 270 electoral votes, the amount of votes required to elect the President of the United States. If candidates’ know how many votes they need, and which states have the most votes what’s to stop them from focusing on states with the largest votes? The answer is, nothing. In 2016, “two-thirds of general campaign events were held in 6 states” (National Popular Vote), Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan, all of which are swing states. Many states today including Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico have begun to attempt to abolish the Electoral College, but many stand against them and support the outdated system. Not only have entire states began to demand change, but so have government officials, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Brian Schatz, and Senator Dick Durbin. In 1804 our Founding Fathers created the Electoral College as a way to ensure that the next President was elected based off of educated decisions and votes, since most United States citizens at the time did not get an equal education. Seeing as today, “90 percent of those 25 years and older have completed high school. In 1940, less than half of the population age 25 and older had a high school diploma.” (High School Completion Rate is Highest in U.S History). With the growth of knowledge in our country, and how much has changed in the past 215 years, from cars, phones, planes and even how we pay our bills, our system for how we select our country’s leader should reflect the votes of those within our country, not the votes of anonymously nominated electors.

Since the Electoral College was put in place 5 Presidential Candidates have won the popular vote from U.S. voters, but have lost the presidency due to not providing enough votes from the electors of the Electoral College. The most recent example of this is the 2016 Presidential election when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, but only received 277 electoral votes, therefore Donald Trump was elected President of the United States by the Electoral College slate of electors. Also in 2000, when Al Gore beat George W. Bush in a popular vote by approximately 500,000 votes, but Bush won the Electoral College since Al Gore only received 266 electoral votes, and Bush served as the United States President from 2001 to 2009. Even though there are over one hundred million voters currently in our country, we are still letting 538 people determine the leader of our country, 538 people who are not elected by the people, which is what the Founding Fathers originally intended. Although this system is outdated and an outrageous process for electing President, it still holds a place in our government system for the simplest answer that society relies on the old processes to avoid the difficulty, time, and patience to construct new ones. We advertise and campaign our innovations and inventions of the future but we lack the perspective that our entire way of government, and many other systems in our country, have out grown the basis on which they were created yet we continue to allow them to control our voices.

America is full of a million voices, a million opinions, and a million flaws, we advocate this country’s freedom for its citizens, and preach that, “We are the greatest country in the world”, you see it on t-shirts, hats, socks, even coffee mugs, the red, white, and blue, an eternal representation of the pride our country has, but we should be as great as we say we are. We should be allowed to vote on our country’s leader, the one who represents us all, it should not be based on the opinion of electors, it should be the voice of the people, this is an age of change, and this country deserves a change on how our President is elected. We are the future of this country, we need to change for the future in order to ensure we leave behind a successful one for the following generations, who will create an even better country.