The Electoral College: America’s Running Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore

Iowa voters casting their ballots in 2020. Photo by Phil Roeder via Flickr

After months of grueling anticipation, the presidential election is around the corner. As Nov. 5 grows closer, the Kamala Harris and Donald Trump campaigns continue encouraging citizens to vote. However, as every presidential election nears, one of the most head-scratching systems rears its ugly head back into the spotlight: the Electoral College.  

The Electoral College is, simply, bad. It values voters of certain states — in this election, just seven swing states — while completely ignoring specific voters in red or blue states. It is an undemocratic, archaic and laughable joke of a system that damages and trivializes the election of the most important office in the country.   

I’m not saying that voting doesn’t count, or that I’m pushing for people not to vote, but it is undeniably true that the vote from someone in Pennsylvania matters more in this election than the vote from the majority of other states. The Electoral College is out of date with our current society, as it perpetuates the failures of the two-party system while disempowering voters across the entire political spectrum. 

Supporters of the Electoral College would say that it benefits smaller states by giving them electoral votes, rather than being added to the overall popular vote. However, small states like Delaware, Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, Rhode Island and the Dakotas have all seen the same results since the 1992 election. 

As Carolyn Dupont, a history professor at Eastern Kentucky University, explained, “...you think you vote for a presidential candidate, but you are actually voting for three electors. And every Wyomingan votes for three electors, no matter how many vote. So ten of them could vote, or half a million can vote, but they’re each voting for three electors.”

In the winner-takes-all system of the Electoral College — except for Nebraska and Maine, which offer proportionally allocated electoral votes — the Democrats of Wyoming, Alaska and the Dakotas, as well as the Republicans of Delaware, Rhode Island and Vermont, are pushed to the side. Why should the election of the president not concern a Republican in Hawaii or a Democrat in Mississippi?  

Moreover, there are millions of Americans who legitimately cannot vote due to the limits of the Electoral College. These are Americans who live in the territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. Over 3.6 million people live in the U.S. territories: that’s the equivalent population of Connecticut or the combined population of the Dakotas, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming — five states.

There are over 3.6 million Americans who, as the USA.gov website explains, “..cannot vote for president in the general election.” They are treated the same way as convicted felons. To make matters even worse, places like American Samoa have the highest rate of enlisted military in the entire U.S.; therefore, citizens of American Samoa can fight and die for America, but they can’t vote for their president, no matter how many wounds they come home with. 

The Electoral College is often argued in favor of because “it's what the Founding Fathers intended.” Firstly, just because someone said something nearly 250 years ago doesn't mean it needs to be continually subscribed to. The Founding Fathers came before electricity, the abolition of slavery and the chocolate chip cookie — not every single concept they developed must continue. Democracy is a system inherently meant to evolve, not to stagnate.  

Secondly, the Electoral College is no longer reminiscent of what it originally was, a system that often never included the popular vote of Americans. New Yorkers never voted for president until 1828, and South Carolinians never decided their electors for president until after the Civil War. Moreover, the only people who could vote during this period were often white men. The popular vote determined how electors chose their candidates only by 1864.

Why hasn’t the system evolved after the passing of the 19th Amendment and the Civil Rights Movement? Why haven’t we seen any changes within our lifetimes?

There have been movements to change or completely abolish the Electoral College in the past. The last substantial effort was in 1969, after Richard Nixon won the election against Hubert Humphrey with 301 to 191 electoral votes and just 511,944 more popular votes. 

For the first time, the House voted an astounding 338 to 70 votes to send a constitutional amendment to end the Electoral College. In 1968, 80% of Americans wanted the president elected by the popular vote. The constitutional amendment got filibustered and eventually died in the Senate — it was five votes short.  

Now, we are stuck with the Electoral College, considering we are facing deadlock, extremism and, potentially, kakistocracy not seen in ages. There is one truth to the Electoral College: a Republican candidate is currently incapable of winning the popular vote. 

Since 2000, the only time Republicans have won the popular vote was by George W. Bush against John Kerry in 2004. Twice this century, Republican candidates have leeched off a broken system; in 2000 and 2016, they ran away with the Electoral College while failing to gain the popular vote. 

Democracy isn’t a system where losers win. If the Republican platform cannot adapt to win the popular vote, then it shouldn’t be able to win the White House. The only reason Trump, an increasingly extreme, vehemently awful candidate, can win is due to the failures of the Electoral College. He doesn’t have to appeal to the majority of voters, just a certain amount in seven states. 

Trump has lost the popular vote the last two times and will undoubtedly lose it a third time. However, only in the Electoral College can you lose an election three times and become president, potentially 66% of the time. It is the only elected position in the U.S. where you can continually lose the majority of the time and win the position. 

But after all of this, the system still exists because the American people currently support the Electoral College, right? Nope, they want it to go; according to a poll taken by the Pew Research Center, 63% of Americans want the president to be the one who wins the popular vote. 

It is time for this joke to have a punchline. Our elections demand a serious system that properly represents the American people of whatever state, territory, party or ideology they come from, not whatever the Electoral College is.