The Electoral College and the Problems that Come with it

The year was 1785. America had just won the war against Britain for their independence. Representatives from every state gathered in Philadelphia for the first-ever Constitutional Convention to decide how the newly formed nation would run. It was here that the Founding Fathers created the guidelines for government. While some ideas that were created and approved have long since faded out (for example, the Three-Fifths Compromise that said for every five slaves, a state could get three representatives in Congress), we still see many that are in use today.

One example of these ideas is the Electoral College. The Electoral College has been an issue of debate in recent years. The number of people who want to dispose of the Electoral College seems to be growing with every election. Strong arguments for the removal of the Electoral College include: it is out-dated, only “Swing States” votes decide who becomes president, and in the event of a tie, the House of Representatives decides who becomes president. Weaker arguments include: winning the electoral college but losing the popular vote loses legitimacy for the winner, the Electoral College was only created to protect slave owners, and that the Founding Fathers wrote the constitution with only white, male landowners in mind. Overall, the Electoral College needs to be removed for the betterment of Democracy in the United States.

Before getting into any specific argument about the Electoral College, it is crucial to understand how it works. The Electoral College is made up of 538 voters that decide on the President and Vice President of the United States. The total of 538 is made up of America’s 435 State Representatives, 100 Senators, and three votes for the District of Columbia (Huffington Post). Each individual state gets two senators each and a number of representatives based on that state’s population. The Electoral College takes the combined number of senators and representatives for each state and gives that number of votes for the presidential election. For example, a smaller state like North Dakota gets a total of three electoral votes, while a much more populated state like California will get 55 electoral votes. The Founding Fathers created this system for a few reasons. First, it was created to be a fair balance between bigger and smaller states, giving each a fair say in who becomes president. Secondly, it was meant to be a defense against uninformed people from voting a potentially dangerous candidate into office (although some could argue that this has failed in previous elections). During the election, a Presidential Candidate needs to get a majority, or 270 votes, to win the presidency. In the rare event where a candidate does not receive the 270 majority, the vote will go to the House of Representatives to decide who wins. What has become more common in recent elections, however, is the case where a candidate will receive the 270 majority electoral votes but will actually have fewer votes in total. It is possible for the candidate with the most total votes, or the “Popular Vote,” to lose an election due to the Electoral College. It is for this reason that the existence of the Electoral College has been called into question in recent years. It is important to not only look at each individual argument but also to study each argument in-depth to make sure that it is truly a fair point.

The strongest argument for removing the Electoral College is the fact that it is outdated. The Electoral College was first implemented in 1787. That was over 230 years ago, and quite a lot has changed during that time. For instance, the first United States Census took place in 1790, in order to determine the population. The grand total for that census comes out to just under four million (Kat Eschner). Today, the population of the United States is over 325 million. The American way of life back then is far different than what it is today. The Founding Fathers were without a doubt some of the smartest people of their time, there is no arguing that. However, as smart as they were, they could not see the future. At the time the Constitution was written, they had no idea what the future held for the United States. Who could have predicted all the changes to come over those 230 years? One of the reasons the Electoral College was created to begin with was to keep uninformed people from making uninformed decisions. This made a lot of sense at the time, as many people were uneducated and not informed enough to have a solid understanding of everything the election entailed. In current times, it is almost impossible to be uninformed. People have in their pockets a device that can gather any information ever recorded. People get news alerts from across the world in a matter of seconds. While there is certainly a fair share of “uninformed” people today, the term today has a vastly different definition than it did back then. The Founding Fathers were concerned about people coming from the middle of nowhere, with no clue about any political issues or even the political candidates themselves, and deciding the future of the nation. While this is certainly a fair concern to have had back then, it in almost no way correlates to what today’s America is like. Today, both political candidates and issues are watched very closely by the public eye. Everyone in America today, while certainly not at a rocket scientist level of education, is still far more educated than a large majority of Americans in the late 1700s, 1800s, and even a large portion of the 1900s. Those in favor of the Electoral College often argue that America’s elections have always used the Electoral College, and that America should continue to use this system. However, this argument falls under the traditional wisdom fallacy, as saying that it has always been done a certain way does not justify continuing to do it that way. The Founding Fathers were some of the most brilliant minds of their time, but it is okay to say that they were wrong sometimes. There have been plenty of other times when Americans realized the Constitution had parts that no longer correlated with the current United States, such as the Three-Fifths Compromise. The Founding Fathers knew that there would be times when their rules no longer fit America’s needs. That is why they gave Americans the power to amend the Constitution, to allow it to grow and change along with the needs of Americans. The Electoral College is outdated and no longer fits the needs of today’s America, and therefore, needs to be removed.

Another strong argument for the removal of the Electoral College is that only the “Swing States” decide the election outcome. In the Electoral College, all but two states, Maine and Nebraska, are a “winner takes all” in terms of electoral votes. Essentially, if a candidate wins by even a tiny margin, all the electoral votes go to that winner. This process creates a battlefield for political candidates. The majority of states almost always vote in the direction of a certain political party. For example, Texas voters will almost always vote Republican, and New York voters will almost always vote Democrat. Political contenders will vigorously campaign in these states, as these states typically sway a candidate over the 270 total electoral votes necessary to win the election. Instead of spending time and money campaigning in states that often vote for the other party, a candidate will invest a considerable amount of time in states that are on the fence, or could go either way. Candidates will pander to the needs of these states in particular to win. Those seeking re-election will prioritize the needs of swing states over those of locked states to ensure victory. That’s why swing states control the elections. Whichever way voters in swing states decide will determine the winner. This scenario creates a significant problem with the Electoral College System. A vote in a swing state becomes more valuable than a vote in a locked state like Texas or California. The needs of a swing state become more important than those of a locked state. Every vote should have equal value in a democracy, and that’s why the Electoral College should be abolished.

A third strong argument for the removal of the Electoral College hinges on the possibility of a tie. In such an event, the House of Representatives will vote to determine the next president. This vote would be deferred until the newly elected representatives assume office in January, as no one prefers a representative who has just been ousted to command a say in selecting the next president. However, the voting protocol in the House alters for this situation. Here, every state gets one vote. This seemingly unreasonable practice, established by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, equates the influence of populous California with that of less populated North Dakota. This aspect of the Electoral College overtly favors smaller states. Moreover, there is also a possibility for a state to lose its voting right altogether. If a state has an even number of representatives evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, it becomes a deadlock state and loses its right to vote. Despite the potential for deadlocked states, a candidate still requires a majority, winning 26 states, to secure victory. This circumstance outlines the absurdity of the Electoral College. If neither candidate manages to secure 26 states, then the vice president, elected by the Senate, ascends to the role of President of the United States – a position no citizen voted for them to hold. While such a situation has not yet transpired, it has come perilously close. If the Electoral College persists indefinitely, such a scenario will inevitably happen. The Electoral College must be abolished before this becomes a reality.

Another strong argument, perhaps one of the strongest against the Electoral College, is the assertion that it was initially designed to be based on population; however, mathematically, this is untrue. On the surface, the allocation of electoral votes appears to be fairly distributed. States with more people receive more electoral votes, while states with fewer people receive fewer votes. However, were this truly the case, smaller states would lose out every time. So, to ensure fair representation for smaller states, each state is allocated a minimum of three electoral votes. Take Wyoming, for example. With a population of just under 600,000, it is one of the least populous states in the U.S. This state is allocated three electoral votes, approximately one vote for every 200,000 people. But, consider Texas which has a population of around 28 million. Divide that by the number of electoral votes for Texas, which is 38, and that equals over 700,000 people per electoral vote. This disparity is significant and should not be overlooked. The Electoral College claims to distribute votes based on population, but the math shows that it does so disproportionately. Any argument asserting that the Electoral College is fair because it distributes votes based on population is using the fallacy of suppressed evidence. The fact that a state with a larger population has more votes than one with a smaller population fails to address the glaring discrepancy in per capita representation. This argument alone should be sufficient to prove that the Electoral College is flawed and needs to be abolished before the next election.

While there are many convincing arguments for abolishing the Electoral College, there are also several weak ones. One dominant, albeit less compelling argument is that the Electoral College was established to protect slave owners. This argument, to some extent, is a poor representation of history and fails to provide the full picture. When the Founding Fathers convened the Constitutional Convention, one fierce debate was how to distribute power equitably between large and small states. A major part of their resolution was to create a bicameral government, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state receives two delegates in the Senate, while in the House of Representatives, the number of delegates for each state is based only upon population count. However, to give smaller states a fighting chance in the House, the Three-Fifths Compromise was adopted, which counted three out of every five slaves towards a state’s population. This aspect of the Constitution, which was undoubtedly born from sheer hate and racism, also influenced the determination of the Electoral College, with three-fifths of each state’s slave population counted towards the total number of electoral votes. It is an example of the division fallacy. The argument posits that since the determination of population, on which the House of Representatives and the Electoral College base their allocations, originated from racist ideology, then the Electoral College is intrinsically racist. While this line of reasoning can have its merits, it is, at best, a stretch. The Electoral College would have been predicated on whatever the definition of population had been determined to be at the time. Had it been decided that all men and women, regardless of their race, were to be counted towards a state’s population, the Electoral College would have followed the same rule. The creation of the Electoral College was not based on racism but on previously established standards. This argument, despite its popularity, is fundamentally flawed in its reasoning.

Another argument against the Electoral College that falls flat is the idea that a candidate who loses the popular vote but wins the Electoral College loses credibility. In theory, this makes sense. A president who wins but receives fewer total votes will seemingly have that chip on his or her shoulder throughout the presidency. Anytime that president says or does something that the other side does not agree with, they can call back to this fact as an argument. On paper, this fact would be held over a president’s head for years to come. But the key words there are “in theory” and “on paper”. At the end of the day, they are still president. They will still hold all the power. This argument would be true if it were any other job, but the President of the United States has no issue with legitimacy. The President is the most legitimate job in the world. No member of Congress, no foreign power would hold that over a president’s head because, at the end of the day, they are still the president. Nobody questions the legitimacy of the most powerful man or woman in the world. This argument uses the questionable premise fallacy. It creates an argument that just is not truly there through exaggeration. This argument should be disregarded in the debate over the Electoral College.

Another weak argument against the Electoral College is that the United States does not use it at the state level to elect Governors. If the Electoral College works properly for the presidential election, then why is it not used for the Governor race? If it truly works so well, then it would be used at both the federal and the state level. But this is not the case. This argument is also based on the questionable premise fallacy. The argument just does not make total sense. The presidential election and the election for governor are two totally different situations. This idea could potentially work for a larger state like Texas or California, but for smaller states like North Dakota or Wyoming, it just does not make sense. Furthermore, the Founding Fathers created the guidelines for the federal government and granted states’ rights on what they can and cannot do. If a state felt that an electoral college system worked best for the people of that state, they could pass legislation that does that. This argument does not make a particularly good point, and due to its fallacious reasoning, should be ignored in the debate over the federal use of the Electoral College.

There are many arguments surrounding the Electoral College, both in support of keeping it and in support of removing it. Everyone has a very strong opinion these days, and that can sometimes make it hard to honestly analyze the arguments that are being made on both sides. It becomes genuinely difficult to take a step back and really consider every angle. Breaking down each argument is a tough but crucial and necessary part of deciding what the best option is. If everyone stopped to look at everything in-depth, people on both sides would switch to the other. At the end of the day, it becomes clear that the Electoral College system is failing America and needs to be replaced. What is the right system for American Democracy? Maybe it is the popular vote. Maybe Congress and the American people find a new system that caters to the needs of today’s America. It is hard to say what will definitely work. All that can be said for sure as of right now is that the Electoral College has failed and needs to go away for good.

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