The Electoral College Is Bad And We Need To Abolish It
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Since 2000, we’ve had 5 elections. In 4 of those elections, the Democrat won the popular vote. However, there’s only been one actual Democratic president in office since 2000.
Al Gore beat George Bush, and Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump - only not where it mattered.
Despite the majority of Americans voting for Gore and Clinton, the will of the people was stymied by the electoral college. An archaic institution born out of racism that was created to help give slave states more power.
There’s been talk of eliminating the electoral college for years, and those grumblings have only grown louder since the new millennium, and more so over the past two years alone. Which is why it was refreshing to see Elizabeth Warren reignite the conversation on a national level this week, when she held a town hall in Jackson, Mississippi.
It’s a simple concept and one that’s practiced in most democracies across the globe: Whoever gets the most votes should win.
It’s democracy in its purest form.
The problem for the United States is that we’re a two party system, and while one of those parties believes in one person, one vote - the other party is nothing more than a hotbed of hatred and bigotry, fueled by white supremacists, religious zealots, and conspiracy theorists; all bankrolled by the top 1% as a means to keep their taxes low.
The electoral college works for the latter party. For Republicans, the electoral college is the only way they can win presidential elections going forward, as we continue to get more progressive at the national level.
Their current campaign strategy is simple: Ignore the states that are solidly red and blue, since you’ll win and lose those states respectively, and focus on the handful of swing states (usually uneducated, low information voters) across the rust belt that will ultimately decide the election. Win the majority of said swing states, and boom - you’ve just become president despite your opponent having millions of more votes than you.
Republicans are no strangers to voter suppression and voter fraud. It’s gotten more egregious over the past few years, but it’s nothing new. They no longer even feel the need to hide it. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell actually called the push to make Election Day a national holiday a “power grab.”
Gerrymandering was able to limit the impact of November’s blue wave, and gerrymandering in general is one of the few things keeping Republicans in power.
Their views as a whole are deeply unpopular with the majority of the country, but due to underhanded, undemocratic tactics like these, they’ve been able to stay afloat. They realize the abolishment of the electoral college will seal their fate, so they’re desperately clinging onto the last bit of power they have.
As a result, we’re presented with flawed, comically ridiculous arguments for why we should keep the electoral college. For the record, any argument in favor of keeping the electoral college is a bad one, such as this comment from North Dakota senator Kevin Cramer:
Abolishing the Electoral College would be devastating to a state like North Dakota
It’s a bad take, but not an uncommon one from people defending the electoral college. The premise is that, because North Dakota has a much smaller population than states like New York and California, candidates won’t even bother visiting those smaller states, and their voices will be drowned out come Election Day.
Firstly, most states are ignored anyway, because again, due to the current electoral process, only a handful of states are actually in play, and thus, only a handful of states warrant a campaign stop.
But to the larger concern of smaller states being overshadowed by highly-populated ones - that’s kind of how democracy works? Majority rule?
North Dakota has a population of 760,000. South Dakota’s population is 882,000. Combined, just for kicks - that’s 1.6 million people total.
That’s roughly one fifth the population of New York City, which has a population of 8.6 million people alone; not including the entire state as a whole.
A farmer in Iowa or North Dakota shouldn’t have more weight to their vote simply because they live in Iowa or North Dakota. They are one person, just as a liberal in New York or California is one person. The votes should be equal. A handful of small, rural, and predictably conservative counties and states, should not get to decide the fate of the entire country, especially when their base is so largely outnumbered by more progressive voters.
I understand the fears that Republicans and conservatives as a whole have, but the reality is, America, like the world at large, gets more progressive with every passing generation. It’s an inevitable reality, despite the recent rise in authoritarianism across the globe. We can’t, nor should we, cater to the whims of a shrinking political ideology, at the expense of a vastly expanding one. If we are to live in a true democracy, we must have fair elections, and the will of the people must be heard and represented.
As it stands right now, we don’t. The United States is a country under minority rule.
Hopefully when the next Democratic president gets elected, that will change.