The other day, I saw a Threads post that said theoretically, a presidential candidate could lose the popular vote by over 131 million votes and still win the Electoral College. Although that scenario would never happen, the fact that it’s possible shows how severely flawed our presidential election system is.
Out of 46 presidents, five lost the popular vote. Leaving out the election of 1824 (a vote that ended up in the House of Representatives because no candidate won an absolute majority), the elections of 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016 show how biased the electoral college is towards swing state votes.
In 1888, President Benjamin Harrison was elected president after losing the popular vote by over 89,000 to President Grover Cleveland. Harrison won the state of New York by roughly 14,000 votes. Since the electoral vote came down to New York, that meant New York’s votes mattered six times more than the popular vote amongst the rest of the country, as if the voices in swing states have more weight than in every other state.
The other three instances showed even more significant levels of value in swing state votes, with the worst in 2000. Al Gore won the national popular vote by 537,000 and change, but President George W. Bush won Florida by 537 votes. Those 537 votes were 1,000 times more important to the system than the 537,000 votes Gore won in the national popular vote.
President Donald Trump’s electoral win in 2016 against Hillary Clinton was the biggest numeric discrepancy in Electoral College mishap history. Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. Trump gained the presidency because he won in swing states (like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan), so 3 million people’s voices were ignored because of those swing state wins.
Essentially, the Electoral College says that swing state residents are the most important Americans. In this election, residents of Pennsylvania are deemed more important than us here in Colorado. No wonder candidates never spend time in typically blue or red states — those votes don’t weigh as much in the Electoral College.
I can see how people lose faith in the voting system knowing that their state usually goes a certain way. If I was a Republican in California or a Democrat in Texas, I might not even vote for president. It is unfair to beg Americans to vote when candidates only receive votes by state, not by person.
The Electoral College was created by the Founding Fathers for multiple now-outdated reasons. The United States would have been one of the only countries to have their chief executive elected by the populace, there was distrust in citizens’ abilities to choose a president that benefited the whole country, small states believed only candidates from large states would get elected … the list continues.
It has been almost two-and-a-half centuries since then, though. Many democratic countries have popularly elected chief executives, and this country is well-connected enough that candidates can reach almost anywhere, regardless of their state of origin.
Elections also come down to specific citizens within the electoral college, and literally anyone who doesn’t already hold public office can be an elector. There are no requirements that set electors apart from the average citizen.
Also, nothing in the Constitution stipulates that electors have to vote for the person who won in their home state. They can vote for whoever they want, and I have a hard time giving my full trust to some people the public hardly interacts with.
The Electoral College devalues the meaning of the vote. A president chosen by the country is the president who wins the most votes, which is the popular vote. It is time to change the Constitution and let the national popular vote decide who deserves the office.
Photo courtesy of CNN.