Electoral College Review

1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. John Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. These years and presidents are very important for our country and rightfully so. These are not only election years, but presidents who were elected not through the democratic popular vote, but through the electoral college. These presidents are proof that our country is not a true democracy. For recent example, after the election of “Republican” candidate Donald Trump, numbers came out showing that he was elected despite losing the popular vote by around 2.8 million votes, Donald Trump won around 46% of Americans vote, while his Primary adversary, Hillary Clinton won about 48%. This prompted a, lively, for a lack of better wording, debate over whether the electoral college was basically, a good or bad thing for this nation. The electoral college was established in 1788 by Article ll of the Constitution. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the individual states who cast votes for the president and vice president of the United States. This, system, is made up of 538 electors who are primarily chosen by political parties in their respective states. When

Americans vote for a President and Vice President, they are actually voting for presidential electors, known collectively as the electoral college. It is these electors, chosen by the people, who elect the chief executive. The Constitution assigns each state a number of electors equal to their combined total of the state’s Senate and House of Representatives delegations, now, the number of electors per state ranges from three to 54, for a total of 538. Because these elected voters stop a “the most votes wins” mentality, people came out of the woodwork scrutinizing and demeaning, questioning the effects of the electoral college. Many left leaning Hillary Clinton supporting media outlets came out to disparage the electoral college, such as the “news” outlet Vox, saying things such as :

“November 8 “presidential election” was in actuality the venerable ritual in which the residents of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and a few other states got the privilege of choosing the president of the United States of America.”

While this may be the opinion of many people across the US due to many different reasons, it is smart to explore the exact reason why the electoral college is in place today. The main argument against the electoral college is that America,due to the colleges power, is electing its president through a handful of swing states. These few highly populated states are becoming the only states that matter to politicians while leaving the little guy, out to dry. The electoral college in this way is giving power to the mob and hurting the true American voters right? America is a democracy and taking away from the “popular vote” mentality is unethical, right?

First, swing states do matter, politicians campaign there strategically because these are generally areas of middle America, places that people often view as “flyover states”. Places like Montana and South Dakota. Who vacations to Montana to see the beautiful.. Dirt. Nobody. These middle America areas would be massively underrepresented in the American political system if not for the electoral college. If not for this electoral college, we would see politicians campaigning in just a few cities like New York, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit. The electoral college is in place doing exactly the opposite that the media is portraying it does. Instead of giving power to the mob, instead of giving the presidential pick to the top 6 cities in a country of around 300 of them, the electoral college is an equalization of power and influence throughout America. If it were not in place, Hillary Clinton would have gone to Detroit and promised a bunch of Union handouts, gone to Chicago and promised to fix all of their drug problems and flown to California and preached about how disgusting middle America is. America is so far from Federalism and so far from being a Democracy, for a good reason. This is why America has term limits. If people are outraged that the electoral college is preventing the voter from having its intrinsic value, then the media should see an outburst of anti-term limit values. You know, if the people truly want a president for a third, fourth, eighth time, the government is doing wrong by stopping them right?

   No, America is not a democracy we are a representative    Republic we should have terms we should be changing    politicians regularly. Our electoral representatives have a job,    and their job is to represent people and make decisions instead    of putting every single federal thought choice and decision to a popular vote.

The point people need to understand is that America is not a Democracy. This country is not a mob rules all mess. The popular votes matters, but so does the little guy. I am not saying that the people in Missouri should have an equal vote to the congealed mess of California, but I am saying that there should be a balance of powers as there is one in the branches of government.

The president should not be able to render the Supreme Court or the Senate powerless, and vice versa. New York and Silicon Valley should not be able to render North Dakota, Wyoming, Indiana, Utah, Oklahoma, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Kentucky powerless either. One branch of government should not be able to rule the others, just as a handful of states should not be able to phase out the others.

The electoral college is a representative it is emblematic of intellectual diversity. It is emblematic of making sure that people and that states can have diverse thoughts, values, families, cultures. The electoral college ensures that we can have diverse beliefs that states can be petri dishes, microcosms. There can be states that have salmonella in their petri dish like California or you can have a strong, vibrant, successful culture like Texas and they will both be represented in the political world. If America abandoned the Electoral College and adopted a system in which a mob rules all mentality took over our ballot boxes, every group with slightly diverse ideological interests would field a presidential candidate. If pluralities of groups come to run for president and they all get 1% of votes, America could elect a president who only earned 25% of the popular vote. Would that make our population happier? Although utilitarianism is an important factor in American politics, we must take into account the fundamental protections that we have set for ourselves. The majority may not take away the rights of the minority, that is a foundational value that, parties aside, we all hold.