Electoral College or Popular Vote
Lately, I have been giving a lot of thought to presidential elections. More precisely, should we move to the Popular Vote away from the Electoral College? I think I come down on the side of the national popular vote.
The Electoral College is the system the U.S. uses to choose the president. Instead of the national popular vote directly deciding the winner, each state gets several electoral votes based on its representation in Congress: 2 senators + its number of House members. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win. Most states use a winner-take-all system, meaning whoever wins the most votes in that state gets all of that state’s electoral votes. Maine and Nebraska split theirs differently.
Five Presidents lost the electoral vote but won the popular vote. They are Adams, Hayes, Harrison, GW Bush, and Trump (2016) (Hillary Clinton had 2.8 million more popular votes than Trump, the largest disparity yet).
The president is supposed to represent all of us, not just a map of states. We already have senators and governors to represent states. But when we are choosing one president for the whole country, it seems pretty basic to me that every person’s vote should count the same. And honestly, the Electoral College doesn’t make candidates care about everybody. It makes them care about a few swing states. If you’re a Democrat in Tennessee or a Republican in California, your vote can feel like it disappears before you even cast it. That’s not good for democracy, and it sure doesn’t make people feel represented. On another note, this might explain the low voter turnout for a particular party in those states where they feel underrepresented or not at all. If we were to allow the popular vote, gerrymandering would effectively disappear.
I understand the argument that smaller states need a voice. I do. But a popular vote would actually make candidates look for votes everywhere — small towns, rural counties, suburbs, big cities, all of it. Right now, they don’t have to listen to most of us. They just have to win the right states.
So for me, it comes down to this: states matter, but people are the ones living under the decisions of a president. People should choose the president — directly, equally, and honestly.
