The Case for Eliminating the Electoral College.

With the 2024 Presidential Election approaching, approximately 2/3 of Americans don’t want either Donald Trump or Joe Biden as their next President. Joe Biden is, at the moment, unchallenged to become the Democratic candidate, while Donald Trump has a large lead on his competitors for the Republican nomination.

Biden is largely seen as too old to begin another term and Trump is facing a mountain of criminal charges, but remains popular despite, or perhaps because of, the charges. 

Given the unpopularity of the likely choices, it would seem to be a great opportunity for an Independent or Third Party candidate to swoop in and become President. Unfortunately, our system is not set up in such a way to let, perhaps, the best and most popular candidate win the presidency. The problem is the Electoral College. 

You see, we the voters don’t actually elect our President. That is done by a group of 538 temporary electors meant to represent on a one to one basis the number of Congressional Representatives. A candidate must get at least 270 of those 538 votes. Most states award ALL of their Electors to whoever gets the majority of the votes in their state. Only Maine and Nebraska award the Electors roughly in proportion to the popular vote in their state.  

So, given this system, having a third candidate or fourth candidate would be problematic as it would be extremely difficult for any ONE candidate to reach the required 270 votes. Here’s where the treachery and nefarious complications kick in using the Electoral College system. If no candidate gets 270 votes, the HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES simply picks someone. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the Representatives would vote along Party Lines. This means, under the current system Independent or Third Party candidates have, effectively, ZERO chance of winning the Presidency, even if they win a majority of the votes. 

The Electoral College system was set up in the days before mass media and the Internet were set up with the reasoning that it would be difficult for voters in rural areas to get enough information to make an informed choice. Clearly, that is no longer the case as information is abundantly available through an almost infinite number of sources. Voters can easily learn all they need to know about their choices and make their desires known. We have the technology to quickly and accurately determine who wins the majority of the votes in a National Election. So, why do we still depend on the outdated and unfair system of the Electoral College? The answer is simple and obvious, it favors the two major political parties in our country and allows them to control the power and, by extension, all Americans. 

How many times in our history has the will of the American people been subverted by this system? Five times, the winner of the popular vote DID NOT win the election. in 1824, 1876, 1888 and in modern times in 2000 when Al Gore beat George Bush and in 2016 when Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump. Both of these non-representative elections have had massive impacts on our country. 

There is no valid reason in today’s America to retain the Electoral College system. Why is it still there? Because it favors those in power and they are extremely unlikely to ever willingly move away from the corrupt and antiquated system that favors the status quo. How do we fix this incredible injustice? By being aware of it and making sure everyone knows that their vote doesn’t really count under this system. There is no easy way to right this wrong but making the injustice known and forcing our representatives to address it is the only way that we can begin. We can only hope that, at some point in the near future, each of our votes will count and we can finally believe the our our government is truly by the people and for the people.