Electoral Dysfunction

My daughter wrote the following for her junior theme project, which is a graduation requirement for her high school. It is timely and thought-provoking. I am delighted that she gave me permission to share it with all of you!

I am a member of Generation Z, made up of the kids born from 1997 to 2012, and in the current political climate we are all becoming increasingly aware of our influence on the world. Teenagers across the globe are becoming very active in the political sphere. For example, Greta Thunberg, a 17-year-old environmental activist, is changing the world by fighting the climate
war against politicians three times her age. Every single one of us has important opinions to share and important decisions to make. Taking part in the Presidential election process is one of these important decisions. Four years from now, I will be eligible to vote in this historical process of selecting the head of the Executive Branch. In the United States we use a system
called the Electoral College to elect the president. This system allows states a certain number of electors proportional to their representatives in Congress. [In most cases] these electors cast their votes for the winner of the popular vote in their state. This process was a great solution when the Founding Fathers needed a compromise between the fears of majoritarianism and the fears of monarchical tyranny. But today, 232 years later, the public opinion of this system is not positive.

As a young, powerful, and influential demographic, Gen Z must be aware of the way the voting process works, and the ways it doesn’t work. Every citizen of this country has a unique political opinion, and there is no reason any perspective should be discounted. Every vote must count. Unfortunately, with the current system, this doesn’t occur. The United States Electoral College, though its original intentions were legitimate, has grown problematic because it promotes results contrary to the will of the majority and fosters power imbalances. Moving to a popular vote to elect the President will fully and appropriately represent the needs of our Country in a time of drastically different values than those at the Constitutional Convention.

In 1787, delegates from each state gathered in Philadelphia to create a new framework, a stronger one, for the young Republic. This framework is known as the United States Constitution. In this Constitution, our Founding Fathers laid out the fundamental guide for our country, including how to elect the head of the Executive Branch. The delegates brought two drastically different options to the table. One option was election by Congress and the other was
popular election, or election by the people (Bouie). With delegates proposing election processes that completely contrasted each other, it was clear that reaching an agreement would be very difficult. Both proposed options, election by Congress and direct election, faced opposition, “Objections came from George Mason of Virginia and other Southern delegates who feared
domination by the largest states,” (Bouie). There was an evident struggle between fears of majoritarianism and fears of tyrannical monarchs like the one that kickstarted the American Revolution.

Finally, in September of 1787, the Electoral College was created as a compromise between the bickering politicians. “Their compromise centered on an idea introduced at the start of the discussion: Instead of direct election or election by legislature, states would choose electors who would then elect the president and vice president from a group of candidates,” (Bouie). This indirect election system was one in which the power didn’t rest solely in the hands of the people, which satisfied those fearful of tyranny by the majority, while also not handing over the power to the legislative branch, satisfying those fearing too much federal power. The delegates were desperate to come to a compromise and this compromise left America with a strange and complex Electoral system. At the time of the creation of this process, America was quite small and the Electoral dysfunction was not visible. As America expanded West, however, and new states were added, many of these states boasted populations lower than those back East.

It is important for voters to understand that “[the founders] did not foresee the combination of a large number of new states and the low populations of many of those states,” (Edwards 116). The Founding Fathers could not predict what the situation of our country would be 232 years in the future, and because of this, their decisions do not reflect the current values and needs of our country. A common political belief is that the Constitution is a living document, and if that is so, adjusting it to fit the needs and values of today’s America is vital.

The Electoral College has grown problematic in recent years, stirring up debate among many politicians over its place in the United States Government, because of its tendency to produce results that don’t reflect the will of the majority. This system, and whether to abolish it, amend it, or keep it, has become one of the most controversial topics of debate in American
politics. With the upcoming 2020 Election, debates surrounding the Electoral College have gained traction yet again, with many candidates taking their anti-Electoral College stances at the 2020 Democratic Party presidential debates. But this dissatisfaction is nothing new, as serious traction for the movement to abolish the Electoral College was also seen following the election of Donald Trump in 2016. “After last week’s results, we’re hearing a litany of complaints…and the demand to push it down the memory hole,” (Guelzo). In 2016 the dysfunction of the current electoral system became very clear to Americans, as the country witnessed Trump win the Presidency despite losing the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. This added fuel to the fight for abolishment, a fight that continues to this day.

On the other side of the argument are the proponents for the Electoral College, many of whom hold the Constitution and all of its contents on a pedestal, ignoring the flaws in the creation of the Electoral College, “In this view, the Electoral College is one of the great compromises of the Constitutional Convention, part of the wisdom and genius of the ‘founding
fathers’ who sought a middle path between pure democracy on the one hand and anti-majoritarianism on the other,” (Bouie). This is a misinterpretation of the origins of the Electoral College. It was not a perfect system at the time and it still is not. Though this argument in support of the system exists, there is also strong opposition to it. In fact, though the movement towards abolition gained traction in 2016, this electoral dissatisfaction has been prevalent for
many years, “Despite winning the popular vote in six of the past seven presidential elections, Democrats have held the presidency for only four of those terms, under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama…with generations of lawmakers introducing new proposals for modifying or abolishing
the system outright,” (Bouie). Persistent dissatisfaction with the current system has led to multiple proposals introduced for modifying or abolishing the system, yet nothing has been accomplished. This is a clear indicator that people want change and that these people are going
to continue to fight for that change.

The fight for change in the Electoral process will continue as the Electoral College continues to create an unequal representation of the will of American voters, with some states holding more influence than others. The primary problem rests in the winner-take-all allocation of votes adopted by 48 of the 50 states (Nebraska and Maine allocate votes by congressional district). All of the electoral votes go to the winner of the popular vote in each state which means that “A candidate who narrowly wins the tipping-point states will win the presidency, regardless of the margin of victory in the rest of the country,” (Cohn). A candidate could win 51% of the votes in every state, barely winning the popular vote, and is still awarded all of the electoral votes for those states, discrediting the votes of the other 49% of voters in those states. In a recent
study quantifying the disproportionate impact of swing-state voters on the election, it was shown that “Florida tops the list for the 2012 election as the state where the Electoral College impact of a swing vote was largest. A swing vote in Florida carried 11.95 times the Electoral College impact of one in Rhode Island, the median state…A swing vote in California had 0.56 times the Electoral College impact of one in Rhode Island,” (Duquette., et al. 48). This system diminishes the voting power of certain states while heightening the power of others. And this lack of equal representation of the will of the majority is also represented by Gallup polls of George W. Bush and Donald Trump immediately following their elections, with Bush’s poll showcasing a higher level of disapproval than any president before him and Trump’s turning up even worse results, with 52% of the public reporting being upset or dissatisfied following the election (Edwards 3). The majority did not elect either of these presidents, and the majority did not approve of either of these presidents. In the 21st century alone, the Electoral College has put two presidents in office that do not reflect the will of the majority.

The nature of the winner-take-all allocation of votes not only contradicts the will of the majority, but it is also undemocratic. “The winner-take-all rule encourages campaigns to focus on closely divided battleground states…This violates the central democratic (or, if you prefer, republican) premises of political equality and majority rule,” (Editorial Board). In a political system in which candidates focus a majority of their attention on a small group of battleground states, only a portion of the voting demographic, certain states are completely ignored and political equality, a principle our country is built on, is lost. Additionally, the Electoral College ignores the votes of the minority in every state, a practice challenged by Harvard Law School
professor Lawrence Lessig, who has sued multiple states with winner-take-all policies. He describes the practice as ‘counting the votes of the minority for the purpose of discarding them.”(qtd. in Price). This violates the constitutional principle that all votes have equal value. A key counter-argument utilized by the opposition is that America is a Republic, not a pure
democracy, however, this country is built on democratic values, ones which are violated by the Electoral College. Democratic theorist Robert A. Dahl argues that a constitution for democratic government, “‘must be in conformity with one elementary principle: that all members are to be treated (under the constitution) as if they were equally qualified to participate in the process of
making decisions about the policies the association will pursue,’” (qtd. in Edwards 38–39). Our government is one based on these democratic principles that everyone is equally qualified to participate in civic duties such as voting, but discrediting the votes of the minority in each state creates an image of a country in which citizens are not considered equally qualified. The
Electoral College is, technically, an undemocratic system that should not still be in place in a country that values democracy.

Though a majority of these arguments have been made from the Democratic Party the Electoral College creates problems for the entire political spectrum. Stuart Stevens, a journalist involved in campaigning on the GOP side for the past five elections argues that there are problems that will arise from the GOP benefitting from the Electoral College, “Under the EC, it is possible, though increasingly difficult, for a GOP candidate to win the presidency without
substantial nonwhite support,” (Stevens). The Electoral College deceives the GOP into believing they don’t need to gain the support of minorities to win and their party can be geared toward the white electorate and still win the election. Abolishing the Electoral College would create the necessary pressure for the GOP to support and appeal to minority groups. Though there are
benefits to both ends of the political spectrum from abolishing the Electoral College, the most important benefit is the impact on the people’s voices.

The creation of the Electoral College rests in slavery, and the discrimination built into this process has unfortunately continued to this day, with the system fostering power imbalances that discourage minority voters. In the original construction of the Constitution, race and slavery were major factors in discussions of how to elect the head Executive. James Madison said at the
time that the “right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” (qtd. in Kelkar) The population of Southern States was substantial, but a large fraction of this was slaves on plantations. Southerners opposed direct election because Southern influence would be
diminished. “The ultimate solution was an indirect method of choosing the president, one that could leverage the three-fifths compromise,” (Codrington). This decision gave Southerner slave owners a much greater influence on the election. It is without a doubt that the Electoral College
was conceived based on the racially discriminatory values of that time.

The Electoral College has continued the racist origins of the system by diluting the voting power of minorities. According to Wilfred Codrington III, a Fellow at Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, states with the highest black populations, Southern states, have voted Republican in recent elections, and the black voters, who tend to vote Democratic, are a part of
the minority whose votes are discarded after losing the state popular vote (Codrington). “But more than half of the country’s black population, about 23 million and growing, lives in the South, which is encompassed by Washington, D.C., and 15 states that stretch from Texas to Delaware, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. The Republican party won 12 of those states,”(Kelkar). African Americans living in the South are not seeing their voices in the results of the election and this lack of representation will discourage voters. The power imbalances created by the Electoral College were recently challenged in a lawsuit arguing that “winner-take-all
‘perpetuates racial discrimination in voting and the dilution of minority voting power.’ Many African Americans and Hispanics in that state supported Clinton but their votes were ignored, the plaintiffs contend,” (Price). This lawsuit takes the fight to the next level, for the right of minorities to have their vote count. If they are a part of that losing minority in each state, their
vote is not counted in the overall election, and that is a major fallacy in the electoral system.

Moving to a popular vote is the most appropriate solution to the problems created by the Electoral College. The most interesting aspect of this Electoral College issue is the fact that the winner-take-all rule that has perpetuated many of the problems with the Electoral College, is not specified in the Constitution but is rather a creation of state legislatures, “Most states didn’t
award their electors on a winner-take-all basis in the first presidential elections,” (Cohn). This method of vote allocation is the source of much of the unequal representation of voters. However, it has become the mainstream method and is not likely to change. Many states, rather than changing their method of electoral vote allocation, have joined the National Popular Vote
Interstate Compact, “which achieves a popular vote not by abolishing the College but by using it as the framers designed it — as a state-based institution. So far 15 states and the District of Columbia, with 196 electoral votes among them, have joined the compact, promising to award their electors to the national vote-winner,” (Editorial Board). This solution is an interesting twist on the Electoral College as laid out in the Constitution, but it interprets it in a way that solves the problems of results contrary to the will of the majority as well as power imbalances, while not diminishing individual power of the states.

One argument that supporters of the Electoral College use is that a national popular vote would shrink Campaign trails and give big cities a disproportionate influence on the presidency. However this is an invalid argument as the current system is the one that gives certain states a bigger say in the presidency. Former Attorney General Eric Holder addresses this fallacy of the Electoral College in saying it “forces candidates to ignore a majority of the voters and campaign in a small number of states,” (qtd. In Bouie). Candidates do not visit states that they don’t need to fight for votes in. Their focus is battleground states, and this is not a flaw of the candidates, but a flaw of the system they are forced to work. “None of the seven states with only three electoral votes received a visit from a presidential candidate in this election [2000],” (Edwards 130). In addition to the fact that the Electoral College already shrinks campaign trails, the National Popular Vote would not allow a significantly bigger influence for big cities like New York or LA. “Critics say that relying on the popular vote would allow the presidency to be decided by the big cities on the coasts, but big cities don’t come close to having enough votes to swing a national election,” (Editorial Board).

Our country is in need of a change; we are in need of direct election and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is the best solution available. First, there is no way to change the way states allocate their votes because “[n]o states have moved to do this on their own, for the same reason they drifted to winner-take-all in the first place: Anything else dilutes their power and takes votes away from their favored candidates,” (Cohn). They will not change their
votes in a way that decreases their power. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, however, allows them to put the power in the hands of the people. Second, the chances of passing a proposal to abolish, or even amend the constitution are very slim because “there are not enough votes in Congress or the states to pass and ratify an amendment abolishing the Electoral College,” (Bouie). The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, once activated, will make a National Popular Election possible without the hurdles of amendments and laws.

In four years I will finally have the right to vote for the next President of the United States. I refuse to have my right to vote invalidated by a 200-year-old system created in an effort to reach a compromise between opponents representing the values and political climate of their time. It worked for a couple of years yet now threatens the democratic beliefs on which our
country was founded. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has 15 current compact members with an electoral vote count totaling 196, just 74 votes shy of the 270 vote threshold needed to secure the presidency. This is when the compact will take effect. We have four years to put in the considerable efforts it will take to change the current system. Our country is built on the democratic principle that a government should be by the people and for the people, and that means every single vote must count; the majority must decide the outcome.

Works Cited
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