Cedars, October 2019

October 2019 8 OFF-CAMPUS SHOULD WE ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE? Government by the Elite, for the Elite Y E S by Alex Hentschel L ike many first-time voters, I watched the final polls come in on Election Night 2016 on my iPhone. Even though I’d taken government classes and under- stood the Electoral College, it confused me how this archaic, counter-intuitive system dictated that Hillary Clinton had garnered more votes than Donald Trump and was still not elected President. As elections approach again and Trump maintains a strong hold on the Farm Belt and the Evangelical Right — who live in rural states like Wyoming, where the relative voter power is three times the amount of a New Yorker — I don’t doubt we might see a repeat Electoral College win on the heels of a popular vote loss. For those of us who might need a refresher on how the electoral college functions, let’s use 2016 as a case study. The main issue with the electoral college is who com- prises it — 538 “electors,” or entrenched party loyalists, who convene to cast their vote more or less based on popular vote. They are not bound to vote the same way their con- stituency did, mind you — “faithless electors” are permitted to vote any way they like. Not only that, but in 48 states, it does not matter if 49% of Ohioans voted for Hillary and 51% for Donald — all of the states’ 18 electoral votes would go to Trump in the “winner-take-all” system. If you’re a Demo- crat living in Alabama or a Republican living in New York, you understand all too well that minority voter’s voices are silenced based on the accident of their zip code. It is with this in mind the Jesse Ruderman conducted a study to see how small of a percentage of the national popular vote was necessary for a candidate to win a majority of electors. The finding was that a candidate can win the electoral college by winning just 21.8% of the popular vote. The idea that the vote of one person’s in one area of the country can be worth more than another is disturbing, but the Electoral College also structurally reinforces racism. It can be effectively argued that the origins of the Elector- al College lie in an attempt to balance the electoral weight of slave states to free states, because Southern states had a population disadvantage unless slaves were counted under the Electoral College as people (well, 3/5 of people, anyway). This is what allowed Virginia, which had a smaller white male property owning population but a much larger slave population than other states, to have an electoral edge (the first four Presidents were, perhaps unsurprisingly, from Virginia). Not only that, but a 1996 study by the Yale Law Journal (“The Illegitimate President: Minority Vote Dilu- tion and the Electoral College”) found that due to the Elec- toral College system, “African-American voters in the South have had little more influence on most modern presidential general elections than [American] Bulgarians. Their votes, although technically cast, have not usually counted.” For reference — American Bulgarians constitute a people group of about 250,000 people. African Americans? 37,144,530. As young adults, we’re often told that it is our right and responsibility to vote; that each person deserves a voice. A democracy only represents the people if the people vote — and people only vote when they believe that their vote counts for something. The remarkably low percentage of voter turnout reflects the current system’s failure to present itself as reliable, trustworthy and representative of the peo- ple. In the last election, only 52% of Americans turned out to the polls. This leaves almost half the nation that did not even cast a ballot. Getting rid of the Electoral College will force candidates to dedicate their campaigns to the interests of the people of America — not just one or two swing states. It will force the system to deradicalize — to get to a point where the major- ity of Americans can get behind one candidate, instead of just 51% in a few specific states. Perhaps most importantly, it increases the voters’ faith in our election process. With- out this, the function of democracy remains obsolete. With higher voter participation we best attain and actualize de- mocracy itself. That is, this system of government can ac- tually represent the people, because the people have made their choices known. No more winner takes all — no more political minutiae — just a system that consistently and reliably represents the desires of America. Alex Hentschel is a senior International Studies and Span- ish double major and the Off-Campus News Editor for Ce- dars. She enjoys sociology, black coffee and honest debate, preferably all at once. Photo by Arnaud Jaegers on Unsplash