The Electoral College Should Be Abolished, Reformers Say | Teen ...

The Electoral College Should Be Abolished, Reformers Say
The way that the United States elects its president doesn’t necessarily make a whole lot of sense. And according to people like Colorado state Senator Mike Foote, “It does not have to be this way.”
“If we were running a governor’s race under the same principles of the Electoral College…there would be a huge uproar,” Foote recently told Teen Vogue. “People would be really upset about it, and rightfully so.” Because of the Electoral College, Americans have spent a good chunk of the past two decades with a president who did not win the popular vote: Donald Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000. The country could face this possibility again in 2020.
That’s why there’s a growing movement to do away with the Electoral College and make the United States a true representative democracy. Teen Vogue spoke to some of the lawmakers and activists who are advocating for this fundamental change in how we elect the most powerful official in our country.
But first, a little more background on how things currently work. Americans do not have a direct election system — “one person, one vote” — for the presidency. Instead, that power is reserved for 538 “electors.” As such, the presidential election is portrayed as a fight to win states and their accompanying electoral votes. A presidential campaign must accumulate a majority — 270 — to win the election. Forty-eight out of 50 states use a winner-take-all system, in which the candidate with the highest number of votes in a state claims all of that state’s electoral votes, and sometimes by a very slim margin. (Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions, and use the congressional district method, where as electoral reform organization FairVote explains, “the winner of each district is awarded one electoral vote, and the winner of the state-wide vote is then awarded the state’s remaining two electoral votes.”)
Defenders of the framework have praised its anti-democratic values and have otherwise applauded its supposed protection of small states. But small states are, in fact, overrepresented in the system: “States like Wyoming have three times more Electoral College votes than they would have if each state’s voting power was proportionate to its population size,” said Darling-Hammond.
The compact is an agreement among states and Washington, D.C., to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the national popular vote — guaranteeing that the popular-vote winner would also win the Electoral College. It has so far been adopted by 15 states and D.C. — although it is currently suspended in Colorado, pending a referendum on the 2020 ballot.
Including Colorado, these states now have 196 electoral votes, or about 72% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.
“We think that by 2024, the candidate for president should be forced to campaign in all 50 states,” said Eileen Reavey, the national grassroots director of National Popular Vote, the main organization behind the compact.
State Senator Foote, a sponsor of the bill in Colorado, agrees the compact is the best way forward: “An amendment to abolish the Electoral College is, well, I just cannot see a scenario where that would actually be successful. But an interstate agreement is a real possibility. Like I said, we’re two-thirds of the way there,” said Foote, who is not seeking reelection this year.
Reavey explained that while many people who support the bill also support full abolishment of the Electoral College, “many of them do not.” The compact offers a compromise.
Saul Anuzis, a consultant and former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, opposes “the elimination of the Electoral College,” but advocates for the compact, calling it the most “non-partisan, fair reform that has been contemplated in decades.”
“When Democrats are able to win Texas at the presidential level, Republicans are going to want to get rid of the Electoral College too,” said Darrell M. West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
“It’s an admirable effort, but I have serious questions about it,” said Alex Keyssar, author of Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? and professor of history and social policy at Harvard University.
“I’m not a constitutional lawyer myself, but I think that there will be wrangling over it...I think it’s inherently unstable and can give rise to more political jockeying,” Keyssar said.
The surefire way to guarantee more free and fair elections, he said, is through a constitutional amendment. Going this route would require overcoming political inertia and a long constitutional process, Keyssar acknowledges.
“I’ve just written a book about 220 years of failure to get rid of the Electoral College or to reform it. So it’s not like I’m a wild-eyed optimist about this,”he said. “But, I also know from that history, we’ve come very close a couple of times.”
The Founding Fathers left an amendment process that has historically been “an important way to produce political change,” according to the Brooking Institution’s West, like granting many women the right to vote via the 19th Amendment.
With questions over fair representation and good governance swirling in this chaotic political year, advocates for Electoral College reform think it might be their moment.
“Get informed” and “volunteer,” suggests Lily Cahill, 16, a volunteer with the National Popular Vote in Denver.
Cahill, who is also a ballet dancer and member of her school’s debate team, says she phone banks for the organization to help dispel misconceptions about Proposition 113 — the bill on the ballot in Colorado.
“It takes a lot of time to really understand what the Electoral College is, the problems with it, and what can be done to adjust it,” Cahill said. “It’s one of those extremely complex systems in the U.S. that are just so difficult to really grasp.”
If you find the current system confusing, Cahill recommends doing research on the topic as well as reaching out to campaigns or organizations that are supportive of the work.
Reavey, of National Popular Vote, said, “the number-one thing that people can do is contact their state legislators” to support the compact.
Some voters may be more sympathetic to the complete eradication of the Electoral College or not be quite sure how to feel about it at all. The electoral system, it seems, is designed to make you feel this way.
“It’s part of a larger story about entrenched power,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, “and the manipulating of antiquated systems.”