Let the People Pick the President
By: Dan Rico
Tags: Electoral College, Politics, Government, Electoral College Reform, President

The framers of the Constitution created the Electoral College to serve as a compromise between small and large states, to allow for discussion of how America will be governed going forward, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist #68. At a time when education was so poor and literacy rates were relatively low, the Electoral College ensured that a group of well-educated individuals selected the Commander-in-chief. The ultimate motivation for the Electoral College was to make sure that every state would be equally represented in the election and that no one state or few states could have an overbearing effect. However, that same logic is what makes the Electoral College so unbecoming of a country that prides itself on being the greatest democracy of the modern era.

The number of electors allocated to each state is decided by the following method: the total number of House Representatives for that state + the total number of Senators for that state (always two). At face value, this seems fair. But, let’s dig deeper. In 2016, California had 55 electors, a combination of its representation in the House of Representatives and Senate. It also had a population of 39, 510, 000. This is where the popular vote comes into play. An elector’s purpose is to vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote of the state. Therefore, if you voted in California in the 2016 election, your representation in the Electoral College, and ultimately the election, would be 0.00000139 (55/39,510,000). Now, let’s look at Wyoming. In 2016, Wyoming had 3 total electors. It also had a population of 578,759. If you voted in Wyoming in the 2016 election, your representation in the Electoral College would be 0.00000518 (3/578,759), or almost four times that of California. Mind-boggling, is it not? How can we possibly assign more representation to voters in less populated states and claim to be champions of democracy? This convoluted notion that states, rather than people, deserve equal representation is absurd, and is the exact mechanism that allowed the Electoral College to go against the wishes of the people in the 2016 and previous elections. In their attempt to please small states or those with small populations, the framers completely neglected to consider this possibility, which is precisely why the Electoral College needs to be abolished.

Secondly, despite creating this supposedly elaborate plan to ensure equal representation between states, the framers did not at all detail rules and regulations for the choosing of electors and the consequences of their actions, instead leaving the power to do so with states. By allowing individual state legislatures to choose electors and influence their roles in the election, there exist many discrepancies between states which have led to the rise of faithless electors. Take Hawaii, for example. In the 2016 election, elector David Mulinix cast his vote for Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton, despite Clinton winning the popular vote in Hawaii. Furthermore, even though this was explicitly against state laws, no action was taken because no provision had been included in the law for faithless electors. While some states punish faithless electors, states like Hawaii, Florida, Alaska, Alabama, and many more simply take no action on the issue. Again, how can America profess to be a democracy when the wishes of the people are deliberately disobeyed and those responsible refuse to act? These are symptoms of an anachronistic institution built not to further the desires of “the people,” as the Constitution states, but rather to suppress them.

Therefore, for the reasons expressed above and many more, I advocate for the passage and ratification of the 28th amendment, which should abolish the Electoral College and establish a nationwide popular vote for the election of the President and revolutionize the country into a true democracy, a democracy that we have been pretending to be for centuries.