A president who lost the popular vote by 2.8M nominated a Supreme Court candidate who was confirmed by 50 United States senators. These senators represent roughly 143M Americans, while the opposing 48 represent 182M Americans. Obviously, members of Congress do not necessarily share views with every single constituent, but these simple facts represent a much larger issue. Despite being a self-proclaimed democracy, this country has a broken electoral system. Many like to think that “majority rules” in America, but a brief examination of the current state of politics will prove the contrary.
The once-necessary Electoral College (EC) assigned a certain number of votes to each state based on its population. However, the number of votes is not necessarily representative; California has one electoral vote per 712,000 people, while Wyoming has one electoral vote per 195,000 people.
The candidate who wins the most votes in a given state is awarded all of its electoral votes, a “winner take all” system which acts against direct democracy. Those who disagree with the majority of their state do not have their votes represented whatsoever. This process has yielded multiple elections where the victor did not have the popular vote; our class is entitled “public choice”, but when it comes to elections, it seems the public’s choice can be irrelevant.
I think abolishing the EC would give voters more faith that they voice is being heard and perhaps limit the rationality of abstention. Other democracies have systems such as plurality and “First Past The Post”, but I think that simple majority would be most valuable to the U.S. This makes the most sense in a two-party system: the candidate with more votes obtains office, thereby increasing “D” in our model [ MB + D > MC ], where D represents confidence in impact of a vote. If votes matter more, and more people vote, the outcome of an election is more likely to represent the choices of the public.
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