Imagine: A nation of endless possibilities. Where the president is voted into office directly by the people. One country, composed of 50 states, where each and every person can be a fulcrum of change. An honest land, a harbinger of democracy and civic responsibility.
This scenario should be the case in the United States by removing the institution known as the Electoral College.
According to the Federal Archives, the foundation of the Electoral College in 1787 was a "compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote." While the reasons for not electing a president through Congress are pretty evident regardless of time period, the reasons given for why the popular vote was rejected are no longer legitimate. During the late 18th century, states were partly distinguished by whether they held slavery to be legitimate or not. Southern states, which harbored a great number of slaves, feared that with a popular vote, they would lose their political influence. While these states possessed a large number of people, they also had substantially fewer eligible white voters. The Electoral College is in part a vestigial remnant of a time when an entire race could not vote. How can we have this system exist in the midst of all the other socially progressive movements alive today?
The Electoral College was also justified with the argument that a popular vote would be inefficient as officials would have to tally a vast number of votes, and that it would be diluted by uninformed citizens voting just for the sake of it. Realistically, neither of these concerns would be an issue today - we have the necessary technology not only to run an election accurately, even with a higher number of votes, but also to disseminate the information people need to vote for a candidate: We have the Internet.
The reality of the Electoral College also runs completely contradictory to its ostensible mission to reflect popular will. According to the national census in 2010, Wyoming's population stood at 570,000, though it possesses only three votes in the Electoral College. In contrast, California has around 38 million people and an impressive 55 electoral votes. Through an incredibly complex procedure of mathematics, this calculates out so that one electoral vote in Wyoming represents 190,000 people, while one electoral vote in California represents roughly 691,000. This implies that in a presidential election, voters in Wyoming are more than three times more powerful than voters in California. The system over-represents people from states like Wyoming and Alaska relative to those from states like California, New York and Texas. The numerical bias that the system exhibits proves that the Electoral College system is not a better alternative to a direct popular election.
As long as the Democratic Party and the Republican Party stand alone as the two premier political parties, the Electoral College is completely outdated. By allowing such a system to exist, we're conceding that only 538 people out of a population of over 311 million have the true power to vote for president. In a country where civic engagement is a responsibility, a direct election is the best opportunity to give every citizen a sense of allegiance to his or her country. A direct election is the most modern and ironically progressive method of giving the people exactly who they want leading the country. Remember this when you cast your vote today.
Editorials are written by The Herald's editorial page board: its editors, Daniel Jeon and Annika Lichtenbaum, and its members, Georgia Angell, Sam Choi and Rachel Occhiogrosso. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
