Does my vote really matter? with highlights

Brown 1 Allison Brown English 1010 Professor Taylor 6th November, 2019 “Does my vote really matter?”: Addressing Uncertainty in the Electoral College Since the early elections of the 2000s, American citizens and researchers have noticed a lack of representation and failure within the Electoral College. Perhaps the most clear example occurred in the presidential election of 2016 when the Electoral College and the popular vote disagreed, with six-hundred thousand plus citizens voting for the candidate who would lack the electoral votes. This failure and lack of representation has caused many Americans to give up voting altogether because they feel as if their vote doesn’t matter, effectively silencing them. However, many researchers voice reluctance about straying away from the college, citing a foreseeable upset in America’s representative democracy and a lack of representation for states with smaller populations. The college established in 1804 is no longer an accurate representation of the way the American population thinks, acts, and votes. In this paper, I will address the calls to leave the electoral college be, the complete abolishment of the college, and a third option of splitting-states and only abolishing the “winner-takes-all” electoral college reforms to make the argument that the United States of America needs to undergo drastic Electoral College reform. “More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than any other losing presidential candidate in US history. The Democrat outpaced President-elect Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%), according to revised and certified final election results” (Krieg 2016). The Electoral College has been a fundamental aspect of Brown 2 American elections since the nation’s founding, however, with the electoral college seeming to fail more often, is it not time to rethink and reform the electoral college in the United States of America? The presidential election of 2016 wasn’t the first example of the electoral college and the popular vote disagreeing, “according to the US Elections Atlas, Andrew Jackson won by over 10% in 1824 but was denied the presidency which went to John Quincy Adams. In 1876, Samuel Tilden received 3% more votes than Rutherford B. Hayes, who eventually triumphed by one electoral vote” (Krieg 2016). With inconsistencies in results, it begs the question, is the electoral college the most accurate representation of election results? Frankly, the answer is no. The way the American population thinks, acts, and votes has drastically changed in those two hundred years, and the electoral college is no longer a fair and accurate representation of voting results, therefore it needs to change. The electoral college even discourages voters from casting their ballots and has Americans wondering, “Does my vote really matter” (Glass 2017). The United States, founded on a representative democracy, cannot morally stand for its citizens believing that they do not have a say in their own government. The United States of America needs to undergo drastic electoral college reform to increase representation and inconsistencies with electoral and popular votes. To understand why the electoral college needs to be abolished it is important to explore its flaws besides its inaccurate representation of the popular vote. A glaring issue is that the electoral college creates an unfair representation of the population an example of this is evident close to home in a Fairvote article titled “Presidential Elections State-by-State: Hardening Partisanship”, “each individual vote in Wyoming counts nearly four times as much in the Electoral College as each individual vote in Texas. This is because Wyoming has three (3) electoral votes for a population of 532,668 citizens (as of 2008 Census Bureau estimates) and Brown 3 Texas has thirty-two (32) electoral votes for a population of almost 25 million. By dividing the population by electoral votes, we can see that Wyoming has one “elector” for every 177,556 people and Texas has one “elector” for about every 715,499” (2017). The electoral college granting more votes per person in smaller states has created a disparity regarding the impacts of a citizens vote. Within the electoral college, the value of an individual’s vote depends on which state they reside. Another flaw of the electoral college is Swing States v. Safe States, Lewis, a political science masters student in “Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College”, builds on the argument that Fairvote makes, “In 48 states, a presidential candidate can win 50.01% of the popular vote in a state, yet receive 100% of the electoral votes from that state” (Lewis 2017). This is important because we consider some states ‘swing states’ and others are considered ‘safe states’ (Lewis 2017). Swing states and safe states are key factors in presidential candidate campaigns. Therefore, states such as Florida and the Midwest United States are so heavily campaigned, they are not dependably safe states for either party. And with the winner-takes-all reform, why would a candidate bother to visit or campaign in a state that is safe? This is not fair to American citizens and makes some votes more important than other votes in the campaign process. Perhaps the most concerning flaw of the electoral college is a small portion of the popular vote that a candidate needs to win to become presidential elect. According to Ruderman’s “Winning an Election with 22% of the Popular Vote” in 2004, “A presidential candidate could be elected with as little as 21.8% of the popular vote by getting just over 50% of the votes in DC and each of 39 small states . . . a candidate could lose with 78.2% of the popular vote by getting just under 50% in small states and 100% in large states”. This statistic is alarming and brings into question if we as citizens want a system that doesn’t even fully reflect a fourth of Brown 4 what the population wants. With the electoral college, the opinion of American citizens is being ignored and denied. A solution that has gained traction with politicians and citizens alike is the complete abolishment of the Electoral College according to “Changing to the Popular Vote” from Penn State Research, “[since] the 1980s, 55-60% of Americans have favored a popular vote” (Schneider 2017). There are three main ideas that support why the popular vote should replace the college: re-gaining core democratic principles, an increase in genuine campaign efforts, and ultimately American belief in democracy. The United States prides itself on being a democracy, theoretically one person is one vote in elections. Allowing the popular vote to determine presidential elections would increase the involvement that citizens themselves have in the democratic process. Abolishing the college would allow Americans to believe that they have more of a say in their own leader and negate the idea that their vote has no impact in the election. The election of the president is the only race that uses the electoral college according to “Vittana’s Popular Vote”, “. . . mayors, governors, and senators elected by a simple majority. Under the electoral college, the majority votes of states assigned electoral votes to a candidate which then creates a majority total required for a victory” (Regoli 2018). If the popular vote is the norm for all other races, then why should the presidential election be any different? Although the popular vote seems to solve increasing citizen involvement and a fair election, there are issues that could exist with complete abolishment of the electoral college. One of the most concerning to policy makers and advocates against the popular vote is how the margin for a candidate to win decreases. This is clear in “Vittana’s Popular Vote” where the author Regoli considers the cons of a popular vote, “if the presidential election were switched to the popular vote, then it would only take about 35% of the vote for a candidate to win” (2018). Brown 5 An example where this could occur is noted in “The Electoral College: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone” where the author describes the Republican Primaries of 2016, in which Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz both claimed 60% of the G.O.P. vote, which gave Trump the opportunity to take the state with only a 35% majority of Republicans backing him (Clayton 2017). To this argument individuals have voiced concern on grounds that moving to the popular vote could increase the amount of election recounts, regional candidates (like mayors or governors) of large cities could be major political candidates, and that it would decrease representation for sparsely populated states like Wyoming or Alaska. The popular vote is a viable option to replace the electoral college, it’s favored by citizens and some politicians, however, the cons of the system cannot be ignored. Marginalizing less populated states and decreasing the percent that a candidate needs to win could lead to a slippery slope where states like Wyoming have no say and an unwanted candidate could take the entire state’s support with only 35% of the vote. Fortunately, only having the popular vote isn’t the only solution to tackle the shortcomings of the electoral college. Policymakers and Americans have turned to another option, or in this case, other states such as Nebraska and Maine. According to Clayton abolishing the winner-takes-all clause to the electoral college could be the solution for key issues that the college causes, “states could have the flexibility and independence in choosing how to award Electoral College votes. And then, direct and popular elections and the national bonus plan would all require constitutional amendments, a difficult goal to accomplish” (2017). The winner-takes-all clause in the Electoral College allows states to be completely red or blue on election coverage maps, regardless of how close a race is, if a candidate theoretically wins by only 0.1% they still gain all electoral votes for the state, silencing Brown 6 half of the states population. Take Florida for example, according to the New York Time’s “2016 Election Coverage” Trump won Florida at 48.6% with Clinton trailing at 47.4%, because Trump won with about 1.2%, he took 29 electoral votes which put him ahead in the race to 270, this close call in Florida also existed in 2012 when Obama took the state with a 0.9% lead (NYT 2016). This discrepancy isn’t only obvious in Florida, it is plain in all 48 states that uphold the clause. Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes depending on the popular vote, minimizing the gap of those who cast their vote and have their vote truly matter. Although Clayton determines that staying with the electoral college but abolishing the clause would be the best solution, it would be difficult to pass, “[abolishing the winner-takes-all clause would be] a difficult goal to accomplish. A constitutional amendment would require a two-thirds majority vote of both houses of Congress and subsequent ratification by three-fourths of the states” (2017). Abolishing the winner-takes-all clause would not completely eradicate issues within the Electoral College, nothing accounts for Wyoming citizens’ vote mattering more than others and a small gap that may occur. It is however, a step in the right direction, abolishing the winner-takesall clauses in states would increase the accuracy of elections and highlight the votes of those who previously felt unrepresented. Ultimately, Americans need to regain their faith in the United States political system, and how can we expect them to have faith if they do not hear their vote and voices when electing their president? A system developed in 1804 cannot accurately represent the thoughts and ideas of Americans who have drastically changed in over two hundred years, the United States needs to undergo drastic electoral college reform by abolishing the winner-takes-all clause. Unless we change the way we vote, the very foundation on which we built our country is at risk. With the upcoming presidential election in 2020, the United States is Brown 7 unlikely to move away from the electoral college; Therefore, we can expect a disparity between the popular vote and. Until our supposed democracy moves to a process that more accurately represents our ideals, American democracy will continue to suffer. Body Word Count: 1,969 Bibliography Aisch, Grogor. “Live Presidential Forecast.” The New York Times, The New York Times, Nov. 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/forecast/president Clayton, Dewey M. “The Electoral College: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone” Black Scholar. Fall 2007, Vol. 37 Issue 3, pp. 28-41 FairVote.org. “Presidential Elections State-by-State: Hardening Partisanship.” FairVote, 2018,https://www.fairvote.org/ presidential_elections_state_by_state_hardening_partisanship Glass, Russell. “‘Does My Vote Really Matter?" Yes – but Probably Not Why You Think It Does...” Votergy, 27 Dec. 2017, https://votergy.org/2017/12/27/does-my-vote-really-matter-yes-but-probably-not-whyyou-think-it-does/ Krieg, Gregory. CNN, Cable News Network, 22 Dec. 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-popular -votefinal-count/index.html. Regoli, Natalie. “18 Pros and Cons of Popular Vote.” Vittana.org, 2018, https://vittana.org/18-pros-and-cons-of-popular-vote Ruderman, Jesse. “Indistinguishable Electoral College.” Jesse Ruderman " Winning an Brown 8 Election with 22% of the Popular Vote, 2008, https://www.squarefree.com/2004/11/01/winning-an-election-with-22-of-the-popularvote/ Schneider, Karl. “Changing to a Popular Vote?” THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE: PROTECTING THE PUBLIC OR DISMISSING DEMOCRACY?, Penn State, 20 Feb. 2017, https://sites.psu.edu/electoralcollege/2017/02/20/changing-to-a-popular-vote/