Electoral College - It Needs to Go...

Trump won the Presidential election following our current rules. But was it fair?

Before 1920, Presidents were elected using the then current rules, but since women were not allowed to vote, were the rules fair? No, of course not.

Are the rules fair now? Given the current makeup of the Electoral College number of votes by State, no, of course not. Small states get a disproportionate greater number of votes than their population would indicate they should. And larger populated states get a disproportionate fewer number of votes than their population would indicate they should. 

The Electoral College was originally created to appease the Slave States. That reason no longer exists, but an unintended consequence has been to favor small states over large states. So if you live in New York or California or Texas, your Presidential vote counts ‘less’ than if you live in Missouri or South Dakota or New Hampshire. This is of course not fair.

How could we fix it? There are two options; #1 goes part of the way, and #2 goes all the way.

Option #1:

Update the number of votes each state gets in the Electoral College to the percentage of its population to America’s total population. This would improve the fairness to at least give each state’s voters the same value. Smaller states would lose 1-2 Electoral College votes, and larger states would gain a few. The 2016 Presidential election would have been much closer although Trump may still have won (not sure of the exact numbers).

This option is still not completely fair in my opinion because it keeps the unfairness caused in states who are very Blue or very Red. Republicans voting in New York, and Democrats voting in Texas, might as well go on vacation rather than vote for President since they have no impact on the election.

Option #2:

Eliminate the Electoral College and elect the President based on everyone’s vote. This is the fairest!

This is exactly how each state elects their Senators, counting all votes within the state. They don’t elect their Senator by who wins the most state ‘districts’, which is a direct analogy to how the Electoral College works. If a state tried to change to the ‘district’ approach, there would be an uproar against it. So why do we keep the Electoral College?

So if this makes so much sense, will it happen?

Well, the GOP has an unfair advantage using the current rules, so I guess they will resist it. But America has always moved towards being more fair. It took many, many decades for women to get the vote once they started pushing for it. Let’s start a very active campaign to eliminate the Electoral College… and never let up until it happens! Get your children involved… it may take a generation.