Why the Electoral College Should Be Abolished

I was recently inspired by an old video from CGP Grey talking about the Electoral College, and so I thought I might make a post about it. Today, I will be discussing the reasons why I believe the Electoral College should be abolished and replaced.

How the Electoral College Works

Let’s first understand how the Electoral College works. The Electoral College is a body of electors that forms every four years, on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, to elect the president and the vice president. There are 538 electors. This number is based on the number of Senate seats each state has (2) plus the number of House seats each state has (total of 435), plus 3 seats for the District of Columbia, which was given the right to vote due to the 23rd Amendment ratified in 1961. (The 23rd Amendment gives D.C. a number of electors no greater than the state with the least number of electors, currently 3.) Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution gives each state’s legislature to determine the way each state’s electors are chosen. Note that U.S. territories do not have any electors, nor the right to vote for president.  

In all but 2 states (Nebraska and Maine), the state’s electors vote for the candidate who received a plurality of the popular vote in the state. In Nebraska and Maine, 2 electors vote for the candidate who received a plurality of the popular vote, but the remaining electors vote based on the popular vote winner of each Congressional district in the state (Maine has 2 Congressional districts, while Nebraska has 3). However, in some states, there is no restriction on how the electors vote. Sometimes, though rarely, electors may vote for a candidate other than the one they pledged to vote for. Such electors are called faithless electors.   The following image shows the number of electors each state has.

In general, the outcome of the Electoral College is the same as the nationwide popular vote. However, the Electoral College has not voted for the candidate who won the popular vote four times in the 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 presidential elections. This means that about 9% of Electoral College winners have not won the popular vote.  

Why is the Electoral College Used?

A clear question may quickly arise: why was the Electoral College even created in the first place? The reason, like many other things throughout history, was because the Electoral College was a compromise.  

Back when America was founded, no other countries in the world existed as a Republic, so when the founding fathers created America, they had nothing to base the election system on. One thing was clear, though: they were very afraid of a tyrannical monarchy, like the one that they had just broken free from.   One group of delegates from the states to the Philadelphia convention was strongly against letting Congress vote for the president. They feared corruption between the executive and legislative branches of government, and believed it would violate the separation of powers.  

However, another group believed that it would be a terrible idea for the president to be elected via popular vote. They feared that voters (in the 18th century) would make uninformed decisions due to a lack of knowledge about the candidates, feared the people may cause a tyrannical leader to be elected, and feared mob/faction voting.  

Thus, the Electoral College, a system where the president would be elected neither via popular vote nor Congress was born as a compromise between the two groups. The electors would be appointed by each state who would then vote for the president.  

The Reasons Why the Electoral College Should Be Abolished

Reason 1: Not all votes are equal.  

Because each state has two Senators and a minimum of one Representative, no matter how few people live in each state, each state gets at least three Electoral College seats. As such, some states that should only have one or two Electoral College votes get three. If the Electoral College votes were divvied up equally among the U.S. population, this should mean that about 609,000 should be represented by one Electoral College vote. (The U.S. has approximately 328 million people.)  

So, a state like Pennsylvania, with 12.8 million people, should get 21 votes. However, it only gets 20. North Carolina, with 10.5 million people, should get 17 votes. However, it only gets 15. On the other hand, Wyoming, with only 579,000 people, should only get a maximum of one vote. However, it gets three! The extra votes states with small populations have comes from states with large populations. The most extreme example is California, with 39.5 million people, only getting 55 votes, when it should have 64! As such, a person living in Wyoming has 4 times the voting power of a Californian. In general, lesser-populated states are over-represented in the Electoral College, while more populated states are under-represented in the Electoral College.  

In fact, it would be possible for a candidate to win the Electoral College with less than 25% of the popular vote, though unlikely, simply due to how the system works. CGP Grey outlines in his video how this could happen.  

A democracy should not have some people’s votes counting more than others.  

Reason 2: The popular vote does not allow the candidates to ignore lesser-populated states.  

Proponents of the Electoral College like to say that without it, a candidate can focus their campaigns on large cities and ignore the small ones. However, without the Electoral College, visiting only big cities would not be able to secure a win for the candidates. The chart below shows the population of the ten largest cities in the U.S. (city limits only, excluding metropolitan areas):

The following shows the populations of the ten largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S.:

The population of the ten largest cities combined is only about 26 million, while the population of the 10 largest metropolitan areas is only about 83 million. The country has 328 million people. Quite clearly, focusing only on the largest cities would not result in a candidate getting a majority of the votes. It would not be possible for the candidate to win by just focusing on the largest cities, simply due to population spread.  

Ignoring metropolitan areas, the top 100 largest cities in the U.S. combined, down to Baton Rouge, LA (pop. 220,000), only accounts for about 20% of the entire country’s population. Combining all cities in the U.S. (all incorporated communities with a population of over 100,000) still only gives you 95 million people. However, all 384 metropolitan areas combined would give a population of 282 million, 85% of the population.  

Reason 3: The Electoral College requires candidates to care only about swing states.  

Because in 48 states (and D.C.) each candidate only needs to win a plurality of the votes in the state to have that entire state’s delegates vote for it, it results in candidates focusing only on swing states.  

A Republican candidate, for example, would be simply wasting his time rallying in California or New York, because there is a zero percent chance of 51% of the population in those states voting for him. Likewise, a Democratic candidate would not rally in places like Oklahoma, Kansas, or Tennessee. The votes in these states are not going to change.  

As a result, campaigns focus on key swing states, like Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, the Rust Belt, and Arizona. In fact, two-thirds of all presidential campaigns in 2016 occurred in just six states: Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Many states, like New York, Oregon, and Massachusetts (among many others) had a whopping zero rallies in the 2016 election cycle. The Electoral College does not make candidates care more about small, less-populated states (unless those states are swing states). The consequence is that voters in these states basically determine the candidate’s policies. It would be easy for a candidate to set policies in favor of these states, to the detriment of others, in order to win these states, and therefore, the election.  

The Verdict

By abolishing the Electoral College and having the citizens vote for the president via popular vote, all of these problems could be eliminated. It would make the United States a fair democracy and ensure that the majority of citizens’ voices are heard.  

Alternatively, the Electoral College system could be changed to a proportional system, like what is done in Nebraska and Maine. Although this would not solve all the problems presented above, it would still be a major step up from what we have today.  

In addition, doing so would not favor any one particular candidate. For instance, in any election, over 5 million people vote Republican in California. The popular vote would allow these people to have their voices heard.   Make sure to subscribe for more posts like this.