Should the Electoral College be Abolished?
How Does the Electoral College Work?
The Electoral College is not a college but a system used in the United States of America for voting. The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in 1787, and it is still found in the U.S. Constitution in Article Two, Section One, Clause Two. In simple terms, the Electoral College process is when representatives from each state, called electors, vote to choose the next president and vice president.
Every four years, 538 electors cast votes. This number equals the total number of members of Congress, which includes 100 senators, 435 representatives, and three electors from Washington, D.C. The number of representatives a state has can change from election to election based on the state’s population. While representation in the House of Representatives can vary, each state consistently receives two senators. To win the presidency, a candidate must secure a total of 270 electoral votes, which is just over half of all available votes.
Most states apply a winner-takes-all system. For example, New York had 28 electoral votes in this year’s election. Kamala Harris won New York with 55.8% of the vote, which meant she won all 28 electoral votes from the state. This system can result in a candidate winning the popular vote but losing the presidency because they did not win enough electoral votes. This has happened five times in U.S. history, with the most recent case being the 2016 election, where Trump won the presidency while Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by about three million.
The Issues
1. Overlooks states
Small States:
The winner-takes-all system in 48 states and Washington, D.C., reduces the impact of votes in many areas. A flaw in the electoral system is that votes in smaller states, such as Vermont, have more electoral weight per person compared to larger states like California.
According to archieve3.fairvote.org, each individual vote in Wyoming counts nearly four times as much in the Electoral College as each vote in Texas. This disparity arises because Wyoming has three electoral votes for 532,668 people, while Texas has 32 electoral votes for nearly 25 million people. Wyoming, therefore, has one elector for every 177,556 people, while Texas has one elector for every 715,499—a difference of 537,943, the largest in the Electoral College.
Swing States:
The system also encourages candidates to focus on swing states rather than distributing their campaign efforts equally. Safe states are often ignored, while swing states receive the bulk of campaign visits and spending. According to brookings.edu, candidates allocate 75% or more of their campaign budgets to swing states. “Swing states are the presidential campaign,” says Hudak, a former Canadian politician who was part of the provincial parliament.
According to brookings.edu, The high-stakes game of winning over swing states means candidates spend 75 percent or more of their campaign budget on courting them. Candidates almost exclusively visit swing states on the campaign trail, often skipping other states entirely unless they’re fundraising. “Swing states are the presidential campaign,” says Hudak, a former Canadian politician who was part of the provincial parliament.
According to Spectrumnews1.com Except for fundraisers, both Republican and Democratic politicians have been to Illinois just twice this year — once for an appearance by Trump before a group representing Black journalists and once by Harris when she came to Chicago for her party’s national convention. By comparison, they had visited Wisconsin, a swing state, 27 times, including when Biden was the presumptive nominee. Candidates visited over 200 stops during the elections and over 3/4s of the stops were made in swing states. Pennsylvania, a swing state, alone has been visited 41 times.
2. Undemocratic
Of the 58 presidential elections in the history of the United States, 53 of the winners took both the Electoral College and the popular vote. But in five incredibly close elections, the Electoral College winner was the loser of the popular vote.
According to history.com In a surprise victory that defied most pre-election polling, outsider Republican candidate Donald Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton, former first lady, even though Clinton received 2.8 million more votes in the popular vote—the largest such disparity yet. Clinton performed well in big cities and populous states like California and New York, where she beat Trump by 30 percentage points and 22.5 percentage points respectively. But Trump saw narrow victories in battleground states like Wisconsin (0.8 percent), Pennsylvania (0.7 percent) and Michigan (0.2 percent). In the end, Trump may have lost the popular vote by millions, but he won the Electoral College convincingly with 304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227. And this isn’t the only case, in fact, 5 out of 46 presidents lost the popular vote but won the presidency.
Democracy is what Americans pride themselves on. The US prides itself on being a free and just nation. The Electoral College is unethical and unjust in this case. It acts as a way to complicate elections so it favors certain groups.
3. Disregards votes
When the candidate you vote for is not the popular candidate in your state your vote is completely disregarded. For example, this year Kamala Harris won the state of California therefore the 54 electoral votes that accompanies it. Kamala had won 7,267,019 but what about the remaining 4,792,460 votes? The ones that were dismissed?
According to the National Popular Vote, in the 2016 election, over 4 million votes in California had no impact on the outcome because the state's entire electoral vote went to one candidate. Similarly, in Texas, more than 3 million votes were rendered meaningless due
to the winner-takes-all system. This shows how the Electoral College marginalizes millions of votes nationwide, rendering them ineffective and undermining the principle of fair representation.
The Electoral College's winner-takes-all system can lead to significant exclusion of rights and privileges. In the 2016 election, for instance, nearly 30% of voters—approximately 40 million individuals—cast votes that had no impact on the electoral outcome because their candidate lost in their state.
4. Majority disagrees with it
Speaking during a fundraiser at the Sacramento home of California Goerner Gavin Newsom, vice presidential nominee Tim Walz said he favored the idea of a national popular vote: “I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” he told donors.
More than six-in-ten Americans (63%) would like to see the winner of the presidential election be the person who wins the popular vote. Approximately a third (35%) prefer maintaining the Electoral College system, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 9,720 adults conducted Aug. 26-Sept. 2, 2024. Eight in ten Democrats and voters with democratic views support replacing the Electoral College with a popular vote system. Republicans and voters who have adopted Republican beliefs are more evenly divided: 53% favor keeping the Electoral College, while 46% would prefer to replace it.
Now why do the Republicans seem to favor the Electoral System? The answer is quite simple actually. Because of how the Electoral College system works each state gets two senators no matter how much their population is. In 2024 republican senators hold 50% of the chamber's seats but represent only 43% of the population giving them more power over others. This favor was never specifically for Republicans but since about the 1940s, it has been favoring the Republicans. In my first speaker's speech it was mentioned have 5 out of 46 presidents of the United States of America lost the popular vote. Well something else that they have in common is that they are all from the same party, they were all republican. (fivethirtyeight.com) (history.com)
From New York Times by Jesse Reed
Why We Cannot Abolish the Electoral College
1. Protects federalism and state sovereignty
In simple terms, federalism is a system where power lies with both the federal government and the smaller communities, or in this case, states. State sovereignty means that the systme used bestows authority in the states and allows them to govern themselves. In the US this is seen through the state system that allows each state to make its own set of rules concerning education, law enforcement, and infastructure.
In the USA states are known as the laboratories of democracy. They have the power to control themselves and make rules that apply within the state. When the USA was first created the federal government had practically no power over the states. Although states can easily make their own rules and govern themselves resolving dilemmas between states and forming foreign alliances was much more difficult to manage. Soon a Constitutional Convention would be formed and they are the group that constructs the Constitution of the United States of America. this constitution formed a dominant federal government.
The Electoral College brings all of these states together to appoint an executive leader. Manipulation of the Electoral system would mean establishing our federal system. (Save Our States Video)
2. Provides stability and clear outcomes
The Electoral College prevents national recounts and minimizes the likelihood of contested elections. This system ensures that even in close elections, the outcome is clear and decisive because electoral votes are distributed across the states rather than dependent on a single national vote count.
In the 2000 election, a close race in Florida required a recount, but the recount was limited to one state, containing the dispute. Had the U.S. employed a national popular vote system, a close race could have triggered recounts in all 50 states. According to The Heritage Foundation, a national popular vote could require a nationwide recount, causing electoral chaos, with lawsuits and challenges across the country.
Statistically, The Congressional Research Service found that since the Electoral College’s establishment, only five out of 59 presidential elections (approximately 8.5%) have resulted in a president winning the Electoral College but losing the popular vote. This rarity ensures that most elections still reflect the popular will while preventing chaotic outcomes from razor-thin margins in the popular vote.
The potential for protracted legal disputes under a national popular vote system would jeopardize the stability and certainty of U.S. presidential elections. The Electoral College provides a mechanism for solving close elections without throwing the entire country into a chaotic situation.
3. Protects against voter fraud
By dividing elections into state-based contests, the Electoral College limits the potential impact of voter fraud or irregularities. Any issues that arise are contained within individual states, reducing the likelihood of widespread manipulation affecting the overall result.
National Review reports that the Electoral College acts as a safeguard by isolating the effects of fraud on individual states. In a national popular vote system, even small instances of fraud could shift the entire election if they occur in populous areas. The decentralized nature of the Electoral College minimizes this risk by limiting fraud to impacting only that state’s electoral votes.
According to the Heritage Foundation's Election Fraud Database, there have been over 1,400 proven instances of voter fraud in U.S. elections since 2000. While this number is relatively small, a national popular vote would amplify the significance of even a few thousand fraudulent votes, particularly in closely contested elections. The Electoral College reduces the risk of a national result being swayed by isolated incidents of fraud.
Abolishing the Electoral College would expose the presidential election to the dangers of widespread voter fraud, making every fraudulent vote more consequential. By maintaining the Electoral College, the U.S. preserves a layer of protection against large-scale manipulation of the election outcome.
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