Since the turn of the century, I have voted in five presidential elections. And my vote hasn’t counted once. My vote was counted, but it didn’t count.
For the past 23 years, I have lived in either Massachusetts or California. Both are highly Democratic states. And, because of the way the electoral college works in those states, it’s as if I hadn’t voted at all. Both California and Massachusetts, as well as 46 other states, have a winner-takes-all policy for electoral votes.
And that has to stop.
Pop Quiz: California has nearly 20 million registered voters. How many popular votes does it take for a presidential candidate to walk away with all of California’s 55 electoral votes?
That’s a trick question. The answer is 1. If a candidate gets even one more vote than the other candidates, that person takes everything. Now, before you start complaining about California, keep in mind that the answer is the same for every other state. Including the one you live in.
Most people believe that the electoral college is there to protect the vote of the less populated areas in the country. By limiting the number of electoral votes the highly-populated states have, the theory is that their influence on the election is also limited.
But the number of electoral votes for each state is determined by the number of representatives each state has (plus 1 for each Senator). And the number of representatives is determined by the size of population of the state. So, the more populous states have more representatives which means they have more electoral votes.
Tell me again how this makes things more fair?
There’s another reason why electoral votes exists. It was put in place by the Founding Fathers as a compromise between letting the people decide who runs the country or just letting Congress decide.
The theory was that allowing the states to decide how the electoral votes are cast will produce results that are more in line with “the will of the people”. At least some of the folks responsible for setting up the country felt that the general population was too stupid to elect the president.
So, they decided to let the states decide. But all that did was substitute one government body choosing the president with 13 other ones. Well, these days that 13 has grown to 50 but that’s not the point. The point is, when deciding presidential elections, the will of the people isn’t really a factor.
Not all people anyway.
Not Every Vote Counts
The electoral college essentially takes away at least some people’s ability to help choose who becomes president and gives it to the states. Each state gets to determine how their electoral votes are cast. With the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska, every state gives all their electoral votes to the candidate winning the popular vote. And, while Maine and Nebraska have slightly different rules, essentially, they also use the “winner-takes-all” method.
Here’s the thing. The popular vote has never once been unanimous. But electoral votes are. Which means that in every election, there are tens of millions of voters whose votes are essentially meaningless.
So, I dutifully vote in each election, knowing full well that my vote doesn’t count. But many, many people have become disillusioned and simply stopped voting because they don’t see any point in wasting their time to cast a meaningless vote.
Another adverse effect of this process is that candidates don’t even campaign in a lot of states because they already know they’re either going to get all of the electoral votes or none of them. Which is good for the candidates because if they’re not campaigning in a state, they’re not exposing people to their platform.
But, it’s bad for the rest of us for the exact same reason.
Clearly some of the people who plan on voting for a candidate probably wouldn’t if they were made aware of the crazy shit the candidate is proposing. But because candidates are guaranteed all the electoral votes from certain states, a good chunk of the voters in this country remained ignorant and uninformed that their preferred candidate is old, feeble and unfit to run the country.
Fixing the Problem
I’d like to propose a solution.
I propose that we keep the electoral votes, because getting rid of them would require a Constitutional Amendment. That’s too much work. So, the number and distribution of electoral votes would remain the same and provide the same supposed protection against populous state overinfluence of elections.
And, the way the electoral votes are cast would still be based on the popular vote. So, that wouldn’t change either. What would change is that the way the electoral votes are cast would be proportional to the outcome of the popular vote.
For example, in the 2020 presidential election, there were 17,500,000 votes cast in California. Around eleven million votes were for Biden and around six million were for Trump. I know everyone talks about “freaking California Liberals” but keep in mind, there are six million of us here that aren’t. But, because of the way electoral votes are cast, it only seems like everyone in California are freaking liberals.
Even though only about 65% of the people in California voted for Biden, he received 100% of the 55 electoral votes. Which left over six million people with a vote that didn’t count. And that’s just in California.
Make Every Vote Count
What I’m proposing is that because Biden got about 65% of the popular votes, he should have received only 65% of the electoral votes. And there’s no law saying that electoral votes need to be cast in whole numbers. So, we can add some precision to the process.
Since Biden received 63.4839832% of the popular vote in California, he should have received only 63.4839832% of California’s 55 electoral votes, or, in other words, 34.91619 votes.
All this is completely doable. The power to make this change lies completely with the State Legislatures.
By keeping the current system for determining the number of electoral votes, the influence of less populous states is preserved. By casting electoral votes proportional to the popular vote, we ensure that every voter everywhere has the ability to influence the outcome of the election. In short, every single vote will count.
Another benefit of this is that candidates won’t be able to take any state for granted. They’ll no longer be able to assume that they get all the electoral votes in red or blue states. Candidates will have to craft a platform that appeals to all voters, not just the ones they think will already vote for them.
My proposal would make independent voters something other than just a distraction. There would be no more red or blue states or “calling” a state for a candidate. Instead, what we’d see is a more accurate representation of what people think, believe in, and stand for.
Our election process is broken. That’s been obvious for quite some time. In each election, tens of millions of voters like me find themselves without a voice. Because while their vote is counted, it just doesn’t count. Technically that’s not voter disenfranchisement, because they can still cast a vote. But it does result in voter disillusionment. Which, in my opinion, amounts to the same thing.
But this is a problem that’s easy to fix. All it would take is a cheap calculator from the Dollar Store and a basic understanding of fractions. Well, that, and State Legislatures would have to agree to give the power to elect the president back to where it belongs.
With We the People.
