The Electoral College Sucks
For centuries, the decisions of one college would lead the United States of America through triumph and defeat, from slavery to equality (to an extent), and most recently, set us back several hundred years. The electoral college came to be as a mutually beneficial system to both the Federalist and Republican parties. It not only worked to check the decisions of uneducated voters (as Hamilton saw necessary) but additionally to ensure that presidential candidates still appealed to regions with smaller populations (Jefferson's mandate).
To expand a bit: in Hamilton's Federalist mindset, a strong and centralized federal government had to be led with a stronger executive branch, meaning a competent president. Should that core leadership and intellect not exist within the elected president, especially back when the American system of government was in its formative stages, the whole nation might fall apart. So, just a slight majority would not win any candidate the election. With Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican party, being the proponents of rural lifestyles and stronger state governments, they saw a system of population-based voting as unfavorable to the states with lesser populations who needed different supports from their president. In fairness to the people, the House of Representatives adopted population-based delegation and the Senate held two seats for each state's representatives. But this is not how the electoral college works: that is based on regional voting that makes the decision for each of the 538 total electors.
Ironically, as of 2016, Hamilton's hopes and Jefferson's views might have completely crumbled the American government, exposing further problems in the checks and balances of our government's structure but especially highlighting the problematic nature of a voting system that is not based on the popular vote. Hillary Clinton, clinically proven to be the mentally stable candidate regardless of party bias, lost to Donald Trump.
And it really ends there in terms of what happens after that. She lost, and he won, and so he is president and there is nothing anyone can do about that except for impeaching him or waiting for him to leave office and then maybe one day electing her if she ever decides to run again. But looking into the actual results, Clinton won the popular vote— by 3 million votes. The day that that is no longer enough to declare a sure victory is an expository day, and it has arrived. While the electoral college failed to secure a stable candidate for the decidedly significant office of president, it is important to note just how much it failed: she lost by 74 electoral college votes. How might someone win in actuality— in actual votes, by 3 million— and yet lose by 14% of the system's electoral votes?
The final question is, in today's society, is it really fair that the popular vote does not mean anything? It is understandable, even by myself, as to why Jefferson saw the need for representation of those in smaller states. However, they voted for an incompetent president (the smaller states more often voted for Trump). I am not saying that the popular vote should mean everything, but perhaps the system we have set up centuries ago is no longer applicable in the modern day. A college whose electors hold little power does not seem to be affected at all (in my experience) by delegates, as Hamilton hoped. And Jeffersonian ideals of states' greater independence from the federal government are not being met, as Trump refuses to honor sanctuary states and individual states' property tax policies, for example.
The system failed this time. It has hurt many Americans, with views of our racist, corrupt, and incompetent president and his selected administration obviously affecting the nature and policies of our nation. Hamilton and Jefferson would be disappointed.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/president
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/how-does-the-electoral-college-work.html
Source: https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/president
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/how-does-the-electoral-college-work.html
I totally agree with your stance on the electoral college and how, despite the good intentions behind its creation, in the modern day it fails to choose a president fairly. I would even go beyond when you said that "I am not saying that the popular vote should mean everything," because personally I believe it should mean everything. The people should choose the president, and whoever the most people chose should win. I think the electoral college overcomplicates that idea, and that popular vote represents everyone without giving more sparsely populated states a huge advantage in election season.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I agree that the electoral college has some problems, and it could be questionable how well the system has aged. In my opinion, I find that Jefferson's overall views on the ideal structure of society have aged worse than Hamilton's ideas. In particular, Hamilton's view of an advanced urban society seems to be far more prevalent today than Jefferson's view of a society centered around rural life. Therefore, it would be expected that Jefferson's views would be less relevant today. This being said, I respectfully disagree with what I interpret as your implied sentiment that the electoral college is overall failing to satisfy both Hamilton's and Jefferson's ideals. When you say that Trump refuses to honor state policies, I view this less as a problem with the voting system and more as a problem with executive power. From what you have described, I am not entirely convinced that the electoral college's system itself was the cause of the supposed lack of respect for the states' policies. Although I am not familiar with the exact politics here, I would attribute Trump's supposed lack of acknowledgement to political opacity more than the electoral college itself. It could be the case that the states were represented accurately through the system, yet the elected president had failed to meet the demands he had set upon himself, which is less of a problem with the electoral college and more of what I would consider a result of politics in general.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would like to ask, what do you exactly mean by the electoral college being unaffected by delegates, and why would you think that Hamilton would hope that delegates affect the college?
I agree with your idea that the Electoral College is outdated and is not the optimal way to elect a president, but I believe that instating a direct, national popular vote would be much worse. Even though a popular vote promotes greater voter equality and could potentially increase voter turnout, its downsides prevail over its benefits. The threshold necessary for winning, which acts as a safeguard, will be greatly reduced. I would like to point out that even though Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes, that was under 1% of the population of the United States (~323 million in 2016). In addition, unexpected situations can be nightmarish; for example, if the election is close and a recount is necessary (such as in the election of 2000), the cost would be insane due to the sheer quantity of votes. Since candidates will end up campaigning towards individuals, the election will also greatly favor the wealthier candidates who can afford more advertisements in the media. Finally, imagine this situation: two wolves and one sheep are voting on what to have for dinner. A direct popular vote will always result in the sheep (the minority) getting eaten by the wolves (the majority). The Electoral College was created to address these issues, and even though it is not perfect, the pros outweigh the cons.
ReplyDelete