Every United States Presidential Election has used the same system named the Electoral College. It was created by the founding members of the U.S. in order to determine the winner of each Presidential Election.
What is the Electoral College, and what does it do? Incorporated in the 12th Amendment, the system uses a point system which assigns a specific number of electoral votes to each state. Whichever candidate gets the most votes for each state wins all of their electoral votes. The first candidate to reach the majority number of electoral votes, 270, wins the White House.
So why is this system used? In 1804, when it was introduced, the American people weren’t as aware of the candidates as today. With no social media and only local newspapers, they weren’t educated enough to understand who to vote for. So, instead of educating the voters, they put the Electoral College in place for appointed electors to vote for President after the people vote in order to make sure the candidates elected are truly valid. Today, this system is extremely outdated. People are much more aware about each candidate, whether they like it or not. After voting, we no longer require “superior voters” to double-check our choices. Plus, with the college system, it is possible for a candidate to receive more votes than the other but still lose the race. This was the case twice in the modern era: in 2016 when Former President Trump defeated Former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton as well as in 2000 when Former Vice President Al Gore lost to Former President George Bush. This is a good example of why this system doesn’t truly benefit us.
Although the system was built to equally represent all of us, it doesn’t really achieve that. In 2020, California had 55 electoral votes and over 18 million voters which came down to 311,212 people per electoral vote. While in 2020, Wyoming had 3 electoral votes available for the presidential candidates to fight for, only 267,050 people voted. That would be about 89,000 people per electoral vote. This means voters in Wyoming have 3.5 times more power to decide who wins their state compared to Californians who have 18 million others voting as well. The electoral college is flawed in the modern day, and we should all agree if the majority of Americans vote for a candidate, then that one candidate should logically deserve to win that election.
- Jacob Francy
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