When I was in high school, our debate topic was “Resolved that the President of the United States should be elected by direct vote of the people.” Seventy years later, we still elect the president by the totally archaic Electoral College process. Yet we count ourselves as the global beacon of democracy, despite a system that disenfranchises 90% of voters. If you are a Democrat in Louisiana or Republican in New York, you might as well not bother to go to the polls.
Absent the Electoral College, there would be no swing states, no hanging chads, no claims of voter fraud. No state would be more important than any other; every vote would count the same. Currently, only six states matter, and voters in the other 44 make little or no difference. Roughly 6% of voters reside in these states, meaning that 94%, or about 140 million voters, are disenfranchised each election. How democratic is that?
Furthermore, the current system makes third-party candidacy either irrelevant — no such candidate has garnered a single electoral vote in modern times — or a spoiler, as in Bush v. Gore. How can we be complacent while electing the most important officer in the land by such an undemocratic system?
In two recent elections, the winning candidate has not won the popular vote (Bush, Trump), and while Republicans may be comfortable with that, it is blatantly undemocratic. To fix this, we would not need to amend the Constitution. All that is required is to apportion the electoral votes in each state in proportion to the popular vote. Simple enough.
DAN PURRINGTON
New Orleans