The American Electoral College was designed to be “a compromise between election of the President by a vote of Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.” It remains a highly controversial system to this day, partially because it has elected a president who lost the popular vote four times in American history. While one could argue it overrides the will of the people, the Electoral College has been lauded by the Federal Election Commission for encouraging “a regional balance of support which is a vital consideration in governing a large and diverse nation.” Regardless of one’s views on the Electoral College, there is a solution to make the system more representative than it currently is: switching from a winner-take-all system to one governed by the proportional popular vote of each state.
Under the winner-take-all system, a candidate who receives a plurality of votes in a state obtains 100 percent of the electors (excepting Maine and Nebraska). This presents an issue: Hypothetically, were Candidate A to receive 40 percent of the vote while Candidates B and C each receive 30 percent, Candidate A would receive all of the state’s electors, despite being opposed by 60 percent of the state’s population. This has, in effect, relegated presidential campaigns to a few key swing states, such as Florida, Virginia and North Carolina, all of which receive large amounts of advertisement and attention. In June of 2016, for example, only 11 states were rated as competitive by POLITICO; combined, these states made up roughly 91 million, only 28.5 percent of the U.S. population.
As noted by Harvard Prof. Lawrence Lessig, the winner-take-all system hurts the electoral process — for both Democrats and Republicans — by placing such emphasis on these few swing states. Lessig argues, “No doubt, it is unfair to the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But… what about the unfairness being felt by the millions of voters whose votes were effectively diluted, or essentially disenfranchised?”
The focus on swing states means voters in large states, such as Texas and California, have little influence over a candidate’s agenda (as the candidate will be appealing to swing states rather than a state whom he or she deems as a lost cause). Furthermore, a winner-take-all system produces disproportionate victories. In the 2012 presidential election, for example, Barack Obama obtained 51.06 percent of the popular vote, but 332 (almost 62 percent) electoral votes. Had each state distributed its electors by a proportional popular vote system, Obama would have obtained 282 electors. Although he would still be president, the electoral distribution would not differ quite as significantly from the popular vote (at roughly 52.4 percent).
Involving more Americans in the political process would prove beneficial to the state of democracy. Data analysis conducted by Profs. Paul Freedman, Michael Franz and Kenneth Goldstein has found that “there are good theoretical reasons to suspect that campaign ads — rich in information and laden with emotional content — have the potential to bring about a more attentive, more informed and more participatory citizenry.” Data collected by the Political TV Ad Archive indicates that a disproportionate amount of advertising is focused in swing states. Were states such as California, Texas, Georgia, Arizona and New York no longer guaranteed sources of electoral votes, political advertising could be focused in those locations, exposing more Americans to the campaign agendas of both candidates and improving Americans’ knowledge of a candidate and their agenda. As a result, a proportionally-distributed Electoral College would give more Americans a voice in choosing the next president, rather than those lucky (or unlucky) enough to vote in a swing state.
William Wong is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at w.wong@cavalierdaily.com.
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