Kompalli 1

Shreyas Kompalli

Mrs. Gardner

English 10H/Period 6

9 May 2017

The Injustice Behind The Presidential Election

Since the turn of the century, two of Americas three presidents have been wrongly

elected, without even receiving the popular vote majority. The sole blame for this lies with the

Electoral College, a stain on the otherwise shimmering democracy that Americans have shaped

for centuries. The Electoral College is a group of electors from each of the fifty states of

America, who represent the political view of the people from their region/district of their state.

Once the popular votes are tallied, each elector votes for the candidate whom the majority of

their region supported, and these electoral votes then go on to decide who the next president will

be. In theory, the system should work properly, and elect the president who is supported by the

majority of the US population; however, the Electoral College has recently come under fire, as

its structure and execution causes election results to misrepresent the American citizens ideas

and values. Though Americas use of the College forces candidates to campaign in all regions of

the country and address problems around the nation, it should be abolished, because it decreases

voter turnout, gives certain voters more power than others, and is inherently undemocratic.

Supporters of the Electoral College argue that with the College in place, candidates must

travel around the country and address issues in every region of America, because they need

electoral votes from many different states in order to win the election. Furthermore, they state

that America was never founded to be a direct democracy, but rather a representative
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democracy, which a popular vote system would undermine (Crockett). Akshay Prabhushankar,

a writer for University Wire, claims that if the United States were to use a popular vote system,

Democrats could campaign solely to the coasts and win the White House, and that the same

would apply for Republicans in other regions of the country. In fact, policies like the Bill of

Rights are designed protect the country against majority tyranny, the idea that one region of

people large enough to represent a majority begin to control all of the federal actions, laws, and

spending of the country (Crockett). Advocates for the College continue to assert that the system

was created because the Founding Fathers knew that a perfect democracy was unattainable,

and that this was the closest they could come to creating a democratic nation (Prabhushankar). A

democracy with absolute equality may not have been possible in the eighteenth century, with

slavery still in practice and womens rights being almost nonexistent; however, America has

come a long way since those times, and as such, we have the ability to form a more inclusive and

balanced democracy. As American society continues to evolve into an increasingly liberating

and diverse culture, its political structures must evolve as well; the Electoral College no longer

has a place in America, due to its undemocratic and imbalanced nature.

The Electoral College causes many votes to be lost each year, due to the winner-takes-all

rule of state electoral votes. As Jonathan Petrie, an online author for University Wire, states, A

Republican voting in California does not matter overall, because a Republican majority in

California wont reasonably happen. Similarly, Democrats in Texas have no reason to vote

because it is a Republican state. This belief that ones vote doesnt matter leads to decreasing

voter turnout, and with the 2012 and 2016 elections having just 57% and 55% of all eligible

voters actually voting, we cannot afford to be losing any more voters. (Petrie). As Americas
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voter turnout numbers dwindle, the elected president becomes less and less representative of the

majority in the nation. If only half of all American citizens are voting, then the candidate that is

elected into the White House expresses, with certainty, the political desires of just about one

quarter of the nation, assuming that each of the main candidates receives about half of the overall

votes. This is a staggeringly low percentage of voter representation, and by continuing with a

system that promotes numbers like these, the government risks sending messages of nonchalance

and neglect to the American people with regards to their votes. In their persistence with the

Electoral College, the American government is essentially devaluing millions of votes, simply

based on which state a voter resides in - an unacceptable practice if we are to move forward as a

nation of liberty and respect.

The Electoral College also falters in its distribution of electoral votes among each state,

and as a result, voters in some states carry more power than voters in other states. For example,

Maines population-to-electoral vote ratio is 263,457:1, while Californias is 508,344:1 (Petrie).

With almost double the voting weight compared to Californians, voters in Maine are able to

influence the election much more heavily, creating more inequality among the citizens of

America. Maine is only granted three electoral votes, so some may say that the relative impact

that the state will have on the overall outcome of the election is minimal; however, when states

like Wyoming, Delaware, and Montana, who all have similar elector ratios to Maine, are factored

in, the amount of electoral votes that are weighted significantly higher becomes substantial. The

election now becomes a question of which candidate appeals to states with more voter weight,

rather than which candidate appeals to the general American public, and the president begins to

lose their significance as a representation of American political view. Voting is a Constitutional

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right given to all Americans of age, and if the people find that their vote is being misrepresented

or weakened, there will be outrage.

The Electoral College has many negative consequences, but it is inherently undemocratic

as well. For instance, it is mathematically possible for states with just 17 percent of the

American population to elect a Senate majority, with similar numbers existing in the

presidential and House elections, as well (Badger). In addition, the majority of the popular vote

is not even needed to win the presidential election: the most recent cases of this are George Bush

versus Al Gore in 2000, and Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton in 2016 (Hall). While the

structural problems within the Electoral College and the adverse effects it creates are reason

enough to oppose it, the fact that the system itself is undemocratic should compel any citizen of

the United States to take a stand. By electing a president who the majority of the country does

not support, we go against the concept behind every law, verdict, and bill that is passed in

America: the concept of democracy. Allowing seventeen percent of our population to potentially

elect an individual into office is unacceptable, because it does not display the equality or fairness

that has been fought for since the times of the Boston Tea Party, with its famous phrase taxation

without representation. Protests and outcries would follow if the winner of any other vote or

poll in society was won by the side gathering less support; why should we continue to allow this

concept at the highest level of our government, in the election of our president?

The Electoral College may have its benefits to American society, but the decrease in

voter turnout, the imbalance in electoral vote distribution, and the anti-democratic

implementations heavily outweigh those benefits. For decades, the Electoral College has stripped

the value from the votes of citizens living in the political minority, and in recent years, this has
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snowballed into an issue of astounding importance, skewing elections to the point of

unconstitutionalism. The system which some citizens still cling to has threatened to rid America

of its core beliefs, and if it is not stopped soon, America can and will descend into a social power

struggle, with citizens demanding equal representation, and the government protecting the

foundations which their predecessors built centuries ago. As citizens, it is our duty to raise

awareness to the inequalities within our society, and like the Black Lives Matter movement, like

the LGBTQ marches, like the feminist protests which have created so much change in our

country within the past decade, it is time for us to bring the tyranny that the Electoral College has

wreaked upon America into the spotlight.

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Works Cited

Badger, Emily. "As American as Apple Pie? the Rural Vote's Disproportionate Slice." New York

Times, 21 Nov, 2016, pp. A.11, SIRS Issues Researcher, sks.sirs.com.

Crockett, David. "Presidential Elections Aren't Popularity Head Counts." Sun-Sentinel, 22 Sep,

2015, pp. A.7, SIRS Issues Researcher, sks.sirs.com.

Hall, Robert. "Democracy would be Better Letting People Decide Elections." Sun-Sentinel, 22

Sep, 2015, pp. A.7, Orlando Sentinel,

orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-ed-electoral-college-front-burner-yes-20150917-story.ht

ml

Petrie, Jonathan. "Our Electoral College is Undemocratic and Needs to Go." University Wire, 09

Nov, 2016, pp. n/a, SIRS Issues Researcher, sks.sirs.com.

Prabhushankar, Akshay. "Democracy Needs Electoral College." University Wire, 02 Nov, 2015,

pp. n/a, Washington Square News,

nyunews.com/2015/11/02/democracy-needs-electoral-college/.