The infamous Electoral College. Created to ensure a more fair presidential election that balances the interests of large and small states. A seemingly ingenious and necessary idea- at least that’s what we’re taught.
The Electoral College was established not as a way to protect the interests of “small states” because after all, states don’t vote, people do. Instead, it was created to give slaveholding states in the south more political power. You see, in the 1780’s we were on the verge of implementing a direct election system for the president, until a Virginian named James Madison noticed that the north outnumbered the south greatly. To Madison, this meant the interests of the North would outweigh the south in elections, so he proposed the electoral college (with the inclusion of the 2/5ths compromise) which gave southern states a major political advantage in the new presidential election system. Here’s a more detailed read from TIME here if you’re interested in reading more on the Electoral College’s history. I wanted to start with the Electoral College’s history so you know that yes, it is (unsurprisingly) rooted in racism and inequality.
Now that we have the history down, let’s go into detail about how it works. There are 538 electors that make up the electoral college. The number of electors a state gets for the Electoral College is derived from the number of congressional districts, plus the two Senators each state has. For example, North Carolina has 13 congressional districts, plus our two senators, equals our 15 Electoral College votes. During presidential elections, the ballots we cast for president essentially tell somebody else who we want to vote for.
In most states, North Carolina included, we are a “winner-take-all” state. This means that once a candidate wins a majority of the popular vote in a winner-take-all state, they are awarded 100% of that state’s electoral college votes. Sound democratic to you? It’s not. Another example: Tr*mp received about 49% of the vote in NC in 2016, while Clinton received about 46%. Since Trump won by a little more than three percentage points, he took all 15 of NC’s electoral college votes. It does quite literally invalidate the minority of votes.
So what do we do about it?
First, we vote. I’m tired of saying it too, but we must vote. Many of you may have seen the graphic circulating on Instagram that showed around 233,000 black people didn’t vote in a handful of cities around NC in 2016. Considering Tr*mp won NC by 173,000 votes, it’s safe to say we could’ve changed the outcome of the election had we shown up. Now, I’m not in the business of blaming black people for not voting, we’re often targeted for voter suppression, or disenfranchised by harsh and discriminatory laws that strip the right to vote from felons. However, if I can do anything with this blog it’ll be showing you how important your vote can be when you exercise it; especially in the races down ballot as those impact you more directly! This is not to say that voting is the only way for us to make actual change, but it’s definitely one of the most important tools we can use.
Second, we get rid of the electoral college, or at the very least get rid of the winner-take-all system. I’m in favor of the former over the latter, but considering that nixing the electoral college could require a constitutional amendment; states are in a better position to decide that they will allocate a proportionate amount of electoral college votes, based on the candidates share of the popular vote in the state. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll see changes to either in the short term, but should a candidate win the presidency again without winning the popular vote for the second time in a row (Tr*mp), I believe it’ll be on plenty of people’s minds.
Today’s post was a bit more content heavy than usual, but I hope you walk away with this: the electoral college doesn’t help us, it’s antiquated, and was born out of racism; but it can be beaten. If we do our part, make a plan to vote, and encourage our friends and families to turn out, we can beat the system and send Tr*mp and his cult packing… and then the real work will begin. As always thank you for reading, stay safe, and always look for The Bigger Picture!
The Big Picture 