Writer: Haia Al Zein
Editor: Mira Khan
The Electoral College is a system used to determine the President of the United States. The electoral college is found in the constitution under Amendment 12, Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, which says, “The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves” (Constitution Annotated, n.d.). The amount of electors a state has varies on the amount of representatives in Congress, along with two for the number of senators. In total the United States has 538 electors which are broken up into 100 senators and three electors for Washington D.C. and 435 house members. (USAGov, n.d.).
Furthermore, the population of each state dictates the number of electors. For example, 39.5 million people reside in California, and this sizable population is the reason why California has the most electors in the country. In comparison, a state like Rhode Island only has four electors because it has a population of only 1.1 million. Additionally, the popular vote is the accumulation of all votes, but the electoral vote is the deciding factor. If a candidate wins the popular vote and loses the electoral votes, they would still lose the election.
In 2016, the Presidential Candidates at the time were former President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton had won the popular vote but lost the election because Trump won the electoral vote. As a result, many questioned the existence of the electoral college, because some believe states should have more or less electors, and others believe that the next President of the United States should be chosen based on the popular vote (Liasson, 2021).
The Electoral College is meant to establish democracy but the exact definition of democracy by the dictionary is, “government by the people”(Mariam-Webster, n.d.). It can be argued that the electoral system is not democratic. Having the voting system fall into something other than the voice of the people causes the election to be undemocratic. The electoral college needs to be reevaluated to fairer terms that are fit for the American people. The point of this system is to represent citizens' voices, but it is not fair that some states get more members in the House of Representatives. This makes one state’s leaning seem more important than the next, making democracy unable to hear all voices equally. Although the electoral college claims to represent democracy, it simply does not, with the 2016 election being a prime example.
References
Electoral college count generally | constitution annotated | congress.gov | library of Congress.
Electoral college: Us Gov. Electoral College | USAGov. (n.d.). https://www.usa.gov/electoral-college#:~:text=Including%20Washington%2C%20D.C. 's%20three,electoral%20votes%20each%20state%20gets.
Liasson, M. (2021, June 10). A growing number of critics raise alarms about the Electoral College. NPR.
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/10/1002594108/a-growing-number-of-critics-raise-alarms-a bout-the-electoral-college
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Democracy definition & meaning. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy#:~:text=%3A%20 government%20in%20which%20the%20 supreme,all%20 people%20 are%20 socially%20 equal
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