Electoral College Redux

Time to kick the ol' machine back to life. By Luke Pickrell

During last week’s debate, Kamala Harris told Americans to “Understand what it would mean if Donald Trump were back in the White House with no guardrails.” She continued: “We know now the court won't stop him, we know JD Vance is not going to stop him. It's up to the American people to stop him.” This kind of rhetoric is nothing new; Biden and Harris have said repeatedly that it’s up to voters to rebuke Trump. People have to weigh the facts, do some soul-searching, and decide what kind of future they want. With great power comes great responsibility. Etcetera.

Statements like these promulgate the myth that political power lies in the hands of ordinary Americans. That’s manifestly not the case. Where was this “people power” when five unelected justices decided that George Bush would become the most powerful person in the world? Where was this power when Donald Trump lost by three million votes but still ascended to the presidency? Did “the people” have a say when one person, Barack Obama, decided to assassinate an American citizen? How about when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, or the Senate dismantled the Build Back Better Act? Do “the people” have a say each time Congress approves another billion dollars for Israel?

Statements that “Americans decide” also assume that everyone in the U.S. has an equal vote when electing the President.  Another myth.  Thanks to the Electoral College, voters in some states hold far more power than voters in others when crowning the most powerful person in the world.  Mississippi, for example, has six electoral votes across some three million citizens — or one for every 496,880 people.  On the other hand, California has 54 electoral votes for about 39.5 million citizens — or one for about every 732,190 people.  Meanwhile, the 576,851 people in Wyoming get three electoral votes — or one vote for every 192,284 residents.

This imbalance is primarily due to the incredibly unequal Senate, which gives each state two representatives regardless of population.  The Electoral College assigns votes equal to the number of House members plus two senators.  For instance, Mississippi has four U.S. House members and two senators (six votes), California has 52 House members and two senators (54 votes), and Wyoming has one House member and two senators (3 votes).  

The Electoral College creates swing states by assigning power to states, not individual voters.  In a system of equal representation or one person, one equal vote, such as in Mexico, presidential candidates are incentivized to visit every state and target every voter, and many do.  Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's next President, defeated her second-place opponent, Xóchitl Gálvez, with 35,924,519 votes to Gálvez’s 16,502,697. Each vote was as crucial as all the others.  The statement, “I’d only vote in a swing state,” common among disillusioned politicos in California, wouldn’t make any sense in a country with direct elections like Mexico.

The Electoral College is harder to ignore when it gives the presidency to the popular vote loser, as happened in 2000, 2016, and nearly in 2020. Al Gore beat George Bush by at least 500,000 votes, and neither candidate won over 49 percent of the popular vote.  Hillary Clinton beat Trump by nearly three million votes but lost the Electoral College by almost 80.  Trump almost won the Electoral College again in 2020 despite losing the popular vote by some 7 million.  What about this year? “Since Harris became the Democratic nominee,” writes Theodore R. Johnson in the Washington Post,  “Trump has dropped nearly seven points in national polling. That shift represents millions of voters who’ve changed their minds about the election. But the people’s shift is of little interest in the college.” 

The Democrats and mainstream media have been quiet about the Electoral College. If we get a 2016 repeat, seeing what they say will be interesting.  In the meantime, it’s worth shouting out the people who have said something recently about the Electoral College: David Dayen in the American Prospect, Bobby Harrison in the Mississippi Times, Gerald Horne on Democracy Now!, David Horsey in the Seattle Times, Johnson in the Washington Post, and three folks for the Guardian.

The left-of-center Mexican outlet, La Jornada, also understands the U.S. political system and, perhaps because it's an outsider looking in, has enough financial independence and nerve to say something. In an article titled “US Election in the Hands of 1% of Voters in Key States,” David Brooks and Jim Cason write: “For a country that never stops lecturing the rest of the world about democracy, the United States is hardly a democratic country. In 48 of the 50 states, the winner is awarded all the electoral votes of each state he or she wins, even by a microscopic margin. Moreover, because of an electoral system that gives small states non-proportional power in the electoral vote, the candidate who wins the majority of votes nationally does not necessarily win the presidency.” 

In 1969, a drive to abolish the Electoral College “seemed unstoppable” until the Senate filibustered the bill.  Since then, the Electoral College has remained widely unpopular.  Given that most people want direct elections and that 2016 could happen all over again, it’s remarkable, though not surprising, that Democrats have said nothing.  Worse than saying nothing, they continue to peddle the lie that popular opinion automatically becomes a reality because the American people have power. In fact, the majority’s will is precisely what the Constitution is designed to frustrate.  Eight years ago, people weighed the facts, did some soul-searching, and decided they didn’t want Trump to win.  None of that mattered then, so why should it matter now? 

None of the above is new information. But, considering the widespread silence around the Electoral College, I figure it’s important to say something.