Having to explain to hundreds of millions of Americans and billions of people elsewhere the craziness of the Electoral College isn’t the worst part of the creaky system that disenfranchises millions of citizens and thwarts popular democracy. No, the worst thing about the Electoral College is Donald Trump, who lost to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes but was still elected president, and who lost to Joe Biden by more than 4 million votes and almost prevailed again.
Having to explain to hundreds of millions of Americans and billions of people elsewhere the craziness of the Electoral College isn’t the worst part of the creaky system that disenfranchises millions of citizens and thwarts popular democracy. No, the worst thing about the Electoral College is Donald Trump, who lost to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes but was still elected president, and who lost to Joe Biden by more than 4 million votes and almost prevailed again.
Don’t forget that in 2000, Al Gore beat George W. Bush by a half-million votes and still lost.
This is simply not a fair or sensible way to elect a national leader. States shouldn’t have to throw all their votes to a single candidate, whether their citizens vote for him by the thinnest margin imaginable or overwhelmingly. Small states shouldn’t get disproportionately larger vote totals. Battleground states shouldn’t consume the lion’s share of candidates’ attention just because they happen to be in play.
Back in 1787, when America was 13 independent entities, with different laws and currencies, the states created the Constitution to bind themselves together, retaining many crucial powers. And the power to elect the president was one of those powers.
States remain important in many respects, but we are long past being only citizens of states (sorry, Texans). We are all Americans. And giving unequal Electoral College weights to the many states violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause; it would be thrown out by the Supreme Court if it wasn’t in the Constitution.
Alas, amending the document is too onerous. Far better for the states compromising an Electoral College majority, like the ones that are now voting in Biden, to band together and pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. People electing a president: Isn’t that a novel idea?
