For the past few years, many political figures have debated the validity of an electoral college—especially in election years when the electoral college did not align with the popular vote. The electoral college is a group of presidential electors that form every four years to elect the President and the Vice President, with each state having electors equal to its number of seats in Congress. The electoral college has allowed candidates to secure the presidency despite losing the popular vote to their political opponents, most recently in the 2016 presidential election where Donald Trump received 2.8 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton but won the electoral college by 74 votes.
I believe that the electoral college should remain in place in our electoral system. At its inception, the electoral college was created as a safeguard against uninformed voters and it passed on the final decision to the electors who would be better informed. It was made as an attempt to balance out the will of the people against the tyranny of the majority. The tyranny of the majority is a weakness to majority rule where the majority of the majority pursues its own objectives at the expense of minority factions.
Some may argue that modern technology has allowed voters to get the necessary information to make informed votes, thus defeating the purpose of the electoral college. However, the widespread use of technology has also allowed for the rapid spread of misinformation on such a scale that it could alter who an individual decides to vote for. In many cases, people vote based on the personality of the presidential candidate and pressure from peers as opposed to their proposed policies. According to “The Psychology of Voting” by Jon A. Krosnick, a professor of psychology and political science at Ohio State University, “research has shown that voters’ perceptions of candidates’ personalities also predict some people’s votes very well.”
For example, if you were to vote Republican, especially in deep blue California, you would likely meet scrutiny from peers. In this way, the vote of an individual may not accurately represent their will, which does not seem fair. The elector, if chosen carefully may act as a second voice for voters who are pressured into voting for another candidate. In addition, by the time the electors get together, it is possible for there to be a lot more information about the candidates that the voters could not have known before voting. A popular vote system would make it easier for candidates to misinform the public short-term in order to secure the presidency.
The electoral college also ensures that presidential candidates have to secure votes from multiple regions. Otherwise, candidates could limit their campaigning to heavily-populated areas as opposed to other regions that have a lower population density. Without the electoral college, the presidential candidates would be able to marginalize rural areas and small towns because they would not have as big an impact on the election process as metropolitan areas. This idea ties back to the desire of balancing the risk of “tyranny of the majority” to the will of the populace. Many people that support the abolishment of the electoral college argue that our current system encourages candidates to campaign in swing states, which is not a strong argument considering that candidates would focus on urban populations if it were abolished. According to a 2018 American Community Survey, half of the US population lives in just 143 urban and suburban counties out of the nationwide total of 3,143; by abolishing the electoral college, the desires of ¾ US counties could be overlooked by America’s 30 largest cities.
In addition, the electoral college also gives a certainty of outcome. In the highly unlikely chance that the popular vote is split 50/50 between presidential candidates, the electoral college will almost always guarantee that there will be a winner. Disputes over the electoral college, although possible, are less likely than disputes over the popular vote. In a hypothetical situation in which the vote count of one candidate marginally exceeded that of another, both candidates would have an incentive to seek a recount to give them more votes than their opponent.
There is also the argument that the electoral college makes people feel like their votes do not matter. This argument is true; in the electoral college, not every vote matters. A Democrat in California is less likely to be concerned about missing the polling station than a voter in Florida, Ohio, or another swing state. However, the same issue is prevalent in a popular vote system. Referring back to the third paragraph, the votes of people in rural areas will feel like their votes do not matter because they only make up a small fraction of the population. The use of a popular vote system would equalize the power states in polling but marginalize the individuals of small counties.
In conclusion, I believe that, while it is imperfect, the electoral college should not be abolished, even in the context of today’s politics. Besides, in the past 200 years of presidential elections, there have only been five times when the electoral college did not match up with the popular vote—1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016—showing the effectiveness of the electoral college. It is also important to note that the debate over whether or not the electoral college is valid only gains attention whenever the result of the popular vote differs from the electoral college; it seems more like an impulsive and emotional argument as opposed to one heavily rooted in facts.
