On November 8th of 2016, the presidential election came to an end and Republican candidate Donald J. Trump won with a total of 290 electoral votes despite the fact that he lost the popular vote by a margin of about 500,000. This is not the first time that this has happened. Four other times we’ve seen the president lose the popular vote and still take the election. For a country that presents itself as democratic and a nation of the people where everyone's voice matters, the use of this method of election seems quite undemocratic. That being said, I believe that it is time for the United States to make a change in the way in which we conduct our elections.
Have Your Voice Heard: Become an Odyssey Creator
With two elections since the beginning of the 21st century resulting in the loser having more of the popular vote it seems that our system has become less representative of the will of people than our country claims. In the election of 2000 Al Gore lost with roughly 500,000 more votes than President George W. Bush whose presidency saw two controversial wars as well as the biggest economic recession since the Great Depression. Had we used the popular vote Al Gore would have become President and those eight years would have been significantly different.
Now with Mr. Trump's election there are many people across the country who are concerned about both their personal safety and the future of our country. Much of this concern comes froms the fact that Donald Trump ran a campaign that included him insulting almost every underrepresented group saying things like a judge with Mexican heritage would be biased against him because of his heritage and proposing policies such as a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country and deporting every illegal Mexican immigrant.
Although many people do not trust President-Elect Trump’s opponent, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and do not agree with many of her proposed policies, it can be said that she not given anyone a reason to fear for the safety of their self or others.That does not mean that Mrs. Clintion was perfect candidate because many people feared that she was a politician who would serve the interest of corporate banks and herself because of her long career in politics that has included quite a few scandals. In the last sixteen years we have twice elected presidents who got less votes than their opponent and both times it seems that it will lead to presidents who make our country worse off than before they took office.
In order to make our country a more democratic place it is time to make a change in the way we elect our president so that it represents the will of the people and gives every voter an equal voice. This can be done by using the popular vote so that the winner of the election is determined by which candidates has the most votes at the end of the election. Giving everyone an equal voice is an ideal that our country has been ignoring for far too long and the popular vote would fix that.
Another way we could fix our election is by changing the way the electoral college works. The way it works now in all but two of the states is that the candidates who gets the most votes gets all of the electoral votes which essentially throws away a vote for anyone who does not win that state. We could improve this by giving out the electoral votes based on what percent of the vote each candidate gets. An example of this would be Texas which in the actual election Mr Trump won with 53% of the vote and got all 38 electoral votes. In the new system Mr.Trump would get approximately 53% of the electoral vote which is 20 and Mrs. Clinton who received 43%of the votes would get 16 electoral votes, and the final two electoral votes would split with one going to third party candidate Gary Johnson who received 3% of the vote and the final one going to Hillary Clinton because her amount of votes when calculated was the closest to going up one more. This would ensure that in states that always go to one party the members of the opposite part would still get their voice heard.
In order to make our country the center of democracy that we always claim it is crucial that we update our voting system to ensure that every voter gets their voice heard. It will ensure that we will elect our presidents on the will of the people and will not elect presidents who are bad for what we our country to be in the future.
