With the election on Tuesday, a wide range of emotions surfaced when Donald Trump was elected president of America. While I too feel anxiety and fear for not only my friends but the outcome of the future, I tend to take that energy into finding out how it happened. While Trump won this election with 290 electoral college votes, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by about 200,000 votes. And that’s all I’ve been able to say lately—more people voted for Hillary to be president, but like in 2000 with Bush and Gore, the electoral college failed. In 2000, Gore had won with about half a million votes but didn’t have enough electoral votes. This is the fifth time in history that the person with the popular vote did not win the election.
Based on some readings and research, my understanding of how the electoral system works is that the electors are chosen or voted for by political parties, usually at state-level conventions; they’re chosen to have loyalty to said party and the constituents where there’s a majority of one political party over the other. These could be state officials, party leaders, or people with a political affiliation to the presidential candidate. Then, when voters cast a vote on election day, they’re essentially voting for whichever chosen party electorate; for example, if someone voted for Clinton, they’re voting for an elector voted by the democrat-nominated elector. Depending on the state and the form of the ballot, the elector’s name could be included underneath the presidential candidates’ ticket. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, whoever has a majority of votes are appointed as the electors. Nothing in the constitution—some states do have laws against this—prevents an elector from not voting for the candidate with the popular vote in their area. Instead, they’re either bound by state law or a pledge to their political party.
If there's any question about electors who don't vote based on the public, "faithless electors" have not been addressed by the Supreme Court and are allowed due to what was considered a check created by the Founding Father’s on the mass majority in uneducated areas; if in more rural areas people were less informed or made what was considered a mistake, the elector served to be the stand-in for what was believed to be in the best interest of the people. A short look into the history of the electoral college reveals that it was suggested back in 1787 by the Virginia delegation. Much of the state issues resided in the North versus the South, the South felt disadvantaged and under-represented due to slavery. This brought up other extremely problematic laws such as the Connecticut Compromise and the Three-Fifths Compromise that came forward with the idea of the Electoral College in the Constitutional Convention, deepening the system of voter disenfranchisement.
This is my biggest issue with the Electoral College. A reason why it still exists today is that the states that still benefit from slavery and the College's foundation have no wish to get rid of it. The Electoral College was created alongside other laws that pushed forward benefits of slavery and the disenfranchisement of voters, which is a process that continues to this day. We can’t have a system in place that was founded in slavery and continues to work towards disenfranchising voters all over the country, especially People of Color.
With our current system, one vote in California only counts about a fourth as much as a vote in Wisconsin. Changes are trying to be made, such as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among 11 states including California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Illinois to give all electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote. It hasn’t gone into effect, but Michigan and Pennsylvania are still pending. Other changes must take place as well; the strict voter ID laws in some states, for starters. Hand-in-hand with the Electoral College, there must be work done to halt voter disenfranchisement.
Rural and Southern states continue to get an advantage, but the reality is that every vote should be equal. Why are we allowing a system to exist when it was created in part to give the South a bonus for owning slaves? To me, that’s flat out wrong and sickening. To continue a system founded on that ideal just shouldn't exist, and needs to be dismantled. This election shows the consequences of relying upon the College and giving more value to one state over another. We should use popular vote where everyone’s votes matter, and in order to do that, we the people need to demand change.