The average American is under the assumption that their vote matters just as much as anyone else’s in this country, as though one vote could actually make a difference in the outcome of a presidential election. Sad as it may be, this is all false. Although the U.S. government claims to be a democracy, the process we use to elect the leader of our nation — the electoral college — is inherently biased, and unjust. It should be eliminated to create a system in which the public may actually be able to make a difference and form a government in which all citizens have an equal opportunity in this country.
The electoral college, a system that allows for the winner of the popular vote to lose the election, is not a recent phenomenon devised by politicians to remain in control but has in fact been in action for centuries and is only beginning to be noticed by the populous. As noted by Pew Research Center, there are a total of 538 electors from the 50 states "actually chose the president and vice president, with a majority of electoral votes needed for an outright win." This means that the winner of the popular vote (AKA the vote of the people) may not become the president. This situation, where the victor of the people and the victor of the electoral college are not the same candidate, has already occurred five times in American history — from Andrew Jackson losing to John Quincy Adams in 1824, Samuel Tilden losing to Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Grover Cleveland losing to Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and the two most recent are Al Gore losing to George W. Bush in 2000 and of course, Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald J. Trump in 2016.
Due to the electoral college, the person the people want as leader of the free world cannot become president if the electoral college feels otherwise. This proves that the United States is not a country where the voice of the people, your voice even matters. We, as the American people, cannot and should not stand for this. Our votes should not be ripped from our hands by an outdated system that not only places distrust in the education of its citizens but leaves them unequal due to the way the college is set up.
The problem with the allocation of electors is that there is an unequal population distribution across the United States of America. Electors are allocated "based on the congressional representation" of the given state, meaning that since each state is required by law to have two senators in the Senate and at least one representative in the House of Representatives, each state must have at least three electorates. While this may not seem like a problem, this has led to votes in less densely populated states like Montana or Wyoming to carry more weight than a vote coming from a state with a larger population density, such as New York or California.
How can a country call itself a democracy when it clearly is not? How can a country run on a system that does not treat its citizens as equals but instead targets them based on their place of residency? How can we, as citizens of what is supposedly the greatest nation in the world, continue to let our voices go unheard and our opinions unanswered due to this? Since the birth of this nation, we have striven to define what it means to be American: as equal regardless of race, religion, sex, or place of residence, where all who are born under the same flag have the same rights. Yet nearly 250 years after its founding, our citizens' voices are not equal due to the unequal distribution. Although no one person should have more say than another, that is the way the electoral college has always worked and will continue to work unless a change is made.
The problems with the electoral college do not end with being inherently unequal and unrepresentative of the morals of a nation, but also include the fact that this system does not ensure that the electoral representative votes for the candidate chosen by their respective states. When meeting in the December following an election, the deputies from each state have "typically pledged and expected, but [are] not required, to vote for the candidates they represent." Not only does the popular vote often not match the electoral vote, but the electoral vote given by the states might not match the vote of the deputies. Since the representatives of most states are under no legal obligation to vote for the candidate of their state, if they do not think the candidate chosen by the people is of legitimacy and capable of holding the office of president of the United States, they may cast their ballot for a different candidate — thus, throwing away the election that took place in their state. This throws away the legal votes of ordinary people who matter, like teachers, students, firefighters, mothers and so forth in preference their own.
How can a government that is supposedly "of the people, for the people" not respect the opinions of the people? The answer: it can no longer. The common man must stand up and fight for their voice and fight for this system to be changed. He must use the historical precedent and fight for what his ancestor never had: a true power to make a change.
As seen by the historical precedent that seems to define us, the votes of the people often do not match who wins the election, votes are not weighted equally and the vote of one person can overpower many. All this has resulted from a system set in place by people 250 years ago who were afraid of the populous, afraid of what an uncontrollable public may due, afraid that the nation could fall apart. But now in the 21st century, the electoral college is creating more problems then it is solving. The vote of the people should be the only vote that matters and not the other way around. We must stand up in unison and demand a change. Once this occurs, this system will be removed and changed so that the winner of the popular vote wins the election and all of our votes will matter. America will finally be able to fulfill her purpose of equality for all, not some.
