Let me be very clear, President Donald Trump is our president and there was approximately no chance for Hillary Clinton to defeat him. While I’m very vocal in my dislike for President Trump, I also think it’s very important to recognize that he found a base which could relate to his rhetoric. While I voted for Hillary, it wasn’t because I genuinely agreed with her, it was because she was the lesser of two evils in my eyes, and when that’s your only reason to vote for someone, they probably won’t win.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way I’d like to discuss why voting in the United States is broken.
The Electoral College
The Electoral College was created to protect citizens from being manipulated by a tyrannical dictator. When an American casts their vote on election day they aren’t voting for the president but are instead telling their representative within The Electoral College that they would appreciate it if they voted for that candidate.
The result of this system is that in this election the state of Wyoming cast about 210,000 votes, and thus each elector represented 70,000 votes, while in California approximately 9,700,000 votes were cast for 54 votes, thus representing 179,000 votes per electorate.
Source: http://www.historycentral.com/elections/Electoralcollgewhy.html
That is an incredibly depressing statistic. Smaller states have a drastically larger impact on the outcome of an election than larger states. If you are a republican in California then why bother with voting? California is clearly a blue state, and considering one electoral college vote requires 100,000 more like minded people to win than would be required in Wyoming it’s also more unfair.
If the president were elected by unfiltered national vote, small and rural states would become irrelevant, and campaigns would spend their time in large, populous districts.
Source: http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/07/why-the-founders-created-the-electoral-college/
This is almost entirely pointless in today’s world. During the election cycle candidates are plastered all over social media and news outlets. While it’s great for a candidate to travel to the different parts of the country I don’t think it makes sense to handicap the more popular areas of the country. The Electoral College in today’s age is giving more power to conservative voters (mostly occupying lower population density centers) while taking away power from liberal voters (mostly occupying higher population density centers). I’d like to dive a little deeper into that, let’s take a look at two images.
This image represents votes by county. It completely ignores population.
This image represents votes by county, it completely ignores geographic size and instead focuses on population.
These images are representing the same data, which is which party won each county. The first image keeps the map of the United States untouched and it is often used by supporters of President Trump. The second image skews the map to better represent population, as you can see Chicago and Milwaukee become much larger, as does New York City.
I want to live in a world where every person is treated equally in the political system. The Electoral College completely fails at doing that given a voter in one state has a vote of 1/70,000 while a voter in another state only has a vote for 1/179,000. Votes should be treated equally, it’s 2017, politicians don’t need to travel to every nook and cranny to give a speech these days.
So what’s the “simple” solution to removing The Electoral College? I can see a few options, the first being a simple popular vote, the candidate with the most votes wins. This would be the simplest method and I think it would encourage everyone to get out and vote. It may also encourage people to vote third party.
Another option is to allow for representatives to be added to congress, currently the number is set to 435 and every state is guaranteed 3 representatives. As of this writing there are 326,231,734 people living in the United States. That means each member of congress has represents on average 749,958 residents, it’s no wonder why these people have such abysmal approval ratings. So another solution is to just add more members of congress, everyone state would be guaranteed a certain number of representatives, but larger states wouldn’t be penalized as much as they currently are either.
Neither of those solutions is perfect. I feel like the second solution ends up highlighting further issues with the political system in the United States. However the first step to fixing something that is broken is to acknowledge that it is in-fact broken.
Voting On Tuesday
If we can’t all agree that The Electoral College needs to be removed or revamped we can at least all agree that voting on Tuesday is stupid, right? So, why Tuesday?
If you are unable to watch that video allow me summarize why we vote on Tuesday. In 1845 people traveled by horse and buggy and it could take a day or longer to get to your polling place. Sunday was still a day of rest so Monday was out of the question which is why it falls on a Tuesday.
They don’t want you to vote. If they did, we wouldn’t vote on a Tuesday. In November. You ever throw a party on a Tuesday? No, because nobody would show up. — Chris Rock
Of course the day of the week isn’t in itself a bad thing. The issue with voting on Tuesday is that many Americans have to work between 9am and 5pm on Tuesday. Polling places tend to be reported as overcrowded (though it has never taken me longer than an hour to cast my vote) and so even if your workplace is flexible you still may be swayed not to vote because of the uncertainty for how long it may take. So regardless of what day in the week Election Day falls on, it should be considered a national holiday and businesses operating in the United States should be required to be closed on that day.
Ellion Stallion via Unsplash
I’m not quite done complaining about the day of the week though. The majority of countries hold their elections on the weekend, and the majority of that majority hold their elections on Sunday. I understand that Sunday is the day of worship for many, but for most people that worship on Sunday likely only spend an hour or two there. So we should ditch Tuesday and start voting for our elected officials on Sunday.
Oh wait, I suppose I forgot a very important part about why voting on Tuesday sucks, it seems like I gave a solution to a problem that I never actually defined (although I think it’s mostly obvious). Voter turnout in the United States is laughable at best and could be better described as pathetic.
According to a recent study by Pew Research, voter turnout was 55.7% which put us in the bottom 8 (not country Turkey because they had no data) of the study. Of residents old enough to vote, 86.8% have registered which means roughly 30% of registered voters decided not to vote. Making it easier to vote by making the day we vote more accessible would be a step in the right direction. Other countries have compulsory voting laws, Australia for example will fine non-voting citizens $15. Honestly, this isn’t a terrible idea, use the money collected to raise awareness of Election Day in the future.
Alright so voter turnout sucks and I’m mostly blaming Tuesday for that. Believe it or not, there are still other reasons why voting in the great United States of America is broken though.
The Democratic Primary & Superdelegates
One thing I learned during the 2016 election season is the Republican’s have a far better primary process than the Democrats. You’ve probably realized by now that I am more liberal than conservative, so this hits pretty close to home.
My main issue with the Democratic Primary are the superdelegates. As mentioned previously, I’m a major fan of all votes being equal, superdelegates completely ignore that idea. The normal people are all worth a very small fraction of a single delegate while members of the DNC (Democratic National Committee) and elected officials that identify as democrats are each worth a single delegate. That’s stupid and it leads to a very broken system.
Why is it broken? Before the very first primary news outlets were reporting about pledged delegates which made a certain candidate look more qualified than the others and so voters were already being influenced before they even heard the first debate between candidates.
Jose Moreno via Unsplash
If you are going to have a primary to decide who should be the frontrunner with the best odds of winning an election, then let the people decide. All superdelegates are is another version of the electoral college, which as we discussed earlier that is also broken.
Caucuses Are Ineffective
If you are like me and live in a state that doesn’t have a caucus you might be wondering what the heck one actually is. Essentially people meet at a predetermined time and place to choose their preferred nominee. In a world where you can order pizza from your sneakers, caucuses are incredibly dated.
In a study from 2014 it was found that 26.6% of Americans work at night, and the definition of “night” was between 10pm and 6am. If you expand the number out to Americans that don’t work 9–5 (the ones that wouldn’t fit into a caucuses schedule) that number would almost certainly be larger. I feel it’s safe to say that caucuses are not pro-working class and instead are a way of systematically removing the voices of the work class.
Trent Yarnell via Unsplash
Even for those of us that can make it to a caucus are not safe though. The majority of us are not professional politicians, while voting is a right it is also a pain in the neck. So requesting that people gather in a room for a few hours to cast a vote for their preferred nominee is almost a non-starter. Sure you’ll get the die hard fans for candidates but you won’t attract the regular voters that will turn out on election day.
I have absolutely no idea why caucuses still exist in 2017, if you know why feel free to leave a response, I’d love to get other opinions.
Voter Suppression Happens
I’m all for avoiding voter fraud, however I’ve yet to see any real evidence of fraudulent votes being cast. Sure there are a few outliers where someone ends up registered to vote in two states (I’d assume by mistake), but that doesn’t really swing elections. Voter suppression does happen though, and it’s consequences are far worse.
Let’s take a look at Florida as an example. In 2011 a bill was passed which cut the early voting days from 14 to 8. It removed the ability to change your address at the poll. It enacted regulations around registration groups like the League of Women Voters, to turn in voter-registration cards within 48 hours or face fines, something which may not be possible if registering thousands of people in a short time.
Photo ID laws, which request your present some form of identification with your photo on it, seem like a good idea until you dig a bit deeper. In Texas for instance, 1 million of their 13.5 million registered voters lack a photo ID. While a photo ID is important for purchasing liquor, driving, as well as flying; it’s also not necessary for everyone. All this does is make it harder for people to vote and in some cases requires them to obtain another form of identification they otherwise wouldn’t need.
Previous felons may also be denied the right to vote. Again this may sound like a well meaning idea, but considering our criminal justice system is supposed to rehabilitate criminals into being productive members of society, it makes no sense to remove their right to vote. In 2004, 5.3 million Americans were denied the right to vote for this very reason.
Brian Sandoval via Unsplash
Election Day Is Underfunded
This topic could have fit in with voter suppression however I felt it might make more sense to dive into further detail. Elections in the United States typically aren’t funded equally, Wyoming spent $2.15 per voter in 2004 while California spent $3.99 per voter. Canada on the other hand spends $9.51 per voter.
One complaint voters have on election day is how long it takes to cast their ballot. In a better funded area this may not be much of a problem, if at all. This is great if you live in an area that can afford to spend more on their voters, however if you are in an area with less resources you may find yourself waiting in longer lines because there just aren’t enough people to run the polling facility.
Not Enough Publicity
America really only cares about elections every 4 years despite having major elections every 2. When we are voting for the president we’ll show up en masse (well, kind of), but when it comes time to voting in the off year elections we rarely make much of a fuss. This again goes back to voter suppression, you can’t vote if you don’t know you are supposed to vote.
Voting in the United States is broken. I hope this article sheds some light on areas of our voting process that could be made better and I’m interested to hear about how you feel about how voting works in the United States.
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