Alaska has voted Republican since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. While the majority of the state has voted Republican, there is a Democratic minority whose votes are made meaningless by the winner-take- all approach of the Electoral College. For this reason the US should reform its election process to make equality and transparency the two major values for its election.
The founders set up a specific way for elections to run with the idea that our elections would be for a certain type of person. As Loomis points out, they were concerned about knowledgeable and informed votes being cast. However, with the advent of the internet and the advance of technology, these qualms are no longer an issue. While the Electoral College played an important role for centuries, it is now banning votes from holding the same weight and an active detriment to the ‘free and fairness’ of our elections. While the Electoral College has not worked effectively for many election cycles, it was not actively undermining them, but as the last few elections have shown, this is no longer the case. In order to increase progress towards more equal and transparent elections and to uphold the Founders standard of free and fair elections, the United States should elect the President directly by popular vote.
Lilian,
While I agree with you on promoting diversity of opinion and expression is a core value in this country I disagree with you that reforming the electoral college would offer such relief. In fact, I believe the result would be quite the opposite! I favor neither party in this argument but if we were to use Alaska and its a-typical Republican vote as an example I will demonstrate how abolishing the electoral college would suppress the will of the majority of Alaskans. California, a solid red state from the post Reagan era until now has counties which have populations several times the size of the entire state of Alaska. In 2017 these counties voted 75% in some cases for the Democrat ticket. The popular will of Alaskan in 2016 was in favor of the Republican ticket. Thus, aligning with a post electoral college system would erase the will of the majority of Alaskans. This is the brilliance of the EC it offers low population centers a voice in the election. If not for the EC the winner would be chosen by a couple counties in a vast nation. Thus, it is the EC that promotes diversity of options and thought. A voice for the minority against the superior numbers of the majority.
Thanks for posting Tim. You bring up a great point that I actually thought could be further expanded upon in the original reading. That being said, I think one of the core issues with the EC is that it prioritizes states and parties. This is less of an issue about population density and more about the will of the people. If 2.5 million more people thought that Hillary Clinton would better represent the Executive branch that they wanted and the policy agenda that they supported, that is technically the will of the people regardless of the minority opinion. The population of counties I don’t think matters as much at that point. I think the EC has made states identify as primarily blue or red because of the winner take all approach when in reality, there are pockets all across states that always vote separately. Take Texas for example which has massively democratic sections in Austen, Dallas and El Paso, but the state as a whole has voted Republican since 1980.
I would also like to see if third party contenders held more sway if votes were counted by individual ballot and not with the EC which massively favors the two party system. Do you think there is a possibility for diversity in party or a third party president with the current Electoral system?
Hi Lilian,
I also chose the pro side of the debate; I would comment on another person’s post that does not agree with my stance, but I cannot see any other posts aside from one that do not agree with my point of view, so I thought I would comment and ask you to expand on some of your points made in your initial post. For instance, what do you think is more important? The inclusion and representation of citizens on an individual level, or on a county/state level? Personally, I think that it is more important to base election results on the perspective of the individual, as that is one of the core values that America is founded on. Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Hey Riley,
I had the same issue as far as posts go!
I would agree with you. I think it is more about what best supports the tenets of democratic election. Those are that the election, is free and fair and by the people. To that end it makes more sense for elections to be by popular vote and not divided by state representative. Especially when in some ways the EC is not even a curate representation of population. What I mean by that, is even though Californias 55 votes feel way more than Alaska’s 3, is 55 really enough to represent the percentage more of people that live in CA? For those reasons I think election via popular vote would be more conducive to free and fair elections. Thanks Riley!
I will have to disagree with you on individuals being more educated on politics with the advance of technology; I would argue that people are less educated than they’ve ever been. Not only are people overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information at their fingertips at any given moment, there is also a vast sea of misinformation to shift and wade through. People are also more likely to only read what already agrees with their stance, causing more cycling of uneducated, biased opinions.
I think you bring up a good point Rachel, we as a country are certainly being underserved by a toxic media environment. However, I do not know if that necessarily means we are less educated then we were before. I would say that we are more educated in the raw information served to us, but less so in the norms that dictate social interaction. We often take for granted how much we as a society actually know, even when compared to just half a century ago. The problem is in how we as a society are pushed to express our opinions and in those who take advantage of the information super highway to quickly spread disinformation rather than information.
Lilian,
YOu bring up some points that are worth talking about. First and foremost, I do not believe that citizens today are any more educated than they were historically. While the advent of the internet has made it much easier to gain information, it is not being utilized in that way. Just look at the recent levels of voter turnout in the past decade. I also want to draw upon how a direct vote approach would only lead to further polarization outside of the reasons pointed out by Shafer. State culture plays a role in determining one’s political partisanship and ideology and using a majority vote would make it so the only votes that really mattered are those coming from states with the most population. In turn, this would create further division as it would make it so numerous states are no longer being represented.