You know, I’ve been around a while. And except for the time I lived in Pennsylvania, during President Nixon’s downfall and the Watergate hearings, I’ve never lived in a “swing state.” But other than my two years in Pennsylvania, I never lived in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin or Michigan. They count, I guess. And though I’ve voted in every presidential election since 1968, never has my presidential voted counted.
And I often didn’t vote for a winner
There were many election seasons where “my” top candidate didn’t win at all. But I keep voting. I keep working in my party. I keep helping down-ballot candidates. And I keep hoping my presidential vote will count. But NEVER has it counted. Why?
In some years I picked the winner
In a few of the years between 1968 and today, as I mentioned, I picked the winner. That would include Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And while my votes were counted in the popular tally, my vote really didn’t count. That’s because of the outdated and, in my opinion, discriminatory Electoral College. In short, my state didn’t vote for those winners–Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden–so the state’s electors were bound to the GOP nominee.
Were there every good reasons for this?
How did we get the Electoral College and why? The answer goes way back. It hinges in part on the Founding Fathers distrusting a highly illiterate voting public with being able to pick a president. It also hinges on an effort to appease smaller rural areas, who feared the dominance of bigger states. That fear hasn’t changed, I suspect.
Many proposals for change
Members of Congress have proposed more than 700 pieces of legislation to change the Electoral College. And I’m sure more are to come. But so far, the college works in 48 states as “winner take all.” In other words, the winner of the popular vote in Arkansas, California, etc., collects all the electoral votes in the state.
Maine and Nebraska
However, Maine and Nebraska have adopted a more hybrid method. These states allocate two electoral votes to the state popular vote winner, and then one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each congressional district (2 in Maine, 3 in Nebraska). This creates multiple popular vote contests in these states, which could lead to a split electoral vote.
States could adopt this
Other states could adopt the Maine/Nebraska plan, which seems ultimately more fair to me. This plan also helps address the fear of rural states that their power will be lost to more populous areas.
Abolish the Electoral College?
Abolishing of the Electoral College would be my preference. This would, of course, require a Constitutional Amendment and be time consuming. (The Equal Rights Amendment, for example, first proposed in 1928 and sent to state legislatures by Congress in 1972, has yet to be fully ratified.)
So I’ll settle for the Maine/Nebraska method in the meantime. How about you? Wouldn’t it be nice to know that:
–after watching all the news programs,
–listening to debates,
–talking to your friends and neighbors,
–and reading what you can
you can be more assured YOUR VOTE COUNTS.