Why We Should Change Presidential Elections To Popular Vote.
I believe I am with the majority of voters when I say I am sick & tired of hearing the term ‘Battleground States’. It makes me feel like my vote really doesn’t matter because it all comes down to a few thousand voters in a handful of States. In my opinion, when we elect a candidate who did not have the majority of votes we’ve made a mistake, we got it wrong.
I would rather the United States elect our Presidential Candidates the same way we elect our local and state politicians, by ‘Popular Vote’. It doesn’t make sense to allow a group of electors to decide America’s fate. Why should I vote for someone to vote for me? Why complicate things?
As we saw in the 2020 election, it was relatively easy for Donald Trump and his associates to create fraudulent certificates in several states, which were to be presented to then-Vice President Mike Pence, in the hope that VP Pence would count those votes in order to falsely claim Trump had won. The Electoral College makes it easier to falsify election results.
It came down to the honesty of one man to keep the election legitimate.
That’s too close for comfort. The Republican Party attempted to cheat by rigging electoral votes in a way that did not reflect the intentions of the American voters. Fortunately, most of their efforts were blocked, and many of those participants have been prosecuted for their illegal attempts to change the election results.
Electoral College
When you vote for a Presidential candidate you are actually voting for your State electors, not the candidate him or her self. That has never really made sense to me, and can be detrimental to some candidates. For example, although Ross Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote nationwide in 1992, he did not win any electoral votes. The result was…
Almost 20% of the voting public had no say in the results of that election.
That’s crazy! You had three individuals running for the presidency of the United States, and one of them ended up with zero electoral votes, even though 19,743,821 Americans cast their vote for Ross Perot. I was one of those people, and I felt cheated and invisible. My vote was deemed irrelevant by an outdated process that serves no purpose.
According to the government National Archives website “The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution (Article. II. Section. 1.), in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress, and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.”
I don’t understand this reasoning, why the need to compromise? Congress should have no say in the matter… Just Count The Damn Votes!
Did you know, the Constitution does not require electors to vote for the candidate chosen by their state’s popular vote, although a few states do? How can this be a true reflection of the will of the American people if the electors are not required to acknowledge the results of the voters?
To clarify the process further, as explained by the National Archives, “all States use the popular vote results from the November general election to decide which political party chooses the individuals who are appointed as electors.” The State’s general election-winning candidate’s political party selects the individuals who will be electors. It’s like flipping a coin.
Popular Vote
If we were to elect our White House candidates by popular vote the results would be a more accurate reflection of the will of the people, and then everyone’s vote would count; that’s the way it should be. It’s time for America to update our Presidential Race process and make every citizen’s vote count by using the ‘Popular Vote’ procedure.
Common Cause, a website campaigning the change to a National Popular Voting System, claims popular voting “would reshape our democracy for the better. Not only would it ensure that the person who actually got more votes would win the presidency, it would force candidates to spend time engaging with voters in all 50 states, instead of just a handful swing states.”
As we can see in the last few months of the current election (2024), our Presidential candidates have focused on the 7 “battleground states”, rarely visiting the remaining 43 states, in fact, I think they have completely ignored 80% of the country as they campaign the last few months of this race. That’s absurd, and completely unfair to the majority of voters.
The seven states recognized as ‘swing states’ by the political website Politico are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That’s it folks, these are the people who will decide who is the next President of the United States.
The bottom line is:
In two of the past six presidential elections, the candidate who won the most popular votes lost the election. The Electoral College process can sometimes overrule the popular vote, denying citizens of their right to choose the leaders who occupy the White House, a right guaranteed by the Constitution for each and every American citizen who decides to vote.
We now not only have the technology to accurately count every ballot, we also have the ability to offer a variety of ways to make voting an easier task, thereby encouraging a higher percentage of voter participation. By choosing to use Popular Voting over the Electoral College we ensure voters that the decision was theirs and that their vote counted.
I’m an American citizen and I want my vote to count. Don’t you?
On Reflection:
I hope we someday eliminate the electoral college and choose who goes to the White House by popular vote, it really makes more sense and eliminates the possibility of false certificates and electors who opt out from reflecting the opinions of the majority. Popular votes are more accurate and more secure.
On the other hand, will popular votes eliminate the concept of ‘Battleground States’, probably not. Popular Voting will just switch the battleground states from those affected by electoral votes to States with the largest populations. Highly populated States will then attract all of the attention from the political candidates and their associated campaigns.
Oh well, what are you going to do?
I guess we’ll always have Battleground States.
Thanks for reading my article.
Info Sources: In addition to my personal experience, most ‘researched’ information was gathered from the websites noted below and various Google searches.
- To learn more about the movement to switch from the Electoral College to popular Voting visit the Common Cause website here.
- Learn more about the Electoral College at the National Archives website here.
- Wikipedia list of United States Presidential Elections in which the winner lost the popular vote here.
- *Public Domain WikiMedia image used with permission via Creative Commons License BY-SA 3.0 Deed and/or BY-SA 4.0 Deed
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