The college campus, much like the greater United States, brings people with any number of differences together to achieve the same goal: education. This collision of differences can be seen within the friendship of my roommate and me. She is a democrat from Maryland; I am an independent from California. She is studying Chinese, Film and History; I am studying Spanish and Political Science. For all of the differences that exist between the two of us, we do have one thing in common: neither of our votes will count this Tuesday.
And why won't they count? Despite the numerous logistical issues that exist that would prohibit our votes from counting (Florida's butterfly ballot of 2000 for example), one institutional block on voting still exists: the Electoral College.
Don't know what the Electoral College is? You're not alone. I had to look it up too. The Electoral College is an archaic and outdated institution. The College was established by America's Founding Fathers as a bridge between tyranny of the majority and decisions being made for the people by Congress.
In theory, the College sounds really nice. The problem is, it has the ability to (and has... four times to be exact) choose a president counter the popular vote of the American people. Remember the election of 2000? Remember Al Gore? Yeah, he actually won the popular vote. So why was Bush president for the next 8 years? That was all thanks to the Electoral College (and an excellent assist by the Supreme Court).
According to the archives, each state chooses their electors. How? Apparently that's up to each state too. And with this fact, we find another flaw of the Electoral College: even though the College is making crucial decisions concerning the election, there is no way to keep them accountable... no one knows who they are!
So now that we know what is logistically wrong with the Electoral College, let's talk implications. When you and I go to vote, we will not be voting for a president. Did you know that? We will actually be voting for a group of representatives (the Electoral College) whose job it is to report our vote. Because the Electoral College is meant to summarize, if you will, the votes of each state, each vote does not count as one vote. Instead, each vote becomes a part of the will of the state as a whole. For example, being a Republican in California will never make any difference in the presidential election because the population of Democrats will always outnumber the population of Republicans. Ever wonder why presidential candidates don't spend too much time trying to persuade California? It is a captured state. No matter how many loyal Republicans exist in the suburbs of California, there will always be more Democrats in the larger cities, which brings us to the next flaw of the Electoral College.
Thanks to the Electoral College, swing states will always matter more than captured ones. For some reason, there are a few states (such as the notorious Ohio and Florida) that can't seem to get their act together. These swing states have not developed a pattern for voting for one party. They do what they want. Remember, the Electoral College does not count the vote of each individual as a separate vote, but rather finds out what the majority of that state wants and is supposed to vote that way. This is why swing states become so important: members of swing states tend to remain undecided much longer or these states vote a certain way by a small margin. These few undecided states end up deciding the entire election.
Let's review, shall we? My roommate's and my votes will not matter on Tuesday. Why? 1) The Electoral College groups our individual votes into one vote for the whole state. 2) We are both members of captured states. In order for the voice of the rest of America (not just the swing states) to matter, we have got to get rid of the Electoral College. Otherwise, this young, naive, excited voter will have no choice but to be apathetic with the rest of the nation. And why wouldn't she? Her vote doesn't count anyways.
I have a friend who has very strong political opinions, often voicing them on FaceBook, loving to start political debates. However, he too held a similar opinion--that his vote didn't matter. When I asked why he didn't vote absentee, he stated that he probably had something better to do, but when I picked at this, all he could come up with was that he was probably playing video games. I understand that if your state already has an overwhelming Democratic or Republican vote, one vote may not influence who the president will be. But if you choose to abstain, how motivated will you really be to stay up to date with politics. Additionally, there are many more things on a ballot beside who will be president. He could not name me all the other candidates and their positions, and he even expressed some remorse when he realized what ballot initiatives he had failed to vote on, such as the legalization of medical marijuana. Yes, in some states, once in four years only some of the votes count, but that disregards everything else we vote for. And finally, if everyone held that view, then the underdogs would win. You should feel proud to secure a spot for your president.
ReplyDelete"Securing a spot" for my President is not what I am concerned with whatsoever. I am concerned with possible voters feeling so disenfranchised that they choose not to vote. Your friend is an interesting example, though. Normally if people choose not to vote, they also choose to disengage from politics altogether. The thought behind this usually goes something like, "If I can't change anything, there is no point in trying. Politics are boring anyways." My main point of the article is simply that the Electoral College is one of many factors that can stop a person's vote from mattering and lead to them disengaging.
ReplyDeleteIf I had a dollar for every time I heard "it doesn't matter who I vote for anyway", I could go buy myself a nice pair of shoes. Its amazing how everyone is so disenfranchised in California and other large states that are overwhelmingly democratic or republican. I felt this way also and when I accidently messed up part of my ballot for my elected officials, I didn't even bother changing it because I knew that it wouldn't actually matter. I instead used my vote to focus on issues specific to the state of California and to my county. I knew that my vote would count more there since there wasn't such a bulky bureaucratic system in place. It makes me wonder that if we got rid of the electoral college, if people would be more willing to get out there and vote. It would be an interested experiment to see if it would affect voter participation.
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