Donald Trump was right: there was massive voter fraud in the 2020 election. Scads of people in Georgia were denied the opportunity to have their vote for president count. It’s also true that Philadelphia has been a center of plans that have defrauded Americans of their right to vote.
The only problem is that this fraud took place all the way back in 1787, at the Constitutional Convention. Yes, that’s right. It’s time to call the Electoral College, which has stolen at least four elections throughout American history, what it is: voter fraud.
The heart of the problem with the Electoral College is that votes only matter if the voter happens to vote for a major-party candidate in a state that is closely contested. In any given election, around 10 states may be closely contested, and those are the ones where presidential candidates focus their campaigns. Everywhere else, from huge California to sparsely populated Wyoming, has no worth for candidates who know that the winner there is essentially predetermined.
It’s not clear that this was a good system back when it was implemented, but its flaws have only become more glaring with time. Electors are now yoked to the candidates who win their state, so they exercise no real discernment separate from that of the people, except to muddle the will of the people based on arbitrary state boundaries. Electors also aren’t necessary, since we can already report with great fidelity the result of a national popular vote.
A newer supposed rationale for the Electoral College, however, is equally false. Small states don’t really benefit from this apparent extra power. Of all the states with three electoral votes, none are truly competitive, and so, despite their purported power in this system, voters there are neglected just like voters in California. Alaska hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1964. Delaware hasn’t voted for a Republican since 1988. D.C. has never voted for a Republican since it gained electoral votes. Montana hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1992. Neither Dakota has voted for a Democrat since 1964. Vermont hasn’t voted for a Republican since 1988. Wyoming hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1964.
The will of the American people has been thwarted by this outdated system in four elections, including in 2016. It’s time to showcase our commitment to democracy and stop erasing the top-of-the-ballot votes for everybody who doesn’t happen to be in a favoured state.
The simplest and most likely way to do so would be to pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. If the states that have a majority of electoral votes sign it, the states in it would pledge to vote for the winner of the national popular vote, not of the vote of their own states. Unfortunately, our home state of North Carolina has refused to ratify it, a shameful error which should be fixed.
However, there’s an even better method. An amendment to the U.S. Constitution would ensure that every American’s vote matters and it would not be subject to some of the legal challenges that may afflict the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This would make it clear to everybody that America cares about improving its own democracy.
Yet the U.S. can still go one better. While the Electoral College is the most grievous problem with our democracy at the presidential level, abolishing it will not guarantee that the elected president represents a majority of Americans, because there are often more than two candidates in the race. To ensure that America can be a trailblazer for democracy, we must switch to a ranked choice system to ensure that every American’s vote matters.
Ranked choice voting goes a step further than merely abolishing the electoral college. It gives voters the opportunity to rank candidates from best to worst instead of only voting for one. Thus voters can pick a candidate that truly represents their positions, and if that candidate does not win outright, their vote is then transferred to their second place candidate, and so on. This would give voters who do not feel like they belong in either major party a say and eliminate another source of wasted votes for third party candidates without a chance.
So, whenever you hear Trump talk of voter fraud, know that there is voter fraud in America. He’s just spectacularly wrong on where it comes from, what it does, and every other detail about it.
Image courtesy of Nbpolitico/Wikimedia Commons
They had us in the first half not gonna lie