The Time Has Come: the Electoral College Must Die

I'm sure the Founding Fathers thought it was a great idea ~ create an "electoral college" so that Americans could indirectly elect their president. Having a group of specially chosen Electors would ensure that poor, uneducated Americans wouldn't make a bad choice for president. They also thought slavery wasn't so bad. They were smart men, bold men, brave men ~ they weren't infallible.

So, now, in order to become president, one needs 270 electoral votes. The eleven states with the highest populations (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and New Jersey) have exactly 270 electoral votes, and whoever gets the majority of each of those states gets all their votes.  Majority in this case is 50% plus one, not 2/3 or more. Based on the votes cast in those eleven states ~ we could have elected Mickey Mouse for president with less than thirty-three million votes.

I am a firm believer in the concept of one man ~ one vote. So where's my presidential vote? Living in Minnesota, every presidential vote I have ever cast has gone to the Democrat, regardless of which oval I colored. Even then, it hasn't counted, no one has needed Minnesota's Electoral votes in my day. Nearly three million people in Minnesota voted for president on Tuesday, none of them mattered. We could have all voted the Dylan/Prince ticket, and maybe we should have. We consistently have 70% voter turnout, we never get a real vote. This year, 55% of all Minnesotans voted, for state offices, for amendments, but not for president. Roughly one in four Californians went to the polls, but four of four Californians counts when the Electoral votes are being dispersed so that 25% packs a mighty wallop.

That is so not right. We should all get a vote. Barack Obama won the election with 51% of the popular vote and 61% of the Electoral vote. If you don't think that disparity is a big deal, look up the 2000 election results.  I mentioned that you only need to sweep the top eleven states to win ~ the scarier fact is that the other thirty-nine do not have enough votes (only 268 combined). Thirty-nine states! It's time to get rid of the more-than-outmoded Electoral College ~ write your Representative and Senators.


(NB: The figures are based on data from Election Results and 2010 Census)