Voting, Elections, and the Electoral College

Hey everybody! Thanks for returning for some more Unfiltered Thoughts.

With the midterm elections coming up, as well as the current state of our government, I figured now would be a good time to start letting people know that voting is important, and if you're 18 or older that you need to be registered to vote. November 6th is right around the corner, and as this is my first year that I'll be able to vote, I'm incredibly excited. It might seem weird that I'm excited to be able to vote, and it probably is, but the only thing I was excited for about turning 18 was being able to vote. Voting is actually super important, and I know a lot of people in my age range disagree with me, but hear me out: most of the people I've talked to who don't want to vote and don't think voting is important don't know exactly how voting works, or how the branches of government work. This is probably because most people in high school only pay attention enough to pass the classes and then let the information drift away, and because a lot of school don't actually require government classes for graduation. I got lucky, the school I went to made all seniors take a Civics & Economics class to graduate. So, for those of you who didn't have that opportunity, class is officially in session.

Now we all should by now that the 2016 Presidential election was...disappointing to say the least. We all should also know by now that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but still lost in the electoral college (EC). This has brought up lots of conversation about getting rid of the EC and why it's outdated, which, if we're being honest, could be said about many parts of the Constitution. What a lot of people don't know is that the EC was established because the United States wasn't always 50 states, with tens of millions of people and at the time, when the country was small, the EC made perfect sense; however, this is not the 1800's and things have, obviously, changed in the last 200 years. The 2016 election has also brought about attempts to abolish the EC, but unfortunately it's not that simple. The EC was established in Article II, Section I of the Constitution, which means that the only way to change it is with an amendment, This has only been done one other time, over 200 years ago in 1804 with the 12th Amendment, which changed the process of how the President and Vice President are elected. Before then, the President was whoever won the popular vote, and whoever had the 2nd most votes was elected Vice President. This causes some obvious political conflicts, so instead two separate ballots for President and Vice President were made.

One of the reasons the EC is still around is because it usually works. In fact, the 2016 election was only the 5th time in history that a candidate who won the popular vote still lost in the EC. The most recent after that was in the 2000 election, when Al Gore lost to George Bush. The other 3 times this happened was in 1824, with Andrew Jackson losing to John Quincy Adams; in 1876, when Samuel Tilden lost to Rutherford B. Hayes; and in 1888 when Grover Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison. With this happening only 5 times, out of 44 Presidential Elections (The 1st President doesn't count), there have only been so many conversations about getting rid of the Electoral College, but none of them worked and here we are, in Trump's America.

The Electoral College is actually a surprisingly complex system, made to keep the more populated states from making decisions for the whole country. Now, this would be okay if the US was a democracy, but it's not. The US is actually a republic, but because of the similarities in the two forms of government people confuse the two. And, quite frankly, I think we should all be glad that this is a republic and not a democracy. True democracies may or may not have representatives, but there is not constraint on the government, and therefore no Constitution. The biggest difference is that in a republic, there is a constitution of some sort that protects what's known as a citizen's inalienable rights. Things like religious freedom, protections of private property, and government discrimination are all examples of inalienable rights that we have through the Constitution, but if we were a democracy those rights would not be guaranteed for you and so the majority would be able to impose their will over the minority. So, the US is a republic, because it is not solely Majority-over-Man, and if you still don't believe me you'll be happy to know that Article IV Section IV of the Constitution actually very clearly establishes the U.S. as a republic. The EC is meant to perpetuate the idea that people have rights that cannot be taken from them, even if the majority of people would like to see that happen. When we were a smaller, new country this was a great idea, but now that this country is so massive the need for the EC is actually pretty nonexistent.

So how does the Electoral College actually work? Every state has a certain number of electoral votes, which is determined by the number of senators and representatives the state has. The number of representatives can change based on the population and district changes, so every state has at least 3 electoral votes, and D.C. has 3. When we go to vote, we aren't actually voting directly for a candidate. This is what I mean when I say the EC is a complex system, votes go through a couple of different channels before even being counted. Instead of voting directly for a candidate, you're actually voting for someone called an elector. Electors are the people that actually cast the electoral ballots that decides who the electoral votes go to. Most, but not all, states require that all electoral votes in a state go to the candidate that won the plurality in that state, which I honestly think is stupid but that's for another time. What that basically means is that to win you have to win more votes than any other candidate. The problem with that is when there is more than two candidates, but since the U.S. practically never gives 3rd party candidates a real chance at winning the presidency, this doesn't matter.

Anyhow, when electors are selected, they pledge themselves to a candidate, which basically just means they promise to vote for a specific candidate, if that candidate wins in the elector's district. Once state election officials count and certify the votes based on the popular vote, the winning group of electors all meet in D.C. to cast their vote on two ballots, one for the president and one for the vice president. Only two states differ from this method, which are Maine and Nebraska. Those two states use what's known as a district method, where two "at-large" electors vote. One does so for the popular vote of the state, and the other does so for each congressional district based on popular plurality. After the electors cast their votes, the votes are counted and the candidate who wins the most votes in the state gets all the electoral votes in that state.

There are a couple of issues with the electoral college handles the electors. For one, electors cannot vote for a president and vice president that are both from the state they originate from. So if an elector is from Florida, they can only vote for one of them. Now, I'll be honest with you guys, half the reason I think this is an issue is because it makes no sense. I scoured the internet for an explanation of what that actually means, and found none so feel free to let me know if you do happen to know or manage to find an explanation for that. The main issue with the electoral college and the electors is that not all of them are required to vote for the person they said they would, which is known as a "faithless elector." Only 26 states and D.C. require their electors to vote for who they pledged to do so. That said, it's very rare for electors to do this and it was actually more common in the 19th century rather than the modern age. Rare or not, it has happened. Only 1 faithless elector broke with their state in the elections of 1948, 1956, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1988. There actually were more faithless electors in the 2016 election than ever in U.S. history, with 7 electors breaking with their state on the presidential ballot and 6 doing so with the vice presidential ballot. I would love to tell you that this means Trump didn't actually win, but outside of the fact that it would change nothing, it may not be true. Since the ballots are not open to the public, we don't have a way of actually knowing who they were supposed to vote for.

So until the electoral college is a thing of history, it's incredibly important that everyone who can vote, does so. The voter turnout during the 2016 election was only 60.2% of eligible voters. While this is still more than half the people who can vote in the country, it's still only the 3rd highest voter turnout rate since 1971 when the voting age was lowered to 18. That said, it also isn't too great because the Silent Generation, which is anyone 73 and up in 2016, made up 12% of the voting pool, while the Baby Boomers make up around 31% of the voting pool. Generation X, which is anyone 18 - 36 at the time of the 2016 election, make up 25% of the voting pool, with Millennials also making up roughly 31% of the pool. These number are rough estimates so they don't exactly add up, and the Pew Research Center, which is where the data comes from, also explains that this data is only voting potential, not actual turnout. The same study shows that in the 2012 election, only 46% of Millennials voted, compared to 72% of the Silent Generation. Millennials consistently have the lowest voter turnout rate of any other age group, and honestly that makes no sense and is half the problem. Why are the oldest group of people showing up the most to vote? Old, frail, individuals who probably needed assistance because they couldn't read the ballot, and all have one foot in the grave, show up the most to vote. If you don't think voting is important, you have to also believe that our futures should be decided on by the people who won't have to live through it. The main reason I gave out these statistics is to give people an idea of who is voting, in relation to the population of people that even can vote. I say this all the time, and I will continue to say it until my face figuratively goes blue (black people don't just change color unless something is wrong): imagine what would happen if all the people who believe that there's no point in voting actually went out and did so?

The majority of people who didn't vote in the 2012 election cited two reasons for not doing so, and I just addressed the first. The other reason was difficulty with registering. Which makes sense, states with Same-Day Voter Registration have the highest voter turnout rates. So if you're having trouble registering to vote, allow me to shed some light on how easy it is to do so in the Age of Technology. Most states allow you to register to vote online, and all states let you mail in a voter registration form which you can probably find online as well. There are also dozens of sites that make figuring all of this out easier, and I used a website called TurboVote. Since I don't have an ID from the state I currently live in, I had to mail it in. I went on this site and all I had to do was enter some information and print out the completed form, and mail it in with copies of my ID and my SSN card. And it's probably not too late in your state to register to vote! My boyfriend in Utah wasn't registered to vote and as soon as I found out I made him get online and do so because, and I quote, "I stress the importance of voting too much for my own boyfriend not to be registered to vote" and we laughed about it.

The best part about the Midterm Elections is that the EC is only for Presidential Elections, and the President doesn't have unlimited power. With all three branches of government currently controlled by Republicans, it can feel like that. That's why this year, it's imperative that as many people get out and vote, because if Congress, at the very least, flips to Democratic control it'll be a lot harder for the Cheeto to destroy the country.

So register to vote, encourage your friends to get out and vote, and feel free to let me know if I missed any important information, or if you have feedback or a topic you'd like me to write about, let me know. If you're wondering where I got my information from, you can find my list of citations and sources here.

Thanks for reading Cherubs!