The Electoral College Is A Perversity Of Democracy
Imagine an election night scenario in which a presidential candidate wins only 12 states but wins the election because those states delivered the requisite 270 Electoral College votes.
Just do the math:
- California (54)
- Texas (40)
- Florida (30)
- New York (28)
- Pennsylvania (19)
- Illinois (19)
- Ohio (17)
- Georgia (16)
- Michigan (15)
- North Carolina (16)
- New Jersey (14)
- Virginia (13)
That’s 281 electoral votes, enough to secure the presidency at the expense of the remaining 38 states. Worth noting: 38 is the minimum number of states required to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But you need only those 12 to win the presidency.
Unlikely? Of course. But someday? Why not?
The scenario underscores one criticism of the Electoral College: It allows candidates to focus on a few key states rather than campaigning across the entire country. We do that now. They’re called swing states.
Every focus on polls of the 2024 election emphasizes that only the so-called swing states matter. Media outlets gorged themselves on Kamala Harris’ choice for a running mate, and every expectation was that her vice presidential pick would be someone from a swing state. And it was, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The Electoral College causes such narrowcasting, and we should finally do away with it.
It won’t happen, of course. It might, had Republicans been winning the popular vote and losing the electoral one. But they’ve won the popular vote only once in the last six presidential contests — in 2004, probably because he was the incumbent. Yet they’ve won the election two other times courtesy of the electoral vote, profoundly changing the direction of the nation. I don’t particularly appreciate that two presidents in my lifetime, George W. Bush and
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