A Democratic Illusion

On the vast face of the earth there is a nation that has become the world’s hegemon. This state is not an empire or a monarchy like the past world powers have been. The nation is a democracy with a capitalistic economy and is known as the United States of America. The United States has led the charge of spreading democracy across the globe and its President is often known as the “leader of the free world.” It would appear that a nation in such a prominent position as the United States would be nearly flawless in its democratic system of government. This is not nearly the case however. One of the most recognizable features of a democracy is in its voting process, where citizens vote for leaders to represent them in government. The candidate with the majority of the citizen’s votes should rightly take the office he was running for. It would make sense that in the United States such an ideal election would take place for the role of President, “leader of the free world,” and the representative of world democracy and capitalism. In this nation however, it is completely possible for a presidential candidate to take office without gaining a majority of the United States’ citizens’ votes. It could be argued that this is an anomaly as it rarely occurs, yet this travesty has happened throughout American history on several occasions. The presidential voting system in the United States is severely flawed and should be changed to another type. There are many flaws in the current system, and several others that could replace it.

The current system used to elect the President in the United States is the Electoral College. The Electoral College was established in Article II of the United States and has been modified several times over the years. A common misconception held by American citizens is that in the presidential election, they believe that they are voting for a candidate and the candidate with the most votes across the nation wins and become the new President. The way it really works is that each state has a number of electors pledged to each candidate, corresponding with the number of representatives and senators in congress. When a voter casts his ballot, he is actually voting for the electors representing the candidate. When the majority of the votes go to the electors, it is at their discretion to send their electoral votes to the candidate’s side. The candidate with the most electoral votes wins the election. There are several major flaws in this system. One flaw is that an elector can betray his pledge and send his votes toward the other candidate after winning. This has happened before, but never affected the outcome of an election, although it theoretically could. Another flaw is that a candidate can win the election by having the majority of electoral votes, without winning the majority of overall popular votes. This has happened in four elections over the course of the United States’ history; in 1824, 1876, 1888, and very recently in the year 2000. The third major flaw is that during campaigns, presidential candidates will often focus more attention on larger swing states that “really matter.” The controversial Electoral College is not the only method of voting. There are several reasonable alternatives that take other voting elements into account.

One alternative method of voting is known as the Borda method. This method was developed by a French mathematician in the nineteenth century. It involves each voter submitting a ballot with a ranking of all the candidates. The candidates are put into a particular order on the ballot by the voter according to his preference. A certain amount of points are then awarded to each candidate depending on their position in the ranking. The higher a candidate stands, the more points he is awarded, and the lower a candidate stands, the less points he is awarded. The lowest candidate will receive no points, and the amount of points consecutively increases by one every time the rank increases by one. After all ballots are cast, the amount of points each candidate has received are added up, and the one with the most points is the winner. While this method is not used in United States national elections, it is commonly used by universities and law and business schools when dealing with financial aid and admissions. It is probably most recognizable in the coaches’ polls for NCAA college football through the various media outlets to rank the top twenty-five teams. The Borda method is an efficient way of voters being able to choose based on their orders of preference, which is an absent factor in the Electoral College. It can be a complex system however, as filling out the lengthy ballots is a time consuming process for voters. The second alternative is not nearly as complex however.

The second alternative to the current system of voting in the United States is called Approval Voting. This is a much simpler system than the Borda method since voters do not have to put as much thought involved by choosing their order of preference. In this system, voters choose as many candidates as they approve of to take office. There is no ordering or ranking involved. A voter simply chooses whichever candidates he approves of, and all of them chosen on the ballot are of equal standing. A voter can decide to be rational and choose only the candidate that they like the best, however if they feel any other candidates would do well, they can also choose them. Once the ballots are cast, the candidate with the most votes on the total number of ballots wins. Through this method, a voter can show his true feelings about the candidates, rather than have to face the difficult decision of who he likes the best. This is a much less complex method since little thought is involved.

Another alternative could be a straight popular vote instead of the Electoral College. Instead of voting for electors, each citizen in a state could vote directly for the candidate that they choose. The state and local governments could run the election as they currently due as far as holding and counting the ballots. Instead of a candidate only getting the electoral votes from each state however, they could get all of the individual votes that they earned in that state. This method would solve the anomaly of a candidate winning an election without winning the popular vote. A straight popular vote would appear to be the most fair of all the possible voting methods. There is a drawback to the concept of a straight popular vote compared to the Electoral College however. With the majority of citizens voting in urban areas and major cities, the rest of the nation may not necessarily be properly represented, along with their respective states and citizens if they cannot have any pull in the election. For example, if the majority of the citizens in an agricultural state vote for one candidate, but the majority of votes in the nation go toward the other candidate due to the amount of voters in coastal cities, then that state may not be fairly represented. The argument in favor of a straight popular vote is that all citizens over the age of eighteen have the right to vote, even though most choose not to, thus making it a fair system.

The United States presidential voting system is flawed and should be changed. The current system, the Electoral College, makes it possible for a candidate to take the office of President without winning the majority popular vote in the nation. There are several alternatives to this system that could be used. The Borda method allows voters to put down an order of preference of candidates. Approval voting allows for voters to choose every candidate that they approve of potentially holding office. A straight popular vote is similar to the Electoral College except that voters vote directly for the candidate instead of voting for electors to represent the candidate. In the world of democracy, there is a burning desire for fairness, and it is the responsibility for the United States as the most powerful and influential democratic nation to be the fairest of them all.

Works Cited

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