Is the U.S. a democracy? Or is the system rigged?
Some perspective might help answer the questions — perspective avoided by candidates, political commentators and media journalists.
Democratically speaking (you know: one person/one vote and all votes counted equally), Hillary Clinton easily won the election. But she will not occupy the White House. The phenomenon is becoming familiar. In the last five national elections, Democratic candidates have gained more support than their Republican rivals four times. But two Democratic victors were denied the White House.
Thank you, Electoral College.
Get used to it. The frequency of such unfairness will likely persist.
Under our current electoral rules, the candidate with the most votes can only hope to eventually represent the aspirations of his or her majority. Just as likely, a nominee whose values, personality and goals were rejected by most Americans gets to determine national policy. The process led to an unwanted Iraq invasion, fiscal collapse and unfair taxation. Our incoming president will now push a minority agenda affecting Planned Parenthood, the Keystone XL pipeline, Supreme Court appointments, Roe v. Wade, gay marriage and many more issues.
The American Electoral College was created a quarter millennium ago as a compromise to win approval of both the Constitution and a new national government.
To get their approval, the large states agree to give small states, even these with more mules and oxen than people, three electoral votes (equivalent to two senators and a member of the House of Representatives). States with actual cities and larger populations got a few more electoral votes added to their baseline three.
The differences were not great in 1787. Today, they are grossly unfair.
As a quick example of how the system works, consider the following. New York and Florida now have the same number of electoral votes since they have similar size populations. In the recent election, New York citizens cast about 4.1 million votes for Clinton and only around 2.6 million for Trump. Meanwhile Florida cast slightly less than 4.5 million for Clinton and a tad more than 4.6 million for Trump. (Ponder these statistics. Don’t gloss over them. The nation is at stake.) If those were the only states in the Union, and returns were counted as one entity, Clinton would have beat Trump 8.6 million to 7.2 million votes (54 percent to 46 percent) and become president of the two-state nation with a hefty 1.4 million majority.
Now let’s see how the Electoral College handles this same situation. With equal populations and an equal 29 Electoral ballots for each state, the election is a tie! Hillary won New York and Donald won Florida. The hell with Hillary’s 1.4 million margin of victory. It counts for nothing!
As it did in this election!
Reality compounds the inequities of conjecture. Congressional districts average about 710,000 people across the nation, from Maine to Hawaii. Each congressional district gets one Electoral College vote for president. California, for example, gets 53 Electoral College votes for its 53 congressional districts.
Meanwhile, Alaska has one congressional district spread across that thinly populated state. All of Alaska gets one electoral vote for its one congressional district of about 710,000 citizens.
However, each STATE also gets two electoral votes for its two federal senators. Alaska’s one congressional district gets two bonus electors in a presidential contest. Thus the 710,000 or so citizens of Alaska — and Wyoming, Montana, Vermont, and the other small states — each get three Electoral College votes.
Meanwhile California’s 53 congressional districts also get two bonus votes (but ONLY two) for the entire delegation representing nearly 40 million (not 0.7 million) citizens. If each California district had the same electoral clout as the one Alaska district (three presidential votes instead of one), California’s Electoral College votes would total 159 instead of the present 55 and Clinton would have won in a landslide Electoral College victory.
With 55 instead of 159 electoral delegates, each California voter has less presidential impact than a person living in a sparsely populated state. In 2016, Californians cast 5.6 million votes for Clinton. Statistically speaking, 102,000 California voters equaled ONE Electoral College vote. Meanwhile, Alaska cast 130,418 votes for Trump, but earned THREE Electoral College votes: that’s one presidential elector for every 43,500 ballots.
Let’s make this perfectly clear! In Alaska, 43,500 votes gets the Republican candidate ONE Electoral College vote. It takes more than twice as many votes, 102,000, for Clinton to gain ONE Electoral College vote in California.
No wonder Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College and becomes president. All he needed were victories in a large swath of sparsely populated states. The votes of citizens in big cities count for much less.
Randall Hansis is a historian who lives in Greenfield.