Vote, they tell us. Fulfill your civic duty. Let your voice be heard. You make a difference. You have a say. Except we don’t, do we? Not really. Not unless we live in a swing state.
The Electoral College was adopted by the Founding Fathers as a compromise between electing a President by a vote in Congress versus one amongst citizens. Yet the Southerners had a more insidious justification.
Under the electoral college system, each state is assigned a number of electoral votes dependent on its population. In forty-eight states, the winner of each state takes all of its electoral votes, and it is these numbers that elect the next American president.
At the time, Northern and Southern states had an approximately equal population, but one-third of Southerners were non-voting slaves. The assigned electoral vote process allowed white men in the South to make much more of an impact than they would have under a traditional voting procedure. Even as voting rights expanded, the opinions of Black people and other minorities were silenced by the winner-takes-all mentality of a racist electoral system.
In the modern era, this proceeding is justified as a protection that prevents larger states and metropolitan areas from dominating the wishes of smaller, less-populous areas.
However, instead of ensuring equitable representation, this system has caused a tyranny of the minority by placing the presidential election on the backs of seven “swing” states. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million, yet she still lost the electoral race. Similar occurrences happened in 2000 and three times in the 1800s.
During the recent November 5th election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump successfully secured every state they were expected to by both small and large majorities, resulting in an outcome contingent on seven states with historically small margins and a notoriety for “swinging” from party to party.
Amongst the seven battleground states, North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania were enough to essentially secure Trump the presidency, with Wisconsin following to grant him the official victory. Though they eventually turned red, 20 million votes from the remaining swing states were rendered irrelevant due to these early wins.
In this context, it is easy to see why only 63% of eligible voters cast their ballots last month. Trump won the popular vote by over 2 million votes and took all seven swing states, but over 90 million eligible Americans chose not to vote, and the reasons behind this widespread disinterest vary.
For starters, Democrats were fighting an uphill battle. Trump’s success followed 2024’s global trend of incumbent parties in developed democracies being defeated. The message is clear: citizens were unsatisfied with how their governments handled the grueling economic, social, and public health consequences in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, Joe Biden initially went back on his one-term president promise. By the time he did recognize his mistake and drop out of the race in late July, there was no time for a primary election, which is traditionally instrumental in gauging a candidate’s internal support, ability to attract uninvolved and independent voters to the polls, and overall winning potential. The delay made Vice President Harris the only feasible replacement, in spite of her strong link to an unpopular administration.
And of course, in a tragic irony, two parties that have never been more polarized somehow remain united in their vile backing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Biden Administration’s support for Israel encouraged many would-be Democrat voters to choose Green Party candidate Jill Stein or refrain from casting a ballot altogether in protest.
However, the lack of turnout can also be attributed to the feelings of apathy for those living in the forty-three non-swing states. There is simply little to no incentive for them to vote for president. If citizens agree with their state’s leanings, they are likely confident that the state can win without their contribution, and if citizens disagree with their state, they have likely accepted that their vote will be wasted. It doesn’t matter whether a state wins by a tiny or large margin; every state (with the exception of Nebraska and Maine) gives all of its electoral votes to the winner no matter what. Regardless of their views, voters likely prescribe their states as foregone conclusions; the only ballots that matter are the ones coming from battleground states.
Perhaps an election decided by popular vote would garner far higher voter turnout. Everyone would have a base incentive to cast a ballot: the opportunity to have some sort of say and make some sort of difference. It wouldn’t matter what state they lived in and whether their views aligned with said state. It wouldn’t be nearly as possible to call an election without counting millions of votes. Each vote would at least be considered.
Needless to say, I’m well aware that no election has been won with a single ballot. Whether I cast mine in Maryland or Pennsylvania, I would obviously not have been the deciding factor in the election outcome. But in one of these states, I would have contributed to it; in the other, I would not.
The Electoral College is also meant to force candidates to expand their campaigning efforts beyond big, populous cities, but this phenomenon has only narrowed the focus of both candidates on seven key states.
Harris only gave a speech in Maryland once, and Trump didn’t visit at all. I do not fault them for it. Both would have wasted their breath campaigning in a strictly blue state as opposed to a battleground.
The simplest path to remedying these issues lies in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement in which states pledge to award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. Seventeen states including Maryland have already joined, but it will not go into effect until the threshold of 270 electoral votes is reached, as this is the only way for this strategy to be consciously impactful. However, it is unknown when (or if) the remaining 55 votes will ever be achieved.
Nevertheless, the results are out, and it looks like the only person America can hate more than a racist, homophobic, misogynist, insurrectionist sexual predator with 34 felony counts and two impeachments is a woman. Of color, at that.
Or perhaps they never really hated the former at all.
On the bright side, if you’ve never read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, don’t bother. Thanks to Project 2025, come January, we’ll all be living it.
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