Why America is Not Really a Democracy

Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “We preach the virtues of democracy abroad. We must practice its duties here at home. Voting is the first duty of democracy.”

Indeed, voting is the most fundamental thread in the fabric of our (or any) democracy. For anyone who thinks voting is a sham and that your votes don’t really matter, take a look at the 2000 election and how close it was. You might remind me that, in fact, Al Gore won the popular vote in that election but George Bush still won the presidency. The reason for that? The existence of the United States’ electoral college system. Take all accounts of the theft of that election by Bush aside (but don’t take it with a grain of salt) and here’s how Bush won:
– Low-voter turnout in certain states with high numbers of electoral votes. To put it simply, here’s an example:

Let’s say Texas has a population of 2,000,000 people and has 20 electoral votes. Let’s also say that Minnesota has a population of 1,000,000 people and has 10 electoral votes. In Texas, only 1,000,000 people show up to vote, and 600,000 vote for John McCain, while 400,000 vote for Barack Obama. However, in Minnesota all 1,000,000 people show up to vote and 700,000 vote for Barack Obama and 300,000 vote for McCain. The popular vote totals would then be: 1,100,000 for Obama and 900,000 for McCain. Obama wins the popular vote. However, the electoral vote would be 20 for McCain and 10 for Obama. Therefore, John McCain would win the election, despite the fact that Barack Obama won more popular votes.

While the above example is an extreme over-simplification, (there are more than two states and the populations and electoral vote numbers for each state are different) it is still an accurate portrayal of how our electoral college system can and does betray our so-called democracy. Essentially, the Founding Fathers feared the consequences of a direct, winner-take-all system. Back in those days travel and communication was very slow and it was thought that people wouldn’t have sufficient information about each candidate and would therefore just pick someone they knew best, presumably someone from the state or region they were from. Therefore, candidates who were more well known in largely populated states would receive an unfair advantage. Also, it was feared that no candidate would receive a large enough majority to sufficiently govern the whole country. And in the event that there was a clear winner, it was thought that the selection of president would be decided by the biggest, most populous state and the smaller states would be left out. Thus, the electoral college seemed like the most fair way to ensure all states, big or small, had a fair shake in deciding who would become president.

Now, I realize that we’ve all been through high school political science class and that nobody needs any lectures from me about how things work. I’m not trying to patronize or talk down to anyone, just reciting history as a means to make my point.

Electors from the electoral college are decided by either being nominated by his or her state party committee, or by campaigning for the spot while each party’s convention votes on their nomination. Keep in mind that although they are nominated or elected by their respective parties, electors are not legally (or otherwise) bound to voting for the candidate they’ve pledged to. Dissenting electors are called “faithless” electors and instances of electors not voting for whom they pledged have occurred (although rarely).

The number of electors each state has is determined by the number of representatives it has in the House plus its two senators. This is one way in which the distribution of electoral votes is unfair: it over-represents people in rural areas because every state automatically adds two electoral votes no matter its population.

Not to mention the fact that we are currently in the 21st century, where technology allows for the widespread dissemination of information to people all across the world, let alone this country. Television and news media allow for more people than ever before to become informed about candidates and the issues. Computers allow anyone, anywhere, at any time to find out everything about anything. There is no need to worry about people not knowing who will be on the ballot because we have access to just about everything we want to know about them and then some.

In addition, we are not as divided by geography as we once were. This notion that America can be carved up into red states, blue states, and purple states causes certain “battleground” states to receive more attention by candidates and makes it so they have more sway in an election. Also, the characterization of our states as being politically inclined one way or the other is trivial. States are made up of people of all different stripes who vote many different ways and cannot (and should not) be defined and categorized by any one political leaning (where 48 states award all of their electoral votes based on a simple majority of the popular votes, a state that votes democrat by 500 votes over republican is chalked up as a “blue” state when almost just as many people voted for the other party).

That last parenthetical detail I just brought up brings me to my last point: The electoral voting system fosters and encourages (and almost mandates) a two-party system in this country. As our Green, Independent, Libertarian, etc. and our European friends would probably tell us, a two-party state is no democracy. Third-party candidates are all but discouraged to even try and run for office under the winner-take-all mechanism in our current electoral voting system. A third-party candidate could win 20% of the popular vote in a state and not see a single electoral vote. Not to mention, a two-party system limits the spectrum of political discourse that is considered “legitimate” in this country because third-party ideas and candidates are depicted as fringe and non-mainstream. That’s not democratic.

All-in-all, it is my firm belief that the current electoral system of electing presidents is extremely out-dated and undemocratic. No matter the outcome in November, the president doesn’t actually get chosen until the electors meet in their respective state capitals to cast their votes for president and vice president on the Monday following the second Wednesday in December. Apparently the founders foresaw the potential need for recounts. Yet, recounts shouldn’t need to happen; we need to amend the Constitution to abolish this flawed system once and for all and let the people truly have their voices heard through the timeless tradition that should define our country’s democracy: a fair and equal vote.