The UK and the US are among a shrinking number of Western democracies with antiquated electoral systems prone to distorting the value of votes in different areas. Though in Britain one attempt at modernising the system (the introduction of the Alternative Vote, or Instant Runoff system) was defeated overwhelmingly two years ago, there is no such evidence of support for America’s quirky Electoral College System.
The system, devised in the late 18th century by a fledgling nation, was designed to create a clear result in presidential races that were being held in a massive federation before the existence of modern transport or telecommunications. Every state is allocated a proportion of about 540 electoral college votes based roughly on its population, giving Alaska 2 votes and California 60. Washington DC is a different story. In all but two cases, the state awards its entire bloc to whichever presidential candidate wins the most votes.
Do you begin to see the imperfections in such a system? A Democratic vote in Republican-dominated Texas is worthless compared to one in swing state Ohio. And due to the fact that a 0.01% majority over the opposition is worth the same as a 99% majority in terms of the electoral college, a candidate can lose the national popular vote and still win the presidency, as we saw in 2000. Except George W Bush didn’t win. This is another story, though.
And let us turn to the Senate, to which each state returns 2 Senators, again with the exception of Washington DC. The end result is that most states will return 1 Republican and 1 Democrat, and New York state has equal representation with the sparsely populated Montana. How does this create a fair weighting of votes?
This is why I am calling for the introduction of Proportional Representation in the Senate, and the abolition of the Electoral College system in favour of “One Person, One Vote”. No longer will Republicans and Democrats all but ignore the majority of safe states, as every vote will genuinely count. Third parties will occasionally win a Senate seat, giving them an ability to enrich political debate. The spectacle of a few hundred hanging chad in a few counties determining who is the “leader of the free world” will be confined to the dustbin of history.
I do not know the finer points of the US Constitution, and I might have overlooked some barrier to the introduction of these proposals. They cannot be insurmountable: that same document once defined a slave as being “three-fifths of a person”. Amendments can and have been made, as anybody could tell you.
It is time the US brought voting into the 21st century.
