Dear John,

Under the Electoral College, “one person, one vote” will never be the standard for electing the president. By giving every state two extra electoral votes, beyond the number determined by the state’s census population, the Electoral College guarantees that voters in states with smaller populations will always have disproportionate influence.

This is a permanent thumb on the scale of democracy that has resulted in a candidate winning the presidency despite losing the popular vote four times since it was established 237 years ago -- including two times just in the last 25 years.

If the president were determined by popular vote, we would never have had a President George W. Bush or President Donald Trump. The MAGA movement would have ended in 2016. Democrats would have won five of the last six elections, and today’s Supreme Court would likely be one that defends rights rather than taking them away.

According to the Pew Research Center, 65% of Americans favor replacing the Electoral College with a popular vote. Even in states that benefit disproportionately from their overrepresentation in the Electoral College, a majority of voters favor the popular vote.

In truth, the Electoral College has been a compromise to democracy since it was devised in 1787. It’s a relic of slavery which was adopted to give disproportionate influence to the less populous slave-holding states.

It’s time to address this glaring structural flaw in our electoral system head on.

Tell Congress: Strengthen democracy! One person, one vote. Propose and pass a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College now!

Not only does the Electoral College give disproportionate weight to the smaller states, it also gives far too much weight to the “battleground” states, where red and blue candidates vie for those winner-take-all electoral votes. Voters in states that reliably vote red or blue have little influence in the presidential election, since their votes are in some sense already spoken for.

This resulting sense of electoral fatalism discourages voter turnout and harms races further down the ballot that will receive less attention from voters.

With a direct popular vote, every vote would count the same, regardless of how dense the population is in a given state, or whether the state is strongly voting Republican or Democrat. Greater voter engagement means more participation, and thereby greater appreciation, of the electoral process, while negating claims of a “rigged” vote.

Tell Congress: Pass a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College by a 2/3 vote in both the House and Senate, then send it to the states for ratification.

Thank you for engaging with Congress on this important issue!

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action