If US elections are not your thing, you can click here ([link removed]) to stop receiving these updates.

Dear John,

Happy Friday! Here’s another quick round-up of what’s going on in the United States Presidential election – the vote is just under 60 days out (eight Tuesdays away).

Because of the Electoral College, This Race is Still a Toss-Up.

Here at Open Britain, we’ve got a lot to criticise in Britain’s unfair and outdated First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system. America’s system takes the worst elements of FPTP and expands on them, mixing in a bit of 18th century-style bureaucracy for good measure.

How does it work? Basically every state (and Washington DC) gets three automatic votes, and then additional votes based on their representation in the House and Senate.

The House is at least based on population, but every state gets a flat two Senate seats. That means that California (40 million people) gets the same Senate representation as Wyoming (500k people). What that translates to is an electoral college that does not evenly reflect the core idea of democracy: one person, one vote.

But wait – it gets worse. Like in the UK, states are declared on a “winner take-all” basis (with the exception of Maine and Nebraska). It means that if Trump won Texas by a few thousand votes, he’d get all thirty-eight of those electoral votes. Notably, the winner-take-all element was never mentioned in the US constitution – they just chose to do it that way.

The result? Few peoples’ votes matter. Voter suppression is easier and more damaging. Third parties don’t stand a chance in hell, and often act only as “spoilers ([link removed]) ”. Swing-states determine the outcome. Two of the last four US leaders were chosen by a minority of the population. George W. Bush (2004) is the only Republican since 1988 to win the popular vote.

For Kamala Harris, who is currently polling ahead of Trump by about 3 points, those swing states will make all of the difference. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina will determine the next President of the United States. Most of those states are currently polling within the margin of error.

Because of the electoral college, this race is a toss-up. Harris will almost certainly win the popular vote. But as we’ve seen here in the UK, America’s jacked-up First-Past-The-Post system doesn’t play fair. That broken mechanism may usher in the end of American democracy itself if Trump rides it to an ill-gotten victory.

Both the UK and the US have record levels of distrust and dissatisfaction with politics. They’re both well past due for a democratic update.

In other US election news…
* The first Presidential debate will take place next week on ABC News
* Trump is taking a break from the campaign trail today to appear in court for an appeal in his hush-money case, in which the defendant E. Jean Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages;
* Allan Lichtman, the so-called “Nostradamus” of US electoral predictions who has called every race in the last 40 years (bar one – the controversial 2000 election) correctly , has called the race ([link removed]) in favour of Kamala Harris.

That’s it for this week.

All the best,

Matt Gallagher

Communications Officer

Open Britain
DONATE ([link removed])

View email in browser ([link removed])
Open Britain . Orion House . 14 Barn Hill . Stamford, PE9 2AE . United Kingdom
update your preferences ([link removed]) or unsubscribe ([link removed])