On November 3, 2016, millions of Americans were glued to their televisions, waiting for the presidential results that were going to change the lives of numerous individuals, and many were first-time watchers, such as college freshman Lilliana Nunez.
During that Tuesday night, she was on edge like everyone else. Nonetheless, as the votes kept coming in for every state, she began getting more worried and confused.
"I have never been more confused in my life," Nunez says. "It seemed like Hillary was winning, but the states kept turning red. I remember saying to myself, 'aren't they supposed to turn blue?'"
Nevertheless, she was mistaken. As the election drew to a close, most of the map was red, which is the complete opposite of what she thought, and it's because of the electoral college, a system that elects the president.
Although the electoral college has been present in the United States for a sufficiently long time, in recent years, a few individuals believe that another system should replace it.
"I'm a medical student, so I don't know much about it," Nunez says. "But, if the individual is winning based on something else, and not people's votes, then is it an actual election?"
The electoral college was built by our Founding Fathers and instituted in the United States Constitution in 1787. When they first created it, it was to give less populous states some additional leverage. Nonetheless, due to the controversial Presidential Election of 1800, in which Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams, it was replaced by the 12th Amendment in 1804.
According to Brian J. Gaines, a professor in the Department of Political Science and at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the electoral college works by every state having a specific number of electors. Each state has the same number of electors as it does in members of Congress: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two Senators. In total, there are 538 electors.
"Truthfully, a lot of it had to with slavery," Amar says. "If you had a national popular vote system in the original framing, then the slave states wouldn't have ratified the Constitution."
Regardless, it's essential to note that the environment in which the electoral college was first created is significantly different from the present climate.
"The founders had in mind that the electors would have substantial discretion," Gaines says through email. "That idea quickly faded, and today the strong assumption is that electors are (should be) 'bound' to vote as they pledge upon their selection."
According to Peter F. Nardulli, a Research Professor of Political Science and Founding Director of Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at UIUC, the Founding Fathers were terrified that uninformed citizens were going to decide the next president.
However, times have changed. In the ProCon website, it says, "Modern technology and political parties allow voters to get the necessary information to make informed decisions in a way that could not have been foreseen by the Founding Fathers."
Nunez also holds the same idea.
"I think we are more informed than before," Nunez says. "We have technology all around us that we can search up something and become informed in a matter of seconds."
Although this is a significant improvement, the electoral college does have cons in present-day America. The ProCon website mentions that the electoral college gives a sufficient amount of power to "swing states," or "battleground states," which are competitive states that have historically voted for different parties in presidential elections. Amar recognizes this as an enormous con.
"The campaign isn't waged in all 50 states," Amar says. "It's waged in a handful of 'swing states' that determine the outcome of the electoral college."
Moreover, Amar recognizes a few other cons, such as the individuals winning the electoral college but losing the national vote.
"Votes don't count equally across the states," Amar says. "If you can win the popular vote and still lose the electoral college, or the other way around, it just tells us that not everyone's vote is counting the same.”
Nonetheless, it's important to note that it also has positives, such as guaranteeing all parts of the country equal involvement. Furthermore, Amar mentions that a pro is that it has worked for a long time, so, therefore, we should keep it.
"We had it for a long time, and it's worked okay, so maybe we should be reluctant to move away from it," Amar says. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
In 2016, Clinton had 65,853,625 votes from the American people, and Trump only had 62,985,10 votes. In the end, Trump won 306 electoral votes, which automatically gave him the presidency due to him surpassing the 270 required votes.
The events that happened in 2016 weren't anything new. In reality, this occurred in 1996 and 2000. In both of these instances, the president ended up winning the presidency even though they lost the popular vote.
"I mean, if it's happened more than once, it makes me think, does my vote count?" Nunez says.
Gaines acknowledges that the electoral college significantly influenced the results in those years; however, he takes into consideration that that's how it works.
"I don't regard those as 'mistakes' - all candidates knew how the presidency was being awarded," Gaines said. "The rules were not changed in the middle of the campaign."
In the end, a few individuals believe that the electoral college should ultimately be replaced, such as Christian Figueroa, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying political science.
"I think we should get rid of the electoral college," Figueroa said. "It doesn't aim towards the democracy we want. We want a direct democracy or direct election, and that's not what happens with the electoral college."
Figueroa isn't the only one who thinks that we should get rid of the current system. A poll conducted by Gallup asked random adults around the country whether the current system should be kept or amended. In the end, 38 percent of U.S. adults said that the current system should stay the same, while 61 percent said it shouldn't.
Nonetheless, the process might be easier said than done. Since the electoral college is in the Constitution, it would be a long process to eliminate it.
According to Gaines, the most likely path for a change in the rules of United States presidential elections is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). This interstate compact commits to awarding the states' presidential electors to the candidate that receives the most votes nationwide, but there's a catch.
"The catch is that these laws are 'contingent,' they do not take effect until sufficiently many states join the compact that they collectively possess a majority of the electors," Gaines said.
Amar also mentions that this is how he sees the electoral college process heading, especially since there's already a significant movement.
"It's designed to move away from the current system towards a national popular vote without having to amend the Constitution," Amar says. "Congress passing a law is much easier than amending the Constitution."
Although the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact hasn’t taken effect, Nunez hopes that the country moves towards a system that is fair for everyone.
"The electoral college might've worked back then, but everything has changed," Nunez says. "The country does not look the same as it did back then."
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