Five candidates have won the popular vote and lost the election in American history: Andrew Jackson in 1824, Samuel Tilden in 1876, Grover Cleveland in 1888, Al Gore in 2000, and Hillary Clinton in 2016. This is a problem because it eliminates the democratic principle that the candidate with the most support from the people of the United States should win the election.
The Electoral College was created to balance the power between the smaller and larger states. Yet, instead of helping the American Election System, the Electoral College makes the candidate who secured more votes nationwide ultimately lose because they failed to win the Electoral College. This is a flaw in the American system.
According to Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper Number 68, the Electoral College was created because people were worried that states such as Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia would dominate the presidency. So, it was decided that there would be an Electoral College that votes in proportion to the number of its senators and House members.
With the Electoral College, some votes do matter more than others. One of the most troubling aspects of the Electoral College is that it gives more power to certain swing states, such as Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, while diminishing the voices of voters in reliably blue or red states.
Abolishing the Electoral College would help simplify the voting process, ensuring that the candidate who wins is the candidate that the majority voted for. Every vote should count equally in the democratic process, regardless of where it is cast.
