To the Editor:
My eighteenth birthday was November 7th, 2000. It was also Election
Day of that year, so I was able to cast my first ballot in a Presidential
election. About a month and a half later, when everyone finally
knew which candidate the Supreme Court chose to be President, it
occurred to me that my first Presidential vote meant nothing. It
was not reassuring to know that the right to vote did not guarantee
that that vote meant anything. It demonstrates a glaring flaw in
the Presidential election machinery, damaging both sides of the
political line in this country.
The Electoral College is an antiquated relic dating to the Middle
Ages that does not belong in a country that purports itself to be
a democracy. Because of the Electoral College, two Presidents have
been chosen by a small committee instead of the voting public –
the first was President Benjamin Hayes roughly 130 years ago. Despite
the United States’ popular image of “one person, one
vote,” the reality is that one voting bloc equals one state
to one political party. Instead of one national majority electing
the President, a state-by-state majority contributes those states’
electoral votes to one candidate or another. Thus, for the most
part the candidates only really worry about campaigning in states
that have lots of electoral votes and that are not solidly in one
political camp or the other.
Members of a political minority, like Republicans in California
or Democrats in North Carolina, are almost universally ignored in
Presidential elections because their votes do not matter. They do
not comprise a political body large enough to give the state’s
electoral votes to either side, or at least to contest the election.
The so-called “swing” states are typically portrayed
as politically uncertain and might go to either party, which is
why most candidates spend their time in those states and those states
only. I do not recall hearing about any North Dakota campaigning
by either side, nor any debates between parties in Alabama, but
there were frequent mentions of campaign trips to Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Michigan and New York. It is only with the selection of John Edwards
as Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate that there is talk about
campaign efforts in the Carolinas, as Edwards’ political career
centers around these states.
All this means that ASU Democrats’ votes meant nothing in
the national Presidential scheme of things – at the time of
writing, I have not heard anything about official Democratic Presidential
campaign trips to the state this year. The state does not have a
Democratic voting bloc large enough to give any incentive to the
nationwide Democratic Party to devote much effort to winning the
state, nor are there enough for Republicans to really consider campaigning
in the state to maintain their hold on the state’s electoral
votes. However, “get out the vote” efforts by members
of various communities have raised voter awareness about Presidential
elections in those communities.
The Electoral College is the reason that the sitting President is
in office and the reason that it took several weeks of back-and-forth
legal exchanges for that President to be chosen. Without it, there
would have been little doubt about which candidate actually won
Presidential office. The federal Supreme Court would not have been
able to interfere with internal state voting measures, and the sitting
President would not have an asterisk next to his name for being
the second President chosen by committee. Without it, everyone’s
votes would count, not just the votes by the bloc with the most
people.
Matthew Paisie
Senior
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