California. The principles of democracy are that everyone is equal. In an American election, they are not as 48 of the 50 states give all their votes to whoever wins the state. So basically, if Michigan voted Democrat 78%, and 22% Republican, then all the votes go to the Democrats, but in Florida, if the Republicans win by just 1 vote, then 100% of all of Florida ’ s votes belong to the Republicans. This is a super easy system to gerrymander. Another flaw of the Electoral College is the overseas territories, such as Puerto Rico and Guam. They have zero votes, despite having more people than some states. In America, the electoral college is defended by the principle that the point of the electoral college is to give the smaller states more power. If so, then the electoral college is failing drastically at it. Because smaller states are worth more, more attention is paid to them. The argument for this is, it is because you would be able to win the election by focusing on the big cities. The top one - hundred cities in America account for only 19.4% of the total population. Overall, the Electoral College has a failure rate of 7%. This is when the Electoral College picks a President that the majority of the country did not choose. The last time this happened was in 2016, when the Republican Donald Trump defeated the Democrat Hillary Clinton, thanks to the failure of the Electoral College. 7% does not sound like a bad statistic in general. But add world altering consequences and nuclear weapons, and are you still sure 7% sounds like a good statistic?
51
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker