TEN PERCENT OF U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS FAILED. by Yaj Jhajhria
The United States Presidency is a role transcending the boundaries of its name. While the office maintains its purpose of directing the executive branch of the United States, the nation’s recent escalation to being the world’s one true superpower grants the choice of the American people the greatest power vested in any U.S. public official, along with a level of military and cultural influence around the globe to the likes of no other individual. Currently, Forbes lists Donald Trump, the incumbent U.S. president, as the third most powerful person on Earth, higher than Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or the Pope.[1] The responsibility to select a leader lies in the hands of the citizens of America. At least, it should. But of the 58 presidential elections conducted, at least five of them (almost ten percent) have featured a winner who more Americans voted against than for.[2] This inherent lapse in our democracy can be attributed to the electoral college, the body of electors that choose the president.
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E H T E M A BL L A R O T C E EL . E G E L L CO Your State Probably Doesn’t Matter In a democracy, equality should be something to take for granted. With 538 electoral votes, an even distribution of electoral votes would make each represent 574,000 Americans, according to 2010 census data.[3] Yet this is not the case. The electoral college distributes votes by giving each state two to begin with, then adds more proportionately, giving smaller states like Wyoming and Delaware two more than they should have, while Texas and California are missing six and ten votes, respectively. As a result, someone in Wyoming’s vote counts four times as much as a Californian’s
