Every American has their own opinions of what’s wrong with our government and how to fix them. Everyone comes from different backgrounds and everyone benefits differently. The decisions our government make, follows the Optimum Pareto paradox. The laws passed and upheld by our government should be for the sole benefit of the people of the United States. Being a democracy if the government has a different agenda aside from the people, we have the power to not put them back into office. My point being is that if I were to change something about our government, it wouldn’t be for the sole benefit of my beliefs or myself, because that would make another group worse off. If I were to change something, I would change the “winner-take-all system” for winning electoral votes in states.
Today 48 states use the winner-take-all system; the only two that don’t are Maine and Nebraska. Which system to use to elect a president is not stated in the constitution or Federalist Papers. Thomas Jefferson lost the presidential election of 1796 by only 3 electoral votes. Jefferson then suggested a winner-take-all system to Virginia, to guarantee he would win the election of 1800. Massachusetts followed quickly to change winner-take-all to give more electoral votes to John Adams. A domino effect followed for all states changing to a winner-take-all system to support their majority political party. (History)
Over the life of our country, the winner-take-all system has elected 5 presidents without winning the popular vote. This is possible when a president wins all the electoral votes by a very small margin in swing states, and the other candidate wins states by a large margin. Trump beat Hillary 304 to 227 electoral votes because he won the majority of swing states, by a very small margin. Trump won the electoral votes by a landslide but lost the popular by a margin of 2% (Gore). Because swing states are the biggest decider in a presidential election, that’s where candidates spend a lot of time campaigning and making empty promises.
It’s no secret that candidates make unrealistic statements during campaigning to gain votes. Presidents do follow through on some campaign promises, but everything has to go through congress and usually dies in congress, or takes so long the issue isn’t prevalent anymore. This allows candidates to make empty promises then point the finger at congress when it never happens. Swing states hear a majority of the promises that will bring back jobs, reduce poverty, make the community safer, cut taxes, bring in government assistant programs and others.
During campaign season the nation often gets the feeling the candidates only care about the people in the swing states and not the people of the nation as a whole. Candidates care about the whole population, but in order to win with the winner-take-all system, they cater to the portion of the population in that decides the election. Candidates rarely hold rallies or visit states that they can already count as a win since the state has been blue or red for the past twenty years or more. In order to win an election and be the president , the whole population should be catered to. The population should be the decider of our president, not just a few states.
In order to elect the president and the whole population be catered to in campaign season, we have to do away with the winner-take-all system. Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that don’t use the winner-take-all system. They use a congressional district method where the state is split into districts and each district awards one electoral vote for majority winner of that district and the majority winner of the state wins two electoral votes (Maine & Nebraska). I purpose we don’t use this system either.
A system that I believe is the fairest and would make the whole population the decider is “you get what you win” system. Named by myself, since I couldn’t find any information on anything similar; this system awards electoral votes based on the percentage of the population that voted for the candidate. For example, if a state has five electoral votes and a candidate get 51% of the states populations votes, then that candidate gets 3 electoral votes and the other candidate would be awarded 2. Get away from selecting electors and keep the amount of electoral votes that each state gets so small states are still heard. This system would also encourage more people to go and vote since their candidate has the opportunity so win some votes from their home state.
Power will be put back into the whole population for electing a president; not just the states that could swing for either party. Arguments can go on for days on what’s wrong with our country, but one thing we could all agree on is a president that’s elected by the majority vote of each state. Every state adds their own unique benefits to this country and should always be heard. We hear about equality daily, but can we truly have equality when only a majority of the population is the decider for our president? Everyone’s voices and opinions should be heard equally.