We hear every day that we live in a country divided along distinct ideologies, and that has reached a boiling point this year. Yet most Americans share the same goal of making this country better. Often the pursuit of truth becomes drowned out by the pursuit of political victory. Look back in United States’ history and you will find time after time where this rings true, and this makes clear where the problem lies: how we elect our politicians.
It is important to start at the beginning, and that begs the question: Why do we have such a strange way of electing our president? In the interest of avoiding a long-winded explanation of the Federalist Papers, the founders believed that the 18th-century American public would be unable to make an informed decision about who should be president, and thus should indirectly vote for president by way of several electors instead. It is common to hear the more cynical version that the founders thought the American people were too stupid to elect their president; however, when you imagine how most Americans lived back then, the founders’ viewpoint seems quite reasonable. Most Americans were rural farmers who rarely — if ever — ventured farther than 5 miles away from their homes. But our society has progressed, yet our electoral system remains the same.
Not to mention how the Electoral College allows a candidate to win without a majority of the vote and ensures only two parties are relevant in politics. What’s more, with a recent SCOTUS ruling, it cannot even work as was originally intended. A problem always demands a solution, and while I lack the space to fully explain one, if you wish to do your own research an excellent place to start is here with ranked-choice voting.
Benjamin Allen, Draper