(Insert title here) Imagine you live in a country where the person elected ruler by the people, does not become ruler. If you live in the US, you do not even need to imagine, because that is your reality. In 1876 Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote, but Rutherford Hayes became president due to his winning of the majority of electoral college votes. The same thing happened in 2000, when the people elected Al Gore, but George H. W. Bush ended up as chief-of-state. Just this past year, 2016, Donald Trump beat out Hillary Clinton through his electoral votes, not his popular votes. The electoral college is the system in which the United states of America elects their president. In most states, the state has the same amount of electoral votes …show more content…
As of 2016, twenty-nine states even have laws penalizing electors who do not vote like the majority of the state (Lewis). If you are a democrat living in a republican state, your vote will not matter, because the republican candidate will receive all of your state’s electoral votes. Meanwhile, a resident of a swing state will have a more valuable vote, because such a state is so easily swayed (Lewis). The winner-takes-all system is also biased against third party candidates, because the people who may want to vote for them believe it will not be worth it since a third-party candidate could never win the electoral vote …show more content…
They say the USA is a democratic republic, in which the people have the right to choose, but they can only choose what’s permissible by the government. The founding fathers chose this form of government to balance the wants for a strong central government and a weak state based government (Elections). Therefore, ‘one-man-one-vote’ is unfair to smaller states because then heavily populated areas will control the outcome of an election. (Perkins). Similarly, vote through the electoral college makes it much less likely for there to be a win by very little, which may cause tension. This is ensured by the winner takes all system, so even if the popular vote is extremely close, the electoral vote may be won by a landslide. The same is true in the situation where no one secures the majority of popular votes, an electoral winner can still be reached