One (White, Property-Owning, Gender Specific) Man, One Vote

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“My view is that every vote matters. And the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting and that means get rid of the Electoral College.”

- Elizabeth Warren

The will of the people is clear: Democrats have won the popular vote in six of the past seven presidential elections. Yet, in the country that holds itself up as a shining example of democracy, the voter’s wishes were ignored. In two of those elections, including the last one, Republicans won the Electoral College with a minority of the vote and were given control of the Oval Office.

“I would rather have the popular vote because it’s, to me, it’s much easier to win the popular vote.”

- Donald Trump

Knowing that changing demographics are not on their side, Republicans champion this archaic system as it is the only chance they have for staying relevant in presidential elections. They will claim that the Founding Fathers were geniuses for devising the Electoral College without acknowledging that the people who drafted the Constitution did not have the best record regarding equal representation. The Founding Mothers were left out of the conversation. Black men were written into the Constitution as three-fifths human. In a concept that would be at home in the modern Republican party, only property owners were guaranteed voting rights.

While claiming that candidates would only be motivated to campaign in the areas with the highest concentration of people under a popular vote, proponents of the Electoral College ignore the fact that most of these areas are currently being ignored. Instead, resources are poured into battleground areas that represent a fraction of the American population. How can a system that purposely ignores the vast majority of the American population be considered representative of the American people?

The undemocratic nature of the Electoral College makes it an easy target for candidates like Warren, but the allotment of electors is just a symptom of a much bigger problem. Since the number of…