Oct 7, 2023 3 min read

Perhaps you’ve heard that a presidential election is coming up next year.

Odds are, we’ll be seeing quite a bit of whoever the Democrats or the Republicans put forward. One or both candidates might very well make a stop in Washington, Pa.

We can safely predict, however, that neither of the candidates will come face-to-face with the locals in Washington, Kan., Washington, Mass., Washington, Miss., Washington, Ill., or the state of Washington. That’s because all these Washingtons are not located in battleground states, and the state of Washington is a reliable Democratic stronghold – the last time a Republican won the state was Ronald Reagan, and that was almost 40 years ago. Pennsylvania will probably be seeing quite a bit of the candidates this time next year, as will Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, and maybe Michigan and North Carolina. Much of the rest of the country, though, will watch the campaign unfold on the sidelines.

That’s because we elect our presidents not through the popular vote but through electoral votes in the Electoral College. The votes of the overwhelming majority of states are already locked in. It’s the states that could swing one way or another that really matter. And, as we all know, there’s no guarantee that the winner of the popular vote will be taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2025. George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore in 2000, but became commander in chief, and Donald Trump became president after losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes. If just 60,000 votes had shifted in Ohio in 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry would have bested Bush and become president despite losing the popular vote.

In no other major democracy does the popular vote loser end up winning the election. In no other elections in this country does the candidate with the fewest votes win. If we endure a couple more elections where the popular vote winner in the presidential election has to deliver a concession speech, it will be another blow delivered to our democracy, and lead more voters to question its legitimacy. It’s time – really, long past time – to eliminate the anachronism that is the Electoral College.

The public is overwhelmingly behind the idea. According to a Pew Research Center poll released in September, 65% say the winner of the presidency should be determined through the popular vote. Even 47% of Republicans, who in recent years have been the beneficiary of the Electoral College, support the idea of deciding presidential elections solely by the popular vote.

Among the reasons the Electoral College was created more than 200 years ago is a fear that big states would overpower small states in choosing presidents. Now, it’s the reverse scenario – small states wield too much power in choosing presidents, with the votes of residents in states like New York and California not counting quite as much. And, as Darrel M. West, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, pointed out, the Electoral College was envisioned as a “body of wise men,” who would deliberate over who would be the best president.

“They explicitly rejected a popular vote for president because they did not trust voters to make a wise choice,” West said.

But the voters should be trusted. That’s why the Electoral College has got to go.