It may sound absurd, but the 2024 presidential election may be poised to come down to one state: Nebraska. Based on current polling data, it appears that there is a plausible chance of Vice President Kamala Harris barely winning this election with exactly 270 electoral votes if she wins Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. But to pull off this victory, she would need to win one electoral vote from one of Nebraska’s congressional districts.
Nebraska is one of just two states that do not abide by the Electoral College’s “winner-take-all” system, as it allows for two votes to be provided to the statewide winner and the remaining votes to be provided to the winner of each congressional district. If Harris were unable to win one electoral vote from this state, the Electoral College would presumably tie, leading to each state delegation in the House of Representatives choosing the president (which would likely favor former President Donald Trump). It is precisely for this reason that the GOP has recently been pressuring Nebraska’s state legislature to switch to a winner-take-all system to prepare for this contingency.
This recent development has made it even more necessary for our nation to reconsider how the Electoral College’s winner-take-all system shapes the way that our elections are decided.
Currently, the Electoral College makes the say of most states almost entirely irrelevant, as they will be considered “safe states” that presidential candidates know they will not need to seriously court. As a result, the status quo creates a perverse incentive in which those running for president are encouraged to spend almost all of their time campaigning in a handful of swing states. But these candidates are not running to be the president of the Swing States of America; rather, they are running to be the president of the United States of America. It is time that we update our electoral system to reflect this.
Contrary to popular belief, removing the winner-take-all system of the Electoral College would not necessarily be to the benefit of just Democratic presidential candidates. In fact, it would serve to enfranchise individuals of both parties by making every individual’s vote have a meaningful impact in our electoral system. A Republican voter in California and a Democratic voter in Wyoming should both be equally incentivized to turn out in a national presidential election, unlike the status quo, in which both of these voters have no incentive to turn out.
The most common objection to ending the winner-take-all system of the Electoral College is that this system is a bulwark designed to prevent the “tyranny of the majority” over the minority, though there are two key issues with this argument. First, it could be argued that the Electoral College is creating a “tyranny of the minority” by maintaining the status quo, in which our elections are entirely decided by a small handful of swing states even if it violates the broader national consensus.
In another sense, the Electoral College’s winner-take-all system could actually be viewed as a way of promoting the tyranny of the majority within a state to discount the say of the large minority of people in this state. In the past several elections, many swing states’ electoral votes have been decided by razor-thin margins which ultimately disregard the voices of millions of people in these states whose candidate just barely lost. In 2016, Hillary Clinton did not earn a single electoral vote in Michigan because she lost by a mere 11,612 votes (despite over 2.2 million people voting for her in this state). There were similar narrow-margin victories in several other swing states in that election, which ultimately allowed then-candidate Donald Trump to win the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by millions of votes. This election was far from an anomaly – in 2000, then-candidate George Bush was able to win all of Florida’s electoral votes (and thereby the overall election) by winning a mere 537 votes despite the millions who cast a ballot for Al Gore.
Many argue that the Electoral College is the only way to ensure that Americans in rural areas or small states receive representation at the national level. However, the winner-take-all system paints these areas with a broad brush that neglects the diversity of opinion that exists within these areas. Ending the winner-take-all system is the only way for our nation to genuinely enfranchise every individual by making each person’s vote count. It is not fair for a Republican in New York or a Democrat in North Dakota to have to contemplate whether they should even consider voting in a presidential election.
The data unsurprisingly demonstrates this: swing states tend to have turnout rates higher than the national rate, likely as a result of votes seeming to have a greater influence on the election’s outcome (as well as campaigns being more incentivized to make voters in these states turn out at the polls). One estimate has found that two-thirds of the 2016 general election efforts were concentrated in six states, illustrating how our current system has led to the neglect of most Americans.
Lastly, the winner-take-all system perpetuates the two-party system that Americans seem to be unfavorable towards. This is because the system makes it virtually impossible for a third-party candidate to receive electoral votes if they fail to receive a plurality of votes in many states, even if they have large national support spread out across the country. The 1992 election is the best example of this, in which third-party candidate Ross Perot was able to win almost 20% of the popular vote despite not being able to win a single electoral vote.
There are two ways that we can abolish our winner-take-all system that would be able to improve the way our elections work. One option would be to have states adopt systems like those of Nebraska and Maine, in which part of the electoral vote is allocated to the statewide winner, and the remaining votes are given to the winner of each congressional district. This would be a compromise solution, as it would allow us to keep many elements of the Electoral College while still allowing for an increased degree of representation from people voting within the minority. Another solution that is likely more ideal would be to make our elections based entirely on the popular vote. By doing this, our nation would allow every individual’s vote to have an equal influence on the outcome of an election. No American’s voice should be inherently more valuable to the outcome of an election than another.
To be clear, this is not a partisan proposal. It is instead about finding ways to incentivize civic engagement and participation from both sides of the aisle in every geographic location within our nation by making all American’s voices relevant. In addition to this, it would also ensure that candidates are incentivized to campaign in and advocate on behalf of voters in a larger number of states. Though a major structural change to our elections may seem daunting, it is nevertheless critical that we pursue reform along these lines to strengthen our democracy.
Image by Clay Banks from Unsplash
