Obviously, the U.S. Electoral System needs to be changed,…
Time for a Constitutional Convention in America?
… but, the U.S.A’s. Constitution itself regulates potential changes, with almost impossible to comply with dispositions.
Different to most other democratic countries, the President of the United States is not elected by a majority of popular votes obtained in the election, but by a complex and rather cumbersome majority of Electors, with each State being allocated a number of Electors, depending on the number of Representatives to the Congress, which in turn, depends on the last census population of the State in question (only applies to House representatives).
Each State, irrespective of its population, is assigned two Senators.
Crazy, isn’t it?
The system simply belonging to another age, has, notwithstanding, been maintained for two reasons: 1)It electorally benefits primordially one party (the Republican party), which, naturally, has little incentive to change it, 2) the Constitution itself contains the method to generate any Constitutional changes, a method so demanding, that although the U.S’s Constitution has been amended 27 times since 1789, it was never rewritten entirely (a change must be approved by 2/3 of both chambers of Congress, and later ratified by at least 3/4 of the States). Those tough conditions render almost impossible any Constitutional change, even if wanted by a party with a majority in both chambers of Congress (thus with total disdain of the voters’ will).
That conduce to clear nonsense anomalies:
California has a population of 39.25 million people and has two senators. Montana, Idaho, N Dakota, S Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma have a COMBINED population of 24.46 million people, but have between them 22 senators. Are you starting to see the problem?”
The argument by the other side, clerarly shows the divide currently affecting this country:
Trump defeated Clinton by 1.5 million votes in the 49 states outside of California. Should California have so much power that it outweighs a majority in the other 49 states? Trump carried 30 of 50 states. Would it be more democratic if the winner in only 20 states became President?
The two paragraphs above, correspond to anonymous comments of readers representing antagonistic positions on the issue. (Comments made by readers to an article published at medium.com. (Sorry, I’ve got the quotes but not the article anymore.)
But, like it or not, the fact is that the current Costitution is clearly favoring a minority, mostly rural, white population, living in States hardly populated vs. States with much larger, mostly urban, mixed race’s population, and that can’t be, as it attemps against a basic principle of democracy: One man, one valid vote each.
Some GOP’s members, in order to justify the present electoral system, had argued that the country was not originally founded as a democracy, but as a Republic. That might have been the case some 200-plus years ago, but I don’t think that is how the population sees the country nowdays anymore.
A referendum, followed by a Constitutional Convention?
It is still to be seen, whether the Biden administration is going to have the courage or the will, to tackle this very important issue. The Trump administration did have the political capital, and the support needed, but decided instead to waste its time in populist, but less important matters for the future of America.
In any case, the issue is not going to disappear, on the contrary, is going to get worse over the years, until solved. I only hope the Americans will have enough wisdom to solve the matter peacefully.
