Every election season, there is dispute about whether our votes actually “count” when the results are tallied and a new president is named. In the American electoral system, an Electoral College determines presidential elections. Each state has a number of electoral votes equivalent to the combined number of senators and representatives the state has in Congress. In most states, after individuals cast their votes on Election Day, the votes are counted, and the electoral voters in each state give all of their electoral votes to the most popular candidate. This is known as a winner-takes-all system.
You might be wondering what this means to voters. Is it such a bad thing if the Electoral College decides votes by the majority?
The answer is not so simple. Yes…and no. The winner-takes-all system goes hand in hand with the way we vote in the United States. Since we have a two-party system, deciding the election by a majority makes sense. However, according to some, if you live in a state where you are voting against the majority, the meaning of your vote is lost. For example, some states vote a certain way year after year with little to no change in political ideology. Texas consistently votes Republican; California has a history of voting in favor of the Democrat. This means that if you are a Democrat living in Texas, or a Republican living in California, you will enter any presidential election knowing that your vote will not be tallied on a national scale.
But voting against the majority of voters in your state doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t vote at all. In our democratic system, each vote voices a political opinion. By consistently voting, we have an opportunity to make changes in the political culture of our respective states. Especially on the local level, our votes still have the power to influence change in our societies. And this isn’t just sappy idealism—it happens all the time.
New Jersey, for example, primarily voted Republican until the 1980s, when it switched parties and started giving its electoral votes to the Democratic Party. Missouri had voted Democratic in the early nineties, but in recent years has voted for the Republican candidate in national elections (to see this progression, check out this chart from the New York Times). States such as Colorado have flip-flopped between the two parties over the past 50 years, and swing states like Ohio and Florida are somewhat unpredictable every election year.
No previous election has highlighted the importance of voting in spite of the system like this one has. Utah, a state that voted for Republican Mitt Romney by a 73% majority in 2012 (according to this article from the Washington post), is now being considered as “leaning Republican” instead of “Republican.” There is a chance that Utah may vote Democratic in this year’s election for the first time since the 1960s. Changes like these provide evidence of the power of our individual votes.Â
Before you abandon the idea of ditching out on this year’s election for a Starbucks run or another Tuesday study sesh, think again. In spite of the Electoral College, our votes have the power to create real change.
Sources:Â
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/daily/graphics/elector_11020…
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Editor’s Note: All articles for Her Campus at the University of Utah are the opinions and beliefs of the writers and do not reflect Her Campus at the University of Utah, the University of Utah or Her Campus as an international magazine.