Imagine a version of the United States in which citizens are able to directly vote for the President. That is not reality at the moment, though. Currently, voters do not directly vote for the President of the United States of America. Instead, the party of the candidate that won a state selects a slate of electors (people nominated by political parties to vote for the president directly). These electors then cast their vote based on who the most popular candidate among the general population of their state is. Depending on who most of the electors voted for, the candidate will receive the electoral votes the state has. The number of electoral votes a state has is derived from the state’s representation in Congress, which is mainly based…show more content… As shown in Document A, large states have more electoral votes. Both small and large states are given representation at the wrong times, which leads to political inequality. Document D shows that even twelve states plus the District of Columbia do not have a total population that is larger than the population of Illinois. On the other hand, they have more than twice the electoral votes of Illinois. This does not balance out because the number of electoral votes a state has is based on their representation in Congress, which is based on its population, . If all of the states combined do not have as large a population as Illinois, they shouldn’t have as many electoral votes either. On the other hand, if there is a tie in the electoral vote, the final decision will be put to the House of Representatives, and the vote can be unfair because each group of Representatives from every state would get only one vote between them all [Document F]. Document F shows that a state like California, with over 35 million voters, would get the same number of votes, in the event of a tie, as Wyoming, which has a population of about 500,000 voters. This is a sure sign of political inequality because a state with the lower population has the same number of votes as a state with a higher population.…show more content… population. As shown in Document F, if there is no majority in the outcome of the electoral vote, the final decision of who will become president is left to the House of Representatives. When this occurs, each state, no matter the population, will get one vote. This does not represent the ideas of the United States because the votes of many people will not be represented. As shown in Document F, “the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters.” The proportion between 1 to 500,000 and 1 to 35,000,000 is about seventy. That is saying that every person in Wyoming is worth 70 people in California. Due to this, each vote is not proportionate to the population, so the true ideas of the voters are not expressed. Basically, the voters are being partially disenfranchised of proper representation during a tie in the electoral vote. In addition, the winner of the popular vote does not always win the overall election. In fact, on four occasions, the winner of the popular vote did not win the electoral vote. In 1824, Jackson was the winner of the popular vote, but he lost the electoral vote. In 1876, the winner of the popular vote was Tilden, in 1888 the winner of the popular vote was Cleveland, and in 2000, the winner of the
