Research Notes #2
Deconstructing the Electoral College, calming the mind, and taking action
Research Notes is a product of hippiegrrl media. At hippiegrrl media we believe that Black Lives Matter, Climate Change is Real, This land is Indigenous land, Women have autonomy, Love is love is love, No human is illegal, and Science=Truth. Please wear your mask and stay safe. Welcome to the newsletter. We value your readership.
when we used to travel. photo credit: chantale onesi-gonzalez
At the top of this issue, we will take a deep dive into the topic of the Electoral College. What is it? Why does it exist? Why are some people still extremely committed to maintaining it? How can we remove it in order to make the popular vote meaningful? These are some of the questions I will attempt to answer about this archaic process.
Next, we will look at an online app that will help you have a better holiday season even though we are still by and large in lockdown mode for COVID-19.
And last, you will find a list of ways to participate. At hippiegrrl media, we are all about education AND action, so we hope you are enjoying the links we provide with each issue.
As always - thank you for reading, and if you have a friend (or foe - we all need good information, after all) that you think would be interested in reading Research Notes, please share!
The Backdrop
In November, we went through a week of uncertainty. We knew, prior to election day on the 3rd of November, that we would not have final election results that night. What we didn’t expect was that we would have to continue waiting a full 4 days before getting the official results. We also did not expect the current administration to continuously spread disinformation regarding the official counts in several swing states and to attempt to win via recounts and legal pleadings.
Amidst the lingering conspiracy theories and consternation over the outcome of the election, brighter light is shining on the deeply rooted structures of racism that undergird our system of governance.
From the right and left sides of the aisle, people have been debating the Electoral College (EC) system for many years due to the fact that in the past 6 presidential elections, 2 candidates have won the popular vote but lost the election; in 2000, former Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote and lost the election to George W. Bush and in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and lost the election to Donald J. Trump.
The frequency of these occurrences in modern times is due to the voter suppression that has taken place in recent years. Districts have been re-written in order to make representation skew toward Republican interests via the closing or relocating of polling places and this is how the EC has been used to uphold the racist infrastructure in our current form of governance. In order to better understand this, we must first learn a few facts about the EC.
Why was the Electoral College created?
The framers of the Constitution were looking for various ways to ensure fair elections and stop corruption from occurring in the electoral process of the highest office in the land. In order to follow through with this, the framers instituted a method of counting votes that would not require a full count at the national level, but a method in which each state could submit their vote counts via electors.
How were electoral votes allocated?
The Constitution states, in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2, that “each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress” (archives.org). For more on the current allocation of electoral votes, please see this page on the National Archives site: Distribution of Electoral Votes
How was the number of Representatives per State determined?
Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution states: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years” (archives.org).
That sounds fair, right? Everything except the word ‘free’ sounds right. And this is where we find one of the many ways in which racism is built into our system of government. If only the framers had said simply “shall be determined by the whole Number of Persons”. That would have been fair. But America isn’t built on fairness for all and the full text of that clause proves it.
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons” (archives.org).
That last part is what we refer to as the three-fifths compromise, born of a debate between the framers over who should be counted toward representation. The framers from the North did not think it was fair to count enslaved people, because they were considered property, while framers from the South did want to count enslaved people in order to ensure representation. The three-fifths compromise essentially said, for every 5 enslaved individuals, only 3 would be counted toward representation. This meant that voters in the Southern States, and rural counties most especially, received more weight to their votes.
Remember, this was a compromise between white, affluent, men from the North and South. The bargain was about human beings who had no legal right to vote, own land, or otherwise live freely in society, let alone have a say in the framing of the Constitution. As such, the document did not enfranchise anyone other than white, affluent, men. So goes the story of America. And so it continues in 2020.
If the Electoral College is rooted in racism, why do we still rely on it to determine who our President will be?
This question has been asked time and again, and most especially in the last 20 years considering the effect that this system has had on our elections. When thinking more deeply about representation and our electoral system, we see that the popular vote determines our state and local officials. These officials are the people who go to the capital and fight for our rights at the district level (U.S. Congress) and state level (U.S. Senate) We only use the EC for the presidential election.
In this day, when we have technology that allows us to count the national popular vote, at the state level, multiple times in a few weeks, we can see how the EC isn’t really necessary. And, in fact, the EC is a continuation of a system that disenfranchises people of color. By weighting the votes in the states with less densely populated areas more heavily we create a situation where land masses are getting higher representation than people. If more people live in what are considered “blue” areas of the country, then those areas should determine the overall outcome of the election. One voter, one vote, via the popular vote, would make this possible.
Here is a data visualization to show that electoral maps are often misleading because they do not show the distribution of people across the country. Thank you to Karim Douieb for creating the following visual, and sharing it to twitter, to highlight the inconsistency.
data visualization credit: Karim Douieb
But what about the farmers?
This is a question that I have heard asked many times and in many different ways by people from all political parties and affiliations. And here is a slightly longer version of essentially the same question:
“If we get rid of the Electoral College, how will we protect the voters in the heartland from being governed by the whims of the coastal urban elites?”
Deconstructing this question we can see the framers’ intentions continuing today. The framers were white men desperate to retain power and wrote the Constitution in a way that would allow them to do so. They did not realize that 300 years later, there would still be white people upholding their ideals through myths and fears informed in a similar fashion. Sure, the time’s change and the coded language changes, but it all still boils down to racism. Scratch the service of most structural systems in our country and you will find the supports to be racist. The EC is no different.
How, then, can we make a change?
As children, we were taught that the Constitution was a document that was meant to protect our freedom and grant liberty and justice to all citizens. A careful and close reading of the original document, including the Bill of Rights, will illuminate quite the opposite. The Constitution was meant to protect a very small number of people (white men) while oppressing everybody else on the land we call America.
As time went on, Amendments were added to make the document more equitable. These amendments ended slavery (13th), enfranchised voters on the basis of race (15th) and sex (19th), and lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 (26th). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 further strengthened the enforcement of voting rights by ending the segregation put in place by the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case which allowed for rampant voter suppression across the ‘Jim Crow’ South.
Although the Civil Rights Act should have been enough, Black voters were still being subjected to various tests and clauses when heading to the polls. They were also continuing to be attacked physically for attempting to exercise their right to vote. On the 7th of March, 1965, peaceful voting rights activists were crossing the bridge from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama and were met with extreme violence from Alabama state troopers. This urged the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to further protect voters from violence at the polls or in their pursuit of voter registration.
Although there have been stumbles along the path to equity, we are still moving forward. Thinking critically about the systems in place and their connections to decisions made by people in the past can help to inform the road ahead. As we move toward a more equitable society for all, we must understand the ways in which we support and, at times, uphold these systems and continue to question each step along the path to a better tomorrow. A little information can go a long way.
Multiple resolutions proposing amendments to the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College have been introduced and are sitting in committee. Until the day when the popular vote is the only means of electing the president, we will have to continue to register voters and inspire those voters to vote. Every two years, not just in presidential elections. Momentum is built through action. The direction for America is forward and the future is now.
Check out this app
In this issue, we wanted to give you something to lift your spirits through the holiday season and the end of 2020 (yay for that!) Enter Headspace. Meditation apps abound, but this app is one of the best. And in 2020 we need to de-stress daily.
Right now, Headspace is offering a 30% off sale on a subscription, if you want to go all-in. If not, you can simply download the app and do the first 10 sits for free to get acquainted with the mediation style.
Meditation is good for sleep, focus, stress reduction, and overall well-being, and self-care through the pandemic (and beyond) is super important! Read more about it here and then try it out! You have nothing to lose but the stress and strain of this year from hell. You will be glad you gave it a go.
Ways to participate this week
Read: Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College
Give: Fair Fight
Sign: Statehood for D.C.
Do: Happy holidays (if you celebrate) and enjoy the end of 2020! See you in 2021!