128,838,342. One hundred twenty-eight million, eight hundred thirty-eight thousand, three hundred forty-two people voted in the 2016 presidential election. 155,506,056 people voted in the 2020 presidential election. And not a single person directly voted for their president. Not one person. This is all assuming that every single vote was counted correctly. That’s another story for another day with a whole lot more controversy. The electoral college has been debated for decades over whether or not it should stay or go, be modified or abolished, or just simply stay the way it is. This video, created by verified YouTube creator Mr. Beat, claims that the electoral college “is terrible” and should be abolished or “at the very least modified.” In contrast to the video, the electoral college should continue to be used in presidential elections as it gives a more fair, simple, and secure election.

“30% of Americans like the electoral college” (1:15) & (16:00)

Right off the bat, Mr. Beat, the creator of the video, is throwing out false information. He states that only “30% of Americans like the electoral college.” That’s a bold statement. Even after going through his listed sources, that statistic is nowhere to be found. By saying this, he is claiming that less than a third of the whole American population, wants the electoral college to stay. According to the United States Census Bureau, the U.S. had a population of 327,592,862 people on the exact day this video was published (December 7, 2018). Pew Research Center says that in 2018, 41% of people agreed that the electoral college should continue to be used. He was off by 36,035,214.82 people. Over 36 million people. That is 27.9% of people who voted in the 2016 election. 

“The electoral college is indefensible.” (11:29)

Later in the video, Mr.Beat claims that “the electoral college is indefensible.” Indefensible is a big word. The dictionary definition defines it as: “not justifiable by argument.”  An example of this would be trying to argue that two plus two does not equal four. It’s a fact. By saying that the electoral college is “indefensible” rules out what 41% of people believe to be true. It is obvious that it is defensible as it’s been around since the founding fathers created it. If it was as indefensible as Mr. Beat claims it is, it would have been gone a long time ago. A defense of the electoral college that is often used is that it provides a more secure, and fair election. It stops big states like California (who have a history of always voting democratic) or Texas (who have a history of voting republican) from taking over. Another defense is the fact that the electoral college enforces federalism, which is the separation of power between the federal and state governments. It’s easy to find defenses to the electoral college. Whether someone thinks the whole electoral system should be completely abolished or is the best thing that ever happened, everyone has to agree there are defenses for both sides.

Runoffs Are Not a Bad Thing (11:54)

While Mr.Beat is explaining his opinion on “Why the electoral college is terrible,” as the video is titled, he goes on to explain runoff elections. He shows a video from Fox News that backhandedly says that runoffs are a bad thing, then puts text underneath it saying “as if runoffs are a bad thing.” The definition of a runoff election is “a second election held to determine a winner when no candidate in the first election met the required threshold for victory.” Most of the time, this means they need over half the votes. While this seems like a great idea to insure correct voting tallies, this can cause major issues. Since candidates need over half the votes, it has been increasingly harder to do this due to the growth of third-party candidates in recent years. As mentioned before, there’s always a chance of votes being miscounted or even voter fraud becoming a prominent issue. In the past few elections, there has been a lot of talk about this and the possibility that it changed the results. With an added election, the chances of this happening increase and miscounting has another chance to resurface. An added argument of this would be the amount of taxpayer money that is being used for this. The Des Moines runoff election cost $85,000 of taxpayer money alone. While this money could be used for education, helping those in poverty, or anything else that needs attention, it’s being used for something that many would argue isn’t absolutely necessary. 

“Changing the Electoral College is the Most Proposed Constitutional Amendment” (16:42)

Mr. Beat seems to enjoy saying big fancy statistics that sound real. He’s done it again. He goes on to say, “Changing the electoral college is the most proposed constitutional amendment.” He’s claiming that this is the thing the people in the United States want to be changed the most. Among everything else in this country that is up for debate. It took barely any time at all to prove this wrong. An amendment to change the electoral college isn’t even in the top three. It came in at the number five spot, with only 27 proposed amendments from 1999-2018. Meanwhile, 137 amendments on the subject of a balanced budget have been proposed in that same time frame. In between these two subjects, from most to least, are: campaign finance (72), term limits (69), and flag desecration (78). Mr. Beat keeps tarnishing his credibility as the video goes on. 

“If You Support the Electoral College, You Don’t Care About the Majority.” (18:15)

Mr.Beat seems to want to end his video with a bang. He says a very bold and broad statement to close off his video. The last line of any book, movie, tv show, article, video or anything else of the sort is what leaves the audience thinking and one of the main things they often remember. He seems to want to make that impact on his audience. He says, “If you support the electoral college you don’t care about the majority.” As kids grow up, they learn not to be a follower. They are told to be a leader. Parents use the common, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” phrase that stumps every kid at least once. Even as adults, people are told to stand up for what they believe in, to be who they are, and never stop fighting for what they want to be and not change just because the “majority” says you should. Why should politics be any different? Why should you believe in something just because everyone else does? That doesn’t make it right. Take the fact that people used to think that cigarettes were not harmful to someone’s health. From the 1930’s to 1950, doctors were the face of cigarette advertisements. While it’s true that research hadn’t been done yet to see the connection between smoking cigarettes and cancer, there were still signs that it wasn’t good for you. The ads often said something along the lines of, “this brand is less irritating to your throat.” If this is the main argument to get customers to buy their product, wouldn’t that be a big red flag? “Oh, it doesn’t hurt as much as it could.” But still, the National Institutes of Health say smoking was beyond common for men and women during this time period, and History.com even says “a majority of [doctors] actually smoked cigarettes.” Over the years, it has become beyond common knowledge that smoking was bad for our health and connected to cancer. This is a great example of the majority not necessarily being right. This doesn’t go to show that just because the majority of people believe something that it’s wrong, but it does prove that it doesn’t automatically mean it’s right. Politics and the electoral college are the same way. Even though a Pew Research Center study shows the majority of people think the electoral college shouldn’t be used anymore or should be adjusted, that doesn’t mean it’s right or the best solution. 

Election after election, cities vote blue, democratic, almost every time. USA Today shows the vote counts by county in every state, and one can easily see the trend of cities voting blue, while suburbs and rural areas vote red. It’s just how it has been and probably will be. A basic human geography course would tell someone that there are significantly more people in the cities than in the suburbs or rural areas. It would also tell someone about cities such as Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago that all have very high populations. In Los Angeles county though, there are more people than there are in 42 other states (counting the 705,749 people in DC as a state since it has 3 electoral votes). Forty-two. The U.S. Census Bureau shows a population of a whopping 10,039,107 in LA county alone as of July 1, 2019. Keeping in mind that cities rarely ever vote red, the large county of Los Angeles has more people than Wyoming, Vermont, DC, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, Montana, Maine, New Hampshire and nearly all of Hawaii put together. Since 5 of these states are commonly voting red, republican, and one is a swing state, the votes in only Los Angeles county will counteract these votes and take over if the U.S. used a popular vote system. As stated before, cities have more people than those in rural areas, and consistently vote blue. Those in different parts of a state need different things to survive and grow up with different morals that change political opinions. If the U.S. went to a popular vote instead of the electoral college, the president and vice president would be voted on almost solely on what those in the city want and need, while those in the rural parts of the country wouldn’t be heard as much for their needs.

As much as people don’t want to admit it, presidential candidates say what people want to hear and will get them the votes. No matter which party or affiliation. This means that a candidate could go to rural areas of the country, like parts of Montana or Wyoming, and claim they are going to do what these people want done, but oftentimes this won’t happen. So with the idea that cities with more votes tend to vote blue, it would be terribly hard for the election to go back to red again. This isn’t saying that one is better than the other, but it is always a good thing to have a change of power and perspective in any situation. In history, we’ve seen what happens when one person or group takes over power, the Nazi’s and holocaust for a very extreme example. Now, term limits do part of this job by changing the power, but perspective won’t change enough to get new things done in the government and push more than just the one agenda.

An election just concluded and a new president was sworn in less than six months ago. The electoral college was at the front of everyone’s mind when awaiting the election results. Another election will come sooner than it may seem and the means by how we vote and what kind of voting happens could determine the winner. In 2000, Al Gore had more votes than Bush, but Bush won the electoral college and the presidency. The same thing happened with Clinton and Trump in 2016, with Clinton winning the popular vote, but Trump winning the electoral college. So no, citizens do not directly vote for the president. They vote for electors that then go vote for the president. It doesn’t matter if person A gets more votes than person B, if person B wins the electoral college, they win. This is a good thing that keeps America moving forward. The last thing we need is a party to gain so much power that it turns into a Hitler and the Nazis situation.

The featured image is a direct screenshot from the video being broken down.