![]() ![]() In Michigan, Trump beat Clinton by just 10,000 votes, but he got every single one of their 16 Electoral College votes, while she got zero. Yet she got 100% of Minnesota’s 10 Electoral College votes, while Trump got zero. Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by just 45,000 votes in Minnesota, winning 46.4% to 44.9%. In 2016, this resulted in over 52 million votes being ignored in the presidential election – that is hardly being counted equally.Īll but two states (Maine & Nebraska) assign all their Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote in that state-regardless of the margin of victory. “One person, one vote!” This principle is violated by the way we elect our president.īecause of the winner-take-all system of allocating Electoral College votes, the only votes that count are those for the person who wins the state in which they were cast. Whether you’re white or black, rich or poor, from Rapid City, SD or Cedar Rapids, IA, your vote should count the same as the vote of anyone else. It has made our presidential elections the least democratic of all our elections.Īt the core of democracy lies a simple principle-that all votes should count equally. There is no democratic justification for it. Yet that is no justification for allowing the states to create even more-especially when the consequence of that inequality is to systematically skew the focus of presidential campaigns.There is no good reason for this inequality. The Constitution, through the Electoral College, creates some inherent inequality. It is time for the Supreme Court to end this. Over 52 million votes were ignored in the 2016 election because of winner-take-all. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment guarantees that all of us, and all of our votes, must be treated equally under the law. The First Amendment says that a government can’t rig the system against one political view or another. We believe this system violates our amended Constitution. Yet those are the only states any candidate ever cares to persuade. 99% of spending in 2016 was in those 14 battleground states. How does it do that? Because of winner take all, the only states that any candidate ever campaigns in are the battleground states. All it does nationally is to assure that the President does not get elected by all the people. Yet once (practically) all states had adopted it, it no longer amplified the power of any particular state. It was adopted initially by states to give themselves more power in the presidential election. The winner take all system for allocating of electoral college votes is not in the Constitution. We’re challenging this unequal, “winner take all” system under both the First Amendment to our Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In almost every state, if you don’t vote for the candidate who wins your state, your vote counts for nothing in the Electoral College. The president is elected by the Electoral College.
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