Contributed by Jessica Dunker
It is difficult to be a liberal in a state that is assertively Republican. This country currently suffers from a number of issues: the economic crisis we are navigating amid a health pandemic, food shortage, immigration reform, natural disasters, a chaotic election and the racial unrest and protests building across the nation. All of these are major issues that affect millions of people, Democrats and Republicans both, so when election time comes, it should be every citizen’s right to vote on what we should do about these issues.
What we lack, however, is a truly democratic way to cast our votes that represents the majority and the minority. By only representing the majority when casting a state’s electoral votes, this process only perpetuates the two-party system, giving little to no chance for the minority political parties to participate in an open, democratic race.
To be elected as the President of the United States, the electoral college votes who their state gives their electoral votes to, which is typically based on the state’s majority vote. There are 538 electors in the electoral college. To be considered the president elect, one candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the election. On election night, after the early voting and election day voting polls close, the votes are counted.
For the 2020 election, the states are taking extra time and care to count the mail-in ballots due to the pandemic. These votes must be counted for an accurate result on the popular vote. Based on the popular vote, we can generally determine which candidate each state’s electoral college will cast their electoral votes for.
Most states practice a winner-takes-all approach, except two states: Maine and Nebraska. Maine began splitting their electoral votes in the 1972 election; Nebraska began doing the same in 1992. Maine has a total of four electoral votes, and Nebraska has five votes. Both states cast two votes to the winner of the state’s popular vote. The remainder of the electoral votes in each state (Maine – two, Nebraska – three) are cast to the plurality winner of the popular vote in each congressional district. This way, everyone’s vote feels more represented.
In Tennessee’s presidential elections, the electoral college practices a winner-takes-all approach by giving all 11 of the state’s electoral votes to one candidate. Tennessee has been a majority red state for decades now. The last time Tennessee voted majority blue was in 1996, during Bill Clinton’s administration. Somehow, the same could not be said for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.
I voted for Biden, and despite all my friends who voted blue, when the results showed up on the screen, Biden only took 37% of the state’s vote. I understand what it means: the majority thinks Trump would be best, and in turn, it feels like what I voted does not matter to the election, not in a state where one overwhelming voice chants the status quo and sends all 11 electoral votes to one candidate.
According to a 2018 analysis by 270ToWin, if all 50 states would have adopted the same electoral vote approach as Nebraska and Maine, the outcome would have had Hillary Clinton taking nine additional electoral votes in the 2016 election, but it still would have been a Trump victory.
This change in electoral college for the states would mean better representation for people of both parties.
For example, based on the results of 2020 election, if Tennessee enacted the same split vote approach as Maine and Nebraska, Tennessee could have cast two electoral votes for Biden.
Based on the popular vote from Davidson County (Nashville) in District 5, those who voted for Biden outnumbers the votes from Dickson County and Cheetham County in favor of Trump, meaning that District 5 could have cast one electoral vote for Biden. Likewise, Shelby County (Memphis) in District 9 voted in the majority for Biden, meaning another electoral vote could have been cast to represent the Democrats in Tennessee.
Though Washington County in District 1 was predominantly red, I could feel satisfied in knowing my fellow Democrats could have achieved in gaining two electoral votes from a majority Republican state.
Our founding fathers fought for one principle above all else: a fair, democratic election, a foundation worth challenging the status quo.
