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America’s deeply flawed electoral system is anything but ‘democratic’

Clive Glaser
By Clive Glaser
23 Oct 2024
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Why don’t we talk more about the craziness of the American electoral system? For the so-called ‘leader of the free world’ it has a remarkably archaic and skewed democracy.

Where to begin? The thing that jumps out at you first about the US political system is the electoral college. Two out of the past six American presidential elections have been won by the person who lost the national vote (Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016.)

The Democrats have won the popular vote in all but one of those elections and yet they have held the presidency for only half of the years between 2000 and 2024. Aside from a few minor exceptions, states pledge all their electoral college delegates to the winner.

Because most states are comfortably controlled by one party or the other, the presidential election is effectively fought in only seven states where the outcome is not already clear from the start. The election is determined by what happens in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina (a relatively recent addition to swing-state status), Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

The margins are so tight in these states that just a few thousand votes either way decides the winner. In virtually every serious democracy in the world, the winner of the popular national vote wins.

But the US is stuck in a late 18th-century time warp in which the constitution basically tried to appease smaller states coming into the union.

Very few states will accept a change to proportional voting because that would dilute their own influence in the electoral outcome. You certainly won’t get Republicans agreeing to a constitutional change when they get to win without the popular vote. (If you look at the way votes are spread, it’s hard to see how it could ever happen the other way around.)

So, Kamala Harris will probably win the popular vote again (like Hillary Clinton, who won a solid 51% of the vote in 2016) and yet more than likely the US will still get a Republican president.

That would make it the third time in seven elections that the loser wins. And this time it’s not just an ordinary Republican, but a malevolent, bat-shit crazy one.

The Senate


Where next? Let’s look at the great institution of the US Senate. Even more than the electoral college, the Senate was designed as a sop to smaller states.

Each state gets two representatives to the Senate irrespective of size. So, Wyoming, with a population similar to Bloemfontein, gets two senators and California, the seventh-largest economy in the world with 39 million people, gets two senators.

There are small Democratic-controlled states and big Republican-controlled states as well, some argue, so it all balances out. But it doesn’t.

There are more small, rural Republican states than small Democratic states. Moreover, the District of Columbia, always solidly Democrat and with a substantially bigger population (the majority black) than the likes of Wyoming and Alaska, gets no Senate representation. Again, some archaic compromise from the distant past about the capital territory not having the status of a state.

Republicans have controlled the Senate for much of the time Democrats have been in power in recent decades. None of this would matter if the Senate were, like the House of Lords in the UK, a largely symbolic house which could only review and delay legislation.

But it is probably the most powerful body in the US. It can veto any meaningful legislation and, frighteningly, it effectively controls the composition of the Supreme Court and federal courts because it has the power to veto any nominee.

This is why Barack Obama could not appoint his nominee to the Supreme Court and why Donald Trump was able to push through three new extremist appointments in his four-year term.

Another democratic anachronism


The Supreme Court, in spite of the Democrats winning the popular presidential vote in all but one election since 1992, now has six out of nine Republican appointees. And five of those are off-the-charts right-wing extremists (I don’t think I’m exaggerating, given their record on reproductive rights for women, environmental regulation, presidential immunity from prosecution and state rights to gerrymander.)

Judges, by the way, are appointed for life, which is another democratic anachronism. So Frat Boy Brett Kavanaugh and the Handmaiden from Hell Amy Coney Barrett will be around until they’re tripping over their Zimmer frames in the 2060s.

There has to be some sort of term limit, surely? There have been suggestions from US lawyers to set term limits and to ensure a certain number of new picks for each president. But the American public doesn’t seem ready for such “drastic” change.

Finally, let’s look at the other great democratic institution, the House of Representatives. It is made up of 438 constituency representatives. The states are at least assigned representatives in proportion to their populations.

But each state has wide powers to set the rules of voting and constituency allocation. Both big parties abuse this power by gerrymandering constituencies to ensure safe seats and corralling opposition votes to reduce their impact. Only about 40 or 50 constituencies are actually genuinely competitive.

The Supreme Court, of course, recently upheld gerrymandering, arguing that the federal government has no right to interfere.

Read more: Why South Africa’s democracy is working better than the US

Aside from gerrymandering, state legislatures create their own voting rules. It is well known that southern states with big black populations use every constitutionally acceptable trick in the book to suppress the black vote.

For example, in some states anyone with a criminal record (including for minor drug possession) is excluded from the voters’ roll; registration can be made very complicated; voting stations can be placed unequally. Each state has its own rules about postal and early ballots.

Basically, it’s a mess because the US rejects the idea of an independent electoral commission (as most mature democracies have) to ensure nationwide electoral rules and standards. Once again, the sanctity of not interfering in state affairs.

The US also has incredibly loose rules about campaign funding. Attempts to place limits on massive individual donations were thwarted by the invention of what they call Political Action Committees (PACs). These organisations are not officially linked to any specific campaign, but are able “privately” to support candidates. There are no limits to PAC donations.

Seriously? The Supreme Court, as we might expect, upheld the rules around PACs when they were challenged in court. This doesn’t necessarily help one party more than the other, but it entrenches the influence of big business and super-wealthy individuals on American elections.

Read more: After the Bell: Why Trump is winning

Defenders of the American system tell me that it will all work out in the end because the system has built-in “checks and balances”. Does this look balanced to you? Why aren’t there mass demonstrations in the streets calling for an overhaul of the political system?

The truth is, I don’t think most Americans really care about democracy. According to polls, it ranks low on their list of concerns, in spite of one candidate attempting a coup after losing the last election.

Perhaps if they had experienced living under an authoritarian regime, they might think differently. As long as they can carry on stocking up on their consumer goods and driving their oversized cars, who cares about a trifling thing like democracy?

If I sound angry, that is because I am. The fate of America affects all of us. A few thousand voters in seven swing states will determine who will be the most powerful human being on Earth.

I wait with dread to hear the results on 6 November. Are the Republicans really going to win a third time in seven presidential elections without the popular vote? DM

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