Complete Overhaul: Electing the President of the United States

» KEY POINTS

• The Democratic and Republican Parties have intentionally created a feeling of hopelessness among voters in order to manipulate the results of elections, especially for President of the United States.
• Eliminating the Electoral College is only the start; it must be replaced with a system that combines ranked choice with negative votes in order to tabulate the actual will of the people.
• Unless election timeframes are extended and results are withheld for at least a week after polls close, then there is the potential for people to feel they still have no voice and instead choose to stay home.

Maybe Donald Trump is right...

Of course, by all measures and statistics he did not win the Presidential election in November 2020, nor was it particularly close. Actual, true, and verified President of the United States Joe Biden won with 81.2 million members of the populace, which translated into 306 votes of the type that matters when electing the leader of the free world. This is in comparison to Mr. Trump’s 74.2 million supporters yielding 232 votes. But perhaps—just perhaps—we actually do not know the real will of all the American people, especially since so many have remained silent. Or more accurately: since so many of them remained home.

Although the 2020 Presidential election had a “massive” turnout by all modern standards, only 62% of the voting age population (VAP) bothered or were allowed to cast a ballot. Further, how many people voted was not evenly distributed across the land. In a key battleground State like Wisconsin the VAP was over 72% while predetermined locations like Oklahoma and New York saw far fewer people make an effort—a VAP of 52% and 56%, respectively. If you live in a State that is just going to support a single Party for President (whether you wholeheartedly back or despise that Party) and the patterns make it unlikely your vote will make an impact, then you are more apt not to show up at all.

Because of that, there is a big question mark on what the other 38% of the country who did not or could not vote thought about either of these candidates or their lesser-known competitors. And frankly, even among those who did vote, it is an open question if they all cast their ballots with their hearts. The cynical and autocratic approach of the Republican and Democratic Parties to create “winner takes all” islands has resulted in a type of voter suppression among the citizenry, one that is based in a hopelessness that the Parties try to manipulate and control.

As an understatement, this is a huge problem that is contributing to the destruction of Democracy.

Unfortunately, that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to voter suppression. For instance, there are sets of people like those living in the Territories who have always been completely excluded from ever having a say. We could spend hours going through all of the marginalized groups and how they have been systematically and intentionally separated from their vote, but there is no need to delve into that now. What this is all coming down to is the most undemocratic, horribly designed, and antithesis of the American experiment we still have left in the Constitution:

The Electoral College

Just knowing that in 2020 its very existence automatically excluded 3.6 million people who lived in the Territories from having a voice and potentially discouraged another 80 million from voting should be enough to prove that this system is as broken today as it was in 1788. I will not mince words: the only reasons to support the Electoral College are because it is self-serving and gives outstripped power in places that would not naturally have it. It is not a “fair” system that was created to make sure cities did not dominate rural areas. On the contrary, it was a compromise between those that wanted a direct vote for President and Vice President and those that wanted Congress to decide who should run the nation. Much like other compromises in the Constitution—namely that slavery could exist in certain areas and that slaves would be counted as 3/5ths a person for representation and taxation purposes—it is far past time to end this archaic travesty of justice.

More crucial than just terminating the Electoral College, though, is making sure the people of the United States are a part of the election process. They will not feel that way unless their voices are truly being heard, starting with the highest office in the land. And the only way that is going to happen is with a specific set of Amendments to the Constitution.

» FIRST THE PERSON...

Where else would we begin amending the Constitution but right at the top:

The President and Vice President of the United States shall be directly elected by the people of all States and Territories here within.

The Constitution does not have to be complicated, but a single sentence saying all people have a say in selecting the President and Vice President is enough!

Actually, though, it is not nearly enough. The method by which to elect the President and Vice President is a different story entirely that must be fully flushed out. Just saying that people should be able to vote for the President and Vice President directly does not actually resolve the core issue because that could just mean directing the Electoral College to vote for the popular winner. This is what has been going on through the date of this release in 2022 with the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” in which States pledge that all of their Electors will go to the popular winner across the nation, but only should the number of States in the compact meet or exceed the number of Electors required to select the President. While a noble goal, it is still a sidestepping of the Constitution and leaves all the same problems of excluding people. Additionally, there are many other issues that also suppress turnout, all of which we will get to forthwith. For now, we also need to focus on widening the playing field:

The President and Vice President shall run together on a single ticket and there shall be no criteria for a President or Vice President to appear on the ballots save for meeting the criteria for each position as stated in the Constitution.

The 12th Amendment to the Constitution attempted to fix errors in how the President the Vice President were elected so that they could not end up being from different political ideologies again. However, it still maintained them as separate positions instead of a single ticket, leaving the potential for disaster. While Political Parties were not imagined by the writers of the Constitution (even though they were already in many different camps of thought), it is a de facto part of human existence that must be accepted.

Yet even though creating groups is a natural expression of Homo Sapien* behavior, many States control which Political Parties and candidates can even appear on the ballot. These States can decide to restrict anyone they want for capricious reasons. There is absolutely no reason to exclude any duo from running for President and Vice President save the conditions as laid out by the Constitution (and even some of those are suspect, but we will leave them all be for the time being).

[ * The author is aware that “Sapiens” is singular and the “S” should not be dropped due to its Latin root. However, since language is free to evolve like species do, the author has chosen to make this evolutionary leap in the name of sounding better. ]

Now, with so many people on the ballot, how are voters to make their selection? Theoretically, the Political Party is irrelevant as anyone could run. Perhaps Political Parties would still conduct primaries and make decisions about how many of their people will appear on the final ticket, but that will be up to them. If someone wants to run and meets the criteria, they should be on the ballot everywhere without exception. Does that mean hundreds of pairings could be on the ballot? Absolutely! Why should choice be limited?

But how do we work through the noise of so much variety? Well, we will take a cue from the 12th Amendment again. The way it is set up now is that if no candidate receives an absolute majority (i.e., greater than 50%) of the Electoral College votes then the top 3 candidates will be sent to the House of Representatives to decide which one should be President. Instead, we can replace that with an instant runoff:

Eligible voters of the States and Territories shall rank their top three choices for President and Vice President and shall also be granted a single vote against a choice for President and Vice President.

Some States and other countries have a system requiring an absolute majority, otherwise there is a runoff race. In the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton had 48% of the popular vote and Donald Trump had 46%. Now, again, we cannot know what the 113 million people who did not or could not vote in that election would have done (far less eligible voters took part in the 2016 election than 2020), so we should assume for now this result reflects the overall desires of the nation. That said, if we extended the “absolute majority” rule with the popular vote, we would end up in the exact same situation.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson had 3% of the vote, Green Party candidate Jill Stein had 1%, and everyone else had another 1% combined. If we wanted a runoff vote with the top 3 people, it is possible Mrs. Clinton could have picked up another 2–3%, but it is just as likely that Mr. Johnson would have scooped up enough to still not elect her, creating a stalemate.

Meanwhile, the expense and time of putting on another election would have been astronomical. Let us not forget that the election was in November and the President assumes office in January. That means a runoff election would have needed to happen somewhere between Thanksgiving and the winter holidays—and could still have resulted in no clear winner. The aforementioned places that do runoff races have dealt with this exact issue and it has resulted in unfilled positions for months on end. That is not acceptable for the President of the United States.

Instead, we can eliminate the guessing game by asking a different question: if your first pick for President cannot be elected, who is your second choice? Who is your third choice? With this, we already have the runoff election completed because we can assign a point value to each of these choices. Also, sometimes people do not have a clear idea of who they want to vote for, but they do know who they do not want as President. That should be reflected in the vote, too, as an allowance for a negative vote.

A value shall be added to each vote such that the first choice gets three points, the second choice gets two points, and the third choice gets one point. Furthermore, the vote against shall subtract two points. The candidates that receive the net highest number of points shall be the President and Vice President of the United States.

Here we lay it out simply: your first choice gets 3 points, your second choice gets 2, and your third choice gets 1. Further, the voters could use their voice to have a candidate lose 2 points. This would not completely negate someone’s first choice vote but would partially remove it while allowing other points to accumulate. Whichever candidate duo has the most net points is the winner as the points would already reflect the main, backup, and tertiary will of the people, along with the one they most strongly do not want.

Let us play this out with some real-world examples using various assumptions:

• Every candidate that received a popular vote was the first choice and would get 3 points for that.
• 90% of Democrats and Republicans would use their negative vote on the opposing Party, as would 40% of all other voters.
• Roughly 1% of votes cast by all other parties would be used against every Third Party and Independent.
• 5% to 10% of every group would use their second and third choices for major parties or third parties, depending on relative political alignment.

This could be modeled forever using a ton of other assumptions, but the idea is to get an impression of where this might fall out. For the 2016 Presidential election the results would have been:

As can be surmised, Hillary Clinton would have won the election based on net points, just not by the same expanse as the popular vote—though the margin would be wider. More so, while they would not get closer to winning in this particular contest, the Third Parties would have received a lot more attention and net points so that it would be more likely they would be recognized in the future. It is worth noting that both Republicans and Democrats engaged in fear mongering during this election by saying a Third Party vote would be a waste or—worse—that it would help their opponent get elected. This is just the oligopoly talking to maintain its power and has nothing to do with reality.

That type of rhetoric impacted the results of the 2020 election and had an immediate downward effect on all Third Parties. Putting that election through the same model produced these results:

The outcome is the same with Joe Biden winning the election, though with a much higher spread. Still, with millions upon millions of eligible people not voting, millions more not allowed to vote, and who knows how many people scared out of voting for who they wanted for fear of the candidate they least liked being elected, it is impossible to say how altered these number would have turned out. It does not necessarily mean the result would have been different or that a Third Party would have won, but perhaps the gaps would not be so large. Maybe a significant number of people would have voted for Third Parties first, Major Parties Second, and used their negative vote for the other Major Party? We cannot tell until we make the change and allow it to happen.

That is also why the popular vote of today is not even a good measure of the will of the people. We do not really know what voters would do, whether they cast a ballot or not. We can take assumptions like above, do projections, and run models to find probable outcomes; but none are real until such a time that we can get more people involved in the voting process.

The Negative Vote is incredibly important in this scheme because it frees people to vote for who they want. Giving people full control and meaning to their selection is the truly virtuous thing to do in a representative democracy. As mentioned earlier, though, a lot more needs to be done to get everyone involved and engaged.

» ... THEN THE PROCESS

The horrors of the Electoral College are one thing; the election process itself is another massive problem.

Per the Constitution, Congress controls when the election is and—as surprising as this sounds—there is no recommendation to change that. You may be among the people who complain that the actual day is stuck in a 19th century mentality of market days, when agrarians would be available to vote. Or you might be among the others who point out that almost all other western representative democracies have their elections on a holiday or a weekend. Of course, all of these views are true, correct, and righteous!

But so are the people who say that elections that are on a holiday or weekend would disproportionately eliminate poorer Americans who work Saturdays, Sundays, and “off hours” at a far higher rate than more well-to-do citizens. One way or another, some group of people is going to be negatively impacted by a single day election. Therefore, the problem is not the day, but the timeframe in which the election happens. We need to build on our current laws with an Amendment to get more people involved, starting with the “when” and “for how long” components:

Elections for Senators, Representatives, and the President and Vice President shall start at least three weeks before the Day chosen by Congress for holding Elections.

Elections being held on one day is truly the issue at hand because it limits the options for people voting in person, remotely, or by proxy. Instead, elections should happen for at least 3 weeks before whatever day is chosen as the “official” election day. Based on the current system, this would put elections starting in mid-October and would go through several weekends.

The Election timeframe may be extended by law but shall not be shortened for any reason.

Further, this Amendment would allow Congress—or any other local municipality—to expand the timeframe even more. Thus, if it makes sense to vote for two months, then that is what will happen; just at a minimum there should be three weeks. One of the issues in the past has always been pegging government functions to the behaviors and customs of the current age, but those do change over the decades and centuries. Flexibility is key, but so is meeting people where they are instead of trying to confine them to the Government’s expectations:

Election polling must be made available when and how it is most convenient for the People of the United States and include hours and days in which the majority do not make labor.

Here, the Amendment has stated that polling stations must be made available at a time that is “most convenient”, in particular that it is when “the majority do not make labor”. In other words, we are talking about “off-hours”.

To answer when that is and how to implement it will always be a rolling equation. If Congress sets polling stations to be open between 12pm and 8pm every weekday and 10am and 4pm on the weekend, then it should cover the vast majority of Americans without as much interference in the workday, at least the workday as defined today. Potentially, Congress or a local polling authority could also alternate days with different hours to allow more plasticity for varied groups of people. Either way, these days and times could be easily and regularly revisited as the habits of society changed, or challenged in court when legislatures and executives refuse to act. The important thing is the options of having voting available and within decent timeframes to get as many people involved as conveniently as possible.

For those who scoff at the cost of doing all this, my questions for you are:

• What should the government spend money on that is more important than having an active, engaged, and represented populace?
• What is the point of having a government at all if it is not spending its funding on the people who are the true rulers of this country?

However, having such a long timeframe can cause a backlash effect if results are made available too soon. Just releasing preliminary numbers before all absentee ballots were counted in the 2020 election has brought us endless conspiracy theories, including from the former President himself. Since the elections are in early November and the President is not sworn in until January 20th, what is the rush to get the results out the door? The only reason is because we are part of a society that demands instantaneous satisfaction and information. Patience is a lost concept in a world where every bit of media is available by saying a few words to an Artificial Intelligence living inside of a hockey puck.

We need to end any potential look of impropriety to bring trust completely back into the election procedure. It does not matter if the concerns of some people are based on a complete fabrication; we want all citizens to believe and know that election results are true and just. The only way we are going to do that is by Amending the Constitution to decelerate the process:

The governing body of each election—Federal or otherwise—shall maintain the secrecy of ballot results until at least seven full days have passed from the Day of Election. This timeframe may be extended by law or in order to have the appropriate time to verify the results, but shall not be shortened for any reason.

One of the reasons why a State like Hawai’i has such low voter turnout (52% VAP in 2020) is because the election is already decided in the middle of their voting day. While another contributing factor is certainly the “my vote does not matter” impact of having an area solidly with one Political Party, the other is the time-zone differential of the elections. Hawai’i is six hours behind the East Coast of the United States and as the years have gone on news outlets have been declaring winners of elections within seconds or minutes of polls closing. If the President is already decided before you get a chance to go vote after work, why would you even bother to do so?

This plays out all over the country and even within States. Releasing even tentative polling results discourages people from going out and voting because there is a feeling of uselessness. While there is nothing that can be done to stop the press and other pundits from making projections, the government does not and should not be part of the process. Additionally, trying to get out election night results puts undo strain on workers that can create mistakes. The method of counting votes should be slow, deliberate, and careful such that by the time the official results are given they are 100% accurate, or as close to that as humanly possible.

To be fair and safe, ballots should be protected for a detailed count, re-count, and verification. And there may be times to extend this process, such as in incredibly close races or if absentee ballots have been delayed—for instance, when troops are deployed in a war zone during a global pandemic. Every vote should have a reasonable chance, and every voter should have the feeling that their voice matters, especially because it would be truer with these Amendments than it is today.

But what can be done to make sure the results are not leaked? There is only one thing we can do:

No member of the governing body of each election may share results or estimates of the elections during this timeframe under penalty of treason.

Doing anything to undermine the election, even the simple act of releasing polling information early, is an attack upon America because it discourages participation. In other words, it is treason. Finally, this level of scrutiny should be extended to all layers of government, ensuring that this same amount of care would be equally applied to the local sheriff race as to that of President of the United States of America.

The above piece is an excerpt from Always Divided, Never United: And Other Stories During a Time of Pandemics and Politics by J.P. Prag, available at booksellers worldwide.

Learn more about author J.P. Prag at www.jpprag.com.

An earlier version of this article appeared on Medium.