尽管离11月还有几个月, 选举季节已经开始, with the first presidential primaries in New Hampshire and Nevada happening last week. 今年, 两位领先候选人之间的竞争, 拜登和特朗普, will be most fierce as Biden’s approval ratings have reached a historic low and Trump’s fraudulent claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election are a factor in the general mistrust from American citizens among the two. 

America’s presidential voting system is the Electoral College, created by the founding fathers. While it may have been successful during the era of the thirteen states, 当然不是在50岁的年代. 选举团制度促进了两党制, 效率非常低, 必须用更好的投票制度进行改革.

 

When the Electoral College was written into the Constitution, 美国没有政党. 没有民主党人, 共和党人, or libertarians – just candidates with beliefs people either agreed or disagreed with. The Electoral College allows a two-party system due to the divide among the sides of the political spectrum. 

例如, let’s 说 that Jill and 詹姆斯 are two candidates for two separate left-leaning parties and that 波利 and Pete are two candidates for two separate right-leaning parties. 在选举日, 说, 德州, 吉尔得到了24%的选票, 詹姆斯得了27%, 波莉得到了32%, 皮特得到了17%. 在这种情况下, although the majority of 51% of Texans wanted a left-leaning candidate to win the election, 右倾候选人, 波利, 赢得了. The Texan's electoral votes went to the candidate that 68% of the people did not want. 这样公平吗??

下一个选举日, the left-leaning Texans decided that a repeat of the previous election would be poor for all of 德州. So, they decide to support 詹姆斯’ party rather than Jill’s, causing Jill’s votes to crumble. The right-leaning parties in the second election are still divided somewhat equally, 导致詹姆斯的政党赢得了选举. 在下次选举中, the right-leaning Texans decide that a repeat of the past election would cause the opposing side to win. So, they decide to support 波利’s party more than Pete's, causing his party to decrease in voters similar to Jill’s. 在三次选举期间, a two-party system has been created in 德州 out of 詹姆斯 and 波利. 

The two-party system, while simple to understand, is detrimental to America. The United States is considered a melting pot of cultures. A two-party system actively eliminates diversity in favor of results. How can America be seen as a fusion of dozens of cultures when it is politically divided by two sides? 答案很简单——它不能. Yet, the Electoral College allows this to take place. 

The 1960 presidential election was between Democratic candidate John F. 肯尼迪和现任共和党总统尼克松. If one were to look at the election through only the eyes of the Electoral College, 肯尼迪以压倒性优势获胜, with Kennedy winning 303 electoral votes and Nixon a measly 219. 然而，普选结果却不一样. The popular vote 说s that Kennedy 赢得了 by a margin of 0.17%, as there was only a 112,827 difference out of 68,838,219 total votes between the two candidates. 1992年的大选也是类似的情况, where democratic candidate Bill Clinton earned 370 electoral votes and Republican incumbent George H. W. 布什仅赢得168票. The gap between the two was 5,805,339 out of 84,014,439. In this particular election, 然而, there was another, now much lesser known, candidate. Ross Perot ran for an independent party and 赢得了 ~18.9%的选票. 他得到的选举人票的数量? 零. The electoral college is inefficient in representing all the parties, as exemplified here. 

The most known candidates from this election are Clinton and H. W. Bush because they are the only ones who earned electoral votes, 不是因为他们占了绝大多数. 接下来的选举, 另一个类似的故事发生了, 罗斯·佩罗成为候选人的地方, 不属于主要的两个, yet received zero electoral votes from the Electoral College. 自1996年以来, there have been no third-party candidates emerging other than the Democratic and Republican ones. The college is inefficient in representing the reality of what the population wants.

There is sadly only one solution to stopping this Electoral College problem: reforming the presidential polling process. One possible successful voting system can be direct ranked-choice voting. 在这个系统中, multiple candidates get sorted into a list by voters from who they’d prefer the most to who they’d prefer the least. Candidates get eliminated based on who the majority votes in. If a voter’s top candidate is the majority’s least top-placed candidate, 该候选人的选票被取消. However, their second-place candidate would be counted instead. This process is continued until there is a candidate with the majority preferredness. 

Not only would this accurately represent the public’s general opinion, 但这将阻止两党制. 回到“吉尔”, 詹姆斯, 波利, 皮特”分析, 如果詹姆斯被选上，但整体表现不佳, the people could put Jill at the top of their vote rather than 詹姆斯. This cycle can repeat endlessly since ranked-choice prevents the possibility of two dominant parties being on the ballot. 

Sadly, the way to push for this reform effectively is by protest. However, it may also be helpful to contact your local congressperson. 如果有足够多的人负责, the Electoral College will be talked about enough for change to be discussed. 就像现在一样, 然而, the Electoral College will reign as an inefficient, 两党支持, 以及不成比例的投票制度.S.这是美国最重要的选举.