“Get Out and Vote” was a folksy song that blasted every Election Day out of our AM radio in the kitchen when I was growing up over fifty years ago. My parents always did, taking me into the curtained voting booths until the kindly ladies working the polling stations said I was too old. My mother placed a poster of the presidents on my bedroom wall in second grade, and for some reason, I memorized them in order. The presidents and elections have been in my blood and brain since.

            Yet, I am disenfranchised, at least at the presidential level. Likely, you are too. I do get to vote, but technically, I, we, our votes do not count. Who does? Those people in select battleground or swing states will be lavished with ads and attention until November fifth. That is where the candidates go, and arguably, there is no reason to visit anywhere else.

            I live in Indiana which Donald Trump will carry. Next door in Illinois. Kamala Harris will win. I used to live and work in Michigan, but now that is a different story. Their votes matter. The Wolverine state is one of just SEVEN states in the news that will decide: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Voters in those states are really important, especially among the undecided.

            It wasn’t always this way. In 2016 there were fifteen potential swing states. Back in the fifties through the seventies almost half the electorate was in play. Political polarization coupled with technology has taken more states off the map.

            Former President and GOP nominee Donald Trump is fond of saying “Nobody has seen anything like it.” When it comes to how we choose our chief executive, that is true. No twenty-first-century democracies do anything like the…electoral college.

            Thank you, Founding Fathers, for your magnificent yet flawed document. Their creation of the Electoral College means that in 2024 a small percentage of voters will select the next president of the United States. There are 538 electoral college votes with 270 needed to win. The seven swing states have ninety-three of them, less than twenty percent of the total. The United States has approximately one-third of a billion people, and these seven states represent 61.4 million, or about 18.4% of the population. If ninety percent of voters in those seven states have already decided, that means that less than two million people are going to choose the next president.

            Those Founding Fathers were at odds about how to select a Chief Executive. Remember, it was George Washington’s job as long as he wanted it. Political parties did not exist yet. They anticipated multiple candidates after George, which potentially meant Congress would decide as it had to in 1800 and 1824 but not since. Many did not trust that the common people were capable of selecting the President, so the idea of electors was devised. The literacy rate was barely in double digits around 1800, although I’m not sure that people getting information from their selected social media sites today is any better. I long for the days of Walter Cronkite.

The Electoral College was a good idea at the time and usually worked out fairly well. Only five times in history has the winner of the popular vote NOT won the Electoral College. The problem is that in two of the last six elections, the winner of the popular vote did not capture the White House.

Since the Republican nominee won each of those times, there is little chance that the GOP will support abolishing our present system and go strictly to the popular vote. Since 1992, the Democratic nominee has won the popular vote seven of eight times, with only George W. Bush defeating John Kerry in 2004 by three million votes. Democrats won the other contests by an average of five and a half million votes quadrennially, but since 92, California has voted Democratic, skewing the numbers.

What a political summer! President Joe Biden had the worst debate performance in history, former president Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt, Biden reluctantly agreed to end his plans for reelection, and Vice-President Kamala Harris quickly consolidated the Democratic Party and captured the nomination. A second debate introduced the nation to Harris, but little has changed in the polls all summer. Although he has been out of office for almost four years, this election does feel like a referendum on Donald Trump.

It would take a Constitutional Amendment to alter the electoral process for 2028. There have only been seventeen amendments in the last two hundred and thirty-three years since the Bill of Rights in 1791.

No matter where you live and what impact you have on the next resident of the White House, please get out and vote. There are other offices and referendums on ballots nationwide. Exercise your rights, express your opinion, and participate in our democracy. That’s what makes America great.