US voting system is flawed
Published:Monday | February 17, 2025 | 9:32 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
The US presidential Electoral College voting system is highly and unnecessarily controversial, flawed, and some would even say downright anti-democratic. The US is the only country in the free world where the general elections are not won by the popular vote or, put another way, by the set of votes cast by a majority of the national electorate. How can an electoral system be deemed fair, valid and democratically sound when the will of the majority is superseded/stampeded by the results of the Electoral College?
Were there no Electoral College voting system in the US, Hillary Clinton would have won the 2016 presidential election against her rival Donald Trump. In that election, the ‘losing’ candidate amassed over two million more votes than the ‘winning’ candidate.
It seems to me that the Electoral College system in the US needs to be eliminated. In essence, the co-existence of two separate voting rules in one election and the belief that such a system will continuously be stable, fair and sustainable. This is as logical as a rattlesnake and a dove cohabiting and not expecting that at some point the dove be bitten and/or eaten by the snake.
PATRICK GALLIMORE