The Paradox of the American Democracy

• 12.02.2016, 11:49
• Liana Hovhannisyan
•  America,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World

After the US presidential elections, the American media is full of various articles that question the productivity of the US Electoral College and make suggestions to change it.

Such opinions in the American public sector started to be circulated even more actively, when it became clear that the popular votes for Clinton were around 2.000.000 more than the votes given to Trump. It should be noted that in the history of the US presidential elections this is not the first and single case. For example, in 2000 Democrat candidate Al Gore got 500.000 more popular votes than the Republican candidate George Bush, but the latter won the elections.

What is the paradox? According to the US Constitution, the population does not directly elect a president; they do it via voices of the electors. In addition, in the US 48 states and in Washington, the principle “winner-takes-all” applies. That is, if, for example, one of the candidates is ahead by only one percent of the votes, he gets all the votes of the electors in that particular state. This is the reason why a candidate can get the majority of the popular votes from all the US states but still lose the elections not getting the majority of the electors’ votes.

It is not the first time that the issue of the productivity of the Electoral College is being raised in the US. During the last 200 years more than 700 suggestions have been made to change or to completely get rid of that system; however none of them were approved by the US Congress.

It can be stated that the opinions circulated in the US media on the issue are more than grounded and logical. It turns out that because of the Electoral College system in the US presidential elections, a candidate, who does not get the majority of the popular votes, can still become a US president. If we consider this for the countries, where direct voting applies, such as the Republic of Armenia, we can easily come to a conclusion that the candidate is simply not legitimate.