Donald Trump’s road to the presidency has been many things, but above all it has been complex. His victory reveals a great deal about the relationship between institutions and human rights violations, and the history of the Electoral College demonstrates the importance of combating violators of human rights as well as the institutions that support them.
As benign as this institutional arrangement may seem, [the Electoral College's] history is steeped in a legacy of slavery, discrimination, and racism. The US is a representative democracy in which presidents are elected through a unique combination of popular votes and electoral votes. Individual citizens determine the former, whereas electoral representatives from each state decide the latter. Currently, the Electoral College consists of 538 votes: 100 for senators, 435 for congressmen, and 3 for the District of Columbia. The first presidential candidate past 270 votes wins the presidential election regardless of the popular vote. So, for example, in this election Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by anywhere between 1.5 to 2 million votes, but Mr. Trump ultimately won the election by collecting the majority of electoral votes. Defenders of the Electoral College argue that the system insulates the executive branch from the whims of an uninformed public, and balances power between sparsely populated rural states and densely populated urban states. However, as benign as this institutional arrangement may seem, its history is steeped in a legacy of slavery, discrimination, and racism. As a result, in practice, it systematically undervalues minority voters.
The election of Barack Obama in 2008 demonstrates the potential for anyone—regardless of race, ethnicity, or background—to aspire to the US presidency. However, President Obama’s success at the polls should not distract from the fact that the Electoral College has traditionally been, and continues to be, institutionally biased toward rural, white voters.
