Vie Miller CP#4

I’ve always been told that the residents of other countries pay attention to American politics and the American political system. I certainly got that impression from Kubra, who asked about the American electoral system during a recent meeting. Kubra is very educated and already knows the difference between direct and representative democracy (I’m sure she could actually lecture me in it!). What was harder to explain was the United States’ Electoral College, for a similar institution does not exist in Turkey. Taking hold of a plate of salad and a spoon that were sitting on the table in front of us, I shifted roughly a quarter of the salad to one side of the bowl and the larger portion to the other; each portion of salad represented the number of votes for one of two candidates. I then explained that the Electoral College is a ‘winner-take-all’ system in which only one candidate can win a state (the bowl) and its assigned number of seats in the Electoral College. That is somewhat fair in states where there is clearly a preference for one candidate--a situation represented by the current division of salad in the bowl. But in states where the number of votes--the portions of salad--were similar, the situation becomes trickier: a small number of votes for one candidate over another will result in ALL of the state’s votes given to the candidate who won while opposition’s votes are effectively meaningless. I asked Kubra’s impression of the Electoral College, and she responded that it has the potential to produce unfair outcomes.