Unquestionably, the Electoral College (EC) relegates tens of millions of votes to irrelevance since presidential votes anywhere outside of a swing state are utterly worthless in gaining electors. In Utah, another 200,000 votes for either Trump or Kamala would not have made a scintilla of difference in determining Utah’s electors. About 90% of all states are similarly situated. For almost a year before the recent election, Reince Prebuis — the former chair of the Republican Party and chief of staff in the Trump administration — proclaimed this election would be determined by 40,000 people who lived in three states. For the vast majority, having their vote count in the same way it would count in a mayoral or gubernatorial election — even where their candidate is crushed — is not in the cards.

The demoralizing and demobilizing effects of the above facts are difficult to overstate. I knew a popularly acclaimed high school history and government teacher who had run for the Utah Legislature as a Republican. For a half-century, he incessantly encouraged the utmost civic participation of his students. After the election of 2000, his hatred of the Electoral College deepened, and eventually he concluded that in Utah voting was absolutely pointless. What is the purpose of trying to alter the outcome of an election that was called months earlier? The Republican Party has effectively owned all of Utah’s electors lock, stock and barrel since 1964; it is certain Utah will have Republican electors months before that party even chooses its nominee.

We will never know how many of the 80 million eligible voters who recently failed to vote nationwide understood that their location made their vote pointless and worthless, except as a footnote regarding the popular vote.

Once upon a time, Utah had a senator who passionately desired fair elections. In 1979, conservative Republican Sen. Jake Garn rose on the Senate floor and denounced the EC as “grossly unfair; it seems too un-American to me that it even exists.” He explained: “I’m not going to defend a system … where the people of my state are told, ‘Your vote is worthless. It does not even count.'” Decades later, in a rare moment of truth telling, Trump declared the EC is a “total disaster for democracy.”

The EC has damaged the political fabric of this nation immensely:

• It elevates the role of money and demotes and makes informed political conversations worthless in about 90% of the states since they are irrelevant to the electoral totals. Money given to a PAC or super PAC or party can be used anywhere, but people must vote where they reside, and the odds are it’s a totally irrelevant location. Money’s mobility allows it to go immediately to the couple of states that will determine the outcome. Steve Bannon and others believe that without Elon Musk’s $277 million to Trump (that amount exceeds the total Trump gained from small donors combined), he would have lost. That money allowed him to persuade some Michigan voters that Kamala was too pro-Israel and Pennsylvania voters that she was too anti-Israel. Unsurprisingly, this election had more money and fewer voters than four years ago.
• It destroys the depth perception of the media and blinds them to the will of the people. When Ronald Reagan won 50.7% of the popular vote in 1980, the media universally declared his win a “landslide.” In what universe is a tad less than 51% a landslide? When Kamala received 48.3% of the popular vote, the media declared her a “weak candidate,” as they have described Gore, John Kerry, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton — all of whom received a higher percentage of the popular vote than Trump did when he won in 2016. Even though Trump, for the first time ever, won the popular vote by 2.5 million out of over 151 million votes cast, Clinton beat Trump by a larger margin: 2.86 million votes. Thus, in his three runs for the presidency, Trump has never done as well with the American people as Clinton did her first time. Choosing the president by popular vote would reduce the media’s ability to traffic in the illusions and delusions that occur when inferences about the American people are drawn from the EC.
• The EC marginalizes political moderates in about 90% of the states since, regardless of the way they vote, all of their state electors will go for one party. Republicans Reagan, Bush and Romney all received over 70% of Utah’s vote; Trump never received over 60%. About 1.4 million in Utah just voted; Trump might have picked up another 10% (140,000 votes) if he was more respectful and civil, etc. But that does not matter because he gained 100% of Utah electors. It is no wonder that turnout is higher in swing states; in swing states, moderate votes are much more likely to matter. The country would benefit if all moderates were heard. Generally, political moderates see the fallacies and problems with the simplistic solutions of the extremes. Their views are more balanced, nuanced, less ideological and more practical. As moderate voices and votes become irrelevant, extremist positions gain more prominence, causing some to shun politics, generating apathy and ignorance. When centrist voices are not heard, the political extremes come to dominate and candidates are unconcerned about bridging and transcending differences. In a one-party state, such as Utah, people will only hear one side of the issues.
• The EC normalizes extremes by sidelining moderates. If moderates had more of a voice, it’s unlikely that QAnon, Trump and Bannon would have ever received so much attention. There was a time — before they were desensitized — when Spencer Cox and Mike Lee refused to vote for Trump because of his vile boast that he could grab women. But both of them now endorse Trump, supporting what Alexander Pope said centuries ago about vice: “We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

If the purpose of the U.S. presidency is to only represent the states comprising this nation — similar to the way the secretary general of the United Nations represents the United States — then a strong case can be made that the EC is a well-considered and wisely designed appropriate approach.

However, if the purpose of the presidency is to represent the American people, then it is difficult to see U.S. presidential elections, which disregard the popular vote, as anything other than a perverse sham. Our continued use of the EC is a hideous and contemptible affront to the American ideals of equality and government by the consent of the governed.

Rick Jones is a retired adjunct teacher of economics from Weber State University.