Who's afraid of the popular vote?

I know that this is something all of us that pay more than a small amount of attention to presidential politics has heard complaints about at one time or another: The Electoral College.

For those of you who didn't pay attention in civics class or live outside the U.S., the Electoral College is essentially this — A body of people representing the states of the U.S., who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.

See, in the U.S. we don't directly elect the president or the vice president. Sure, we have nationwide elections for the office but we are actually choosing "electors,” who usually pledge to vote for a particular candidates. Each U.S. state is given one elector for each of its U.S. Senator and Representative, so of course, larger states have more.

I, like many others over the years, would like to see it replaced by a popular vote for president.

Of course, if that were to happen we'd still have to decide one thing: Do we want to determine the president by whoever gets the most votes, or plurality, or whoever gets the majority? That's a very important difference.

You see, aside from the infamous elections of 2000, 1888, 1876 and 1826 where the candidate with the most votes lost, we've also had several presidential elections where the candidate who got the most votes won the presidency with lessthan 50 percent of the popular vote.

If you count the elections where the candidate with the most votes lost, you have 18 elections, 12 elections if you don't count the popular vote losers winning, in U.S. history where the winner had less than 50 percent of the votes. This includes both of Bill Clinton's wins, 43.01 percent in 1992 and 49.23 percent in 1996, Richard Nixon with 43.42 percent in 1968 and John Kennedy with 49.72 in 1960.

Now some people will point at that list and say “see, it works out!” But of course, that's when their guy wins.

It's not to say it hasn't worked out in some instances either. After all, I'm not writing the about “quality” of leadership, though the electoral college has a very mixed record on that — remember the George W. Bush presidency after all.

This year, it's very likely that the winner will win the popular vote but won't hit 50 percent plus one. I'm sure some people will be pleased with that and many of them are the same people who cursed the electoral college in 2000 when Bush beat Al Gore.

The most common argument I hear for the electoral college is “well, if we didn't have it, they'd only go to the big population city/states.” That's nonsense though. Less than 10 percent of Americans live in the boundaries of the country's 10 largest cities and only 35 percent live in the 10 largest metro areas, which includes suburbs and exburbs. These cities and metros are also not concentrated in one region or state and not necessarily “liberal” or “conservative” in their voting patterns.

Of course, one can argue that the bigger states would dominate candidates' interest. After all, why bother campaigning for a few hundred thousand votes in Wyoming or Vermont when you can be campaigning for millions in California? The 10 most populous states — California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia — have 50 percent of the U.S. population.

But so what?

Those states already have much more influence than smaller states. California has 53 members in the U.S. House of Representatives while Vermont and Wyoming have one each. Their electoral votes reflect this California has 55 electoral votes and Wyoming and Vermont each have three. So they're still minor states, nothing is going to balance it out.

What the electoral system has done is essentially carve the states into a lot of “this is our state, no need to put much effort in here” and a few “we have to fight for these states.” It has essentially turned the country into three voting blocs, Blue states that Republicans don't bother with, Red states that Democrats don't bother with and Battleground states where almost all their effort goes. If you're not in a battleground state, you're pretty much ignored and often your vote doesn't matter because the people of your state are going to vote overwhelmingly for one candidate over the other. If your vote is going to be tossed, why even bother voting?

If the Electoral College were done away with, then those Red voters in Blue states and Blue voters in Red states would see their votes actually matter in a presidential race. It wouldn't be “Candidate X won Arkansas, all the Arkansas votes for Candidate Y can be tossed.” Can anybody justify doing that to people who turn out in the rain, cold and wind to wait in lines going around the block to get to the voting booth?

Which leads us to “third party” supporters, as they are called.

Those are people who are told “you're throwing away your vote” when they vote their conscience. It's not very fair to them nor is it to their candidates who are labeled “spoilers” by some and “nobodies” by others. If a candidate is able to get on enough ballots to win, don't they deserve a level playing field too? Should their supporters' votes go in the trash as well?

That's why I believe we should not only ditch the electoral college, but also a runoff election if a candidate fails to garner 50 percent plus one of the popular vote.

There are two ways to handle this: A runoff election or instant runoff voting.

Instant runoff voting is the simplest to explain, but also the more complicated of the two. Essentially, when you vote, you get a list of all the candidates who each have a box by their name. Using these boxes, you choose your favorite candidate by giving them a “1” and then your preferred alternative a “2” and then other candidates a “3” or “4” and so on, depending how long the list of candidates you are willing to vote for is. Less complicated ballots have the candidates listed twice, with on list for your first preference and the other for your “alternate preference.”

You see, simple sounding but at the same time, pretty complicated to pull off — but you'd at least know the winner right away.

The other one, a second round of elections is also easy to explain and probably easier to put in place.

A second round of elections means that the two candidates with the most votes go head to head in a one-on-one election after the general election. This means that the other candidates who didn't get enough votes to be in the top two are out of the runoff round.

While they may be out as candidates, the losers are also given a great amount of power considering the people who voted for them may be the deciding factor in who ultimately wins. The top two would have to win over those voters and which means the top-two hopefuls may need to seek the endorsements of their former rivals to win.

How much longer would a second round draw out an election? There's nothing set in stone. France held its last run-off election two weeks after the regular election in 2002 while Peru had its second round presidential election 57 days after the general election in 2016. I would hope the U.S. would stay toward the shorter end, allowing enough time for one last debate between the candidates.

In the U.S., Donald Trump and Hillary would be vying for not only voters who probably didn't show up for the first round, but also people who voted for Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party. According to FiveThirtyEight.com's polls-plus forecast, Clinton will have 48.6 percent of the popular vote, Trump 43.7, Johnson 6.2 and other candidates, including Stein will have 1.5 percent of the popular vote.

That means that Clinton only needs 1.4 percent plus one vote to win in a hypothetical runoff election. In order to win a runoff, Trump would have to not only win all of Johnson's supporters, but also 0.1 percent of those who voted other and a plus one, which would be very difficult to achieve, especially if many of Johnson's supporters decided to stay home.

Of course, people would still be unhappy with that result, or any, but that's just a regular part of democracy.

So someone may still ask “why go to a majority popular vote if the results are largely the same?”

Why? Because it not only opens the door a little bit more for those parties that aren't the Big D or Big R, but also gives them power even if they lose. It's closer to the American ideal that we have in the modern age, where everyone gets a fair shake and an equal voice. Instead of being told “you're throwing your vote away” and “don't hand the election to ______,” they're going to be told “we need your vote” and asked “what do we need to do

for your vote?”

That my friends, are what presidential elections are supposed to be about.