The recent election has brought the United States’ presidential voting system, the Electoral College, into the limelight. Through this system, each state is awarded a number of electoral votes based on its number of representatives in Congress. In all states except Maine and Nebraska, the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in that state is awarded all of the state’s electoral votes. A President then wins the election by receiving at least 270 electoral votes. This system of voting was originally adopted out of fear. The founding fathers were worried both about “tyranny of the majority” and that citizens could be manipulated by a powerful, persuasive individual in a direct democracy. They established the Electoral College to work as a check on the population, creating an additional body to oversee the vote of the President and ensure that the President was competent. In November’s election, Hilary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, outperformed Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in the popular vote by almost 2.9 million people, earning 48.2% of the popular vote as opposed to Trump’s 46.1%. Yet Clinton failed to win the election, earning only 232 electoral votes, compared to Trump’s 306. On January 20, 2017, President Trump [read more]