Every vote should count in every election

We elected U.S. President Barack Obama to a serve a second term Tuesday, but how did it happen?

We’re not talking about poll numbers that forecasted a different winner. We mean the process itself that we use every four years to elect our president and vice president.

A caller Wednesday morning said she liked our get-out-and-vote editorial Tuesday, but was disappointed her vote didn’t count. We tried to explain that of course Alaska’s votes are counted, but she said that’s not what she meant. She wanted her vote to be vital, to matter to presidential candidates. To count.

When we voted as kids for homecoming queen and class president, we tallied the number of votes cast and the candidate with the most votes was named the winner.

But that’s not even close to how we picked our president on Tuesday.

We use the Electoral College to select our president and vice president, not a popular vote like when we picked the class president in fifth grade. Some say this system is a flawed fossil, but changing it requires a constitutional amendment.

One proposed solution is the National Popular Vote bill. Several states and the District of Columbia already have passed the bill, which would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

As is, each state has the power to allocate its electoral votes — which are equal to the number of Senators and Representatives each state has. Thus, Alaska has three Congressional members and three electoral votes.

Remember this summer when the Republican and Democratic parties caucused? They voted months ago which candidate would receive all of Alaska’s electoral votes, after winning the popular vote here.

If you’re confused, that itself may be an argument for the more straightforward popular vote selection process.

On Tuesday, our vote was more about providing direction to those three people picked to deliver our electoral votes than it did directly voting for the man who will lead us for the next four years. As is usually the case, Alaska’s three votes eventually filled in as red on the electoral map. But our distinctive shape didn’t light up on some boards until the next day, hours after a winner had been declared.

Since generally candidates assume Alaska will light up red at the end of the night, presidential candidates don’t make it a point to come here to campaign for our three electoral votes. Mostly, candidates campaign only in “swing” states, states that could go red or blue on election night.

Aside from leaving us feeling like our votes for president don’t count in Alaska, the current winner-take-all system also can elect candidates as president who did not win the popular vote. Perhaps most memorably this occurred during the 2000 election, when Al Gore won the popular vote by about 500,000 votes nationwide, but received only 266 electoral votes to George W. Bush’s 271.

Several states already have passed the National Popular Vote bill, but it won’t be enacted unless enough states pass it to tally 270 electoral votes.

Perhaps something like this is what that caller had in mind Wednesday, something to ensure that every vote matters, in every state, in every presidential election.