ISABELLE MULLEN: World’s ‘greatest democracy’? Then why is voting in US so hard

The United States is the leader of the free world. A champion of democracy. Free speech. And liberty.

Like the Statue of Liberty suggests, it is a universal symbol of freedom and hope.

But voting in the US is hard. And so is maintaining its democracy.

Critics often question whether the US really has free and fair voting practices.

That’s because, in US presidential and vice-presidential elections, candidates are not solely elected by popular vote.

Simply, the candidate who gets the most votes won’t necessarily win.

Instead, they need to win over the Electoral College — a group of presidential electors.

Why?

Because the US founding fathers couldn’t agree on whether the president should be elected by the people or by the Congress. So, they went with the best of both worlds.

The Electoral College has 538 electors, which means the next US president will need 270 electoral votes.

The number of electors in each state is determined by how many seats in Congress a state has, and that number is based on the number of people in that state.

In 48 American states, it is winner takes all. The candidate that wins the state, gets all the state’s electoral votes.

The problem is the most popular candidate doesn’t always get the keys to the White House.

To date, five US presidents who lost the popular vote have been elected.

Most recently that was Donald Trump back in 2016. He beat out Hilary Clinton, even though she received 2.8 million more votes.

Trump’s winning ticket was found in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes, Wisconsin by 23,000 and Pennsylvania by 44,000.

Votes in those states were 36 times more important than the almost 3 million votes Hilary Clinton received.

In 2000, it was a similar story. George W Bush won the presidential election, even though Al Gore won the popular vote by 537,179.

Many Americans question whether this is fair. And now there are calls within the US to change to a popular voting system.

That would be difficult to pull off because it would require an amendment to their constitution.

Another issue appearing to threaten this notion of democracy during this election has been the number of rule changes allowed in different states, impacting how people vote ahead of the election.

In nine battleground states, voting rules have changed recently.

Absentee voting has been limited, there are constraints on voting by mail, and new voter ID laws have been implemented.

This year, it’s hard to vote in Georgia.

Georgia’s State Election Board — which has a Republican majority — is preparing to vote on almost one dozen rule changes ahead of the election.

One of the proposed changes is hand-counting the paper ballots in every ballot box to ensure the total matches the total recorded by the vote-counting machines.

New certification rules appear to allow local board members to vote against certifying an election if they can’t examine every election record they request.

People are worried that the integrity of the election results could be questioned.

New rules come into effect on October 14, just three weeks before election day.

New voting rules have also passed in Florida, appearing to make it more difficult to vote.

ID regulations have increased, voters are required to request mail and absentee ballots twice as often as before.

Penalties for third party registration groups have also increased, making it harder for people to vote by other means.

Some states have voted to expand voting access, but not all of them.

And then there’s Trump’s Project 2025, a 900-page policy promising to restructure the US Federal Government if elected.

The policy imposes a much more conservative social vision and gives Trump much more power.

The Democrats say tens of thousands of federal employees who stand in the way of Trump’s vision would be fired and replaced with like-minded officials.

All in the name of democracy.

Isabelle Mullen is a political reporter for 7NEWS