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I

n the early days of our 
republic, our founders were 
faced with a question of 

lasting significance; how should 
our president be chosen? Two 
potential answers arose and came 
into conflict with one another. 
Some founders supported the 
idea of choosing the president 
with a simple popular vote by the 
American 
people. 
Conversely, 

others thought Congress alone 
should select the president. 

This debate gave way to a solution 

in the middle. The president would 
neither be selected exclusively by 
a popular vote nor by Congress. 
Our chief executive would instead 
be chosen by a body of electors, a 
system that is widely known today 
as the Electoral College.

The Electoral College is one of 

the most remarkable inventions of 
our framers. It gives a tremendous 
amount of power to the people 
to directly choose the president, 
which is critical in a representative 
democracy like ours. But the 
Electoral College isn’t based on 
the popular vote alone. If that were 
the case, presidential candidates 
would likely focus solely on the 
largest states, like California, New 
York and Texas. It gives a higher 
degree of representation to small 
states like Wyoming and Alaska 
that would otherwise be forgotten. 
Through this unique system, every 
state in our republic matters. 

244 years since United States 

was founded, the Electoral College 
continues 
to 
determine 
the 

outcome of presidential elections 
every four years. But recent trends 
across the country have eroded the 
advantages of this system.

A critical component of the 

Electoral College is that major 
population centers don’t hold 
all of the power. That was true 
at first, but the framers could 
never have anticipated the rapid 
population growth of the United 
States. 

When 
this 
system 
was 

enacted, the total population of 
our country was less than four 
million people according to the 
1790 census. Today, the U.S. has 
more than 330 million people. 
But this dramatic jump doesn’t 
tell the whole story. Since more 
than 80% of Americans live in 
urban areas today, the Electoral 
College no longer represents 
the true heart of America. It 
inadvertently silences the voices 
it was intended to amplify.

There 
are 
a 
number 
of 

proposals that have been floated 
to remedy the Electoral College. 
Arguably the strongest is the 
congressional district method: 
reforming the system to allocate 
electoral votes on the basis of 
congressional districts instead 
of entire states. At the moment, 

with the exception of Nebraska 
and Maine, each state awards 
its electors through the winner-
take-all method. The candidate 
that receives the highest tally 
(technically, even if they win a 
state by a single vote) receives all 
of that state’s electoral votes. For 
instance, in the 2020 presidential 
election, Democratic president 
Joe Biden took all of Georgia’s 16 
electoral votes despite winning 
the state by a slim 0.3%.

This becomes more and more 

problematic as the U.S. continues 
to rapidly urbanize. Because 
48 out of 50 states award their 
electoral 
votes 
according 
to 

the 
winner-take-all 
method, 

urban and suburban areas have 
become unusually important. If 
a presidential candidate can run 
the table in a dense population 
center, they can virtually ignore 
the rest of the state. 

Instead of giving a voice to 

every American, the current 
system places far too much 
emphasis on a small group of 
cities. Right here in Michigan, 
much of the vote is determined 
by Metro Detroit, which contains 
more than 40% of all Michigan 
residents. The same is true in 
Chicago, New York City, Los 
Angeles and numerous other 
cities.

If the Electoral College awarded 

votes on the basis of congressional 
districts, we could effectively solve 
this problem. Determining the 
winner according to congressional 
districts would give the entire 
country a say in choosing our next 
president. While forgotten rural 
areas, in particular, would have 
the representation they deserve, 
our suburbs and urban areas 
would still have considerable 
power. Every district would be 
given a voice, and many more 
areas across the nation would be 
in play. It would become normal 
to see a Republican candidate visit 
a state like California, and to see a 
Democratic candidate visit Texas.

On the national scale, the 

congressional district method 
would 
closely 
mirror 
how 

Nebraska and Maine already 
award their electors. Instead 
of the top candidate in a state 
securing all electoral votes, each 
congressional 
district 
would 

be worth one vote, since every 
congressional district is home 
to roughly the same number of 
people. After the congressional 
districts award their votes, the 
remaining two electors (one for 
each senator) would be allocated 
to the state popular vote winner.

This proposal might initially 

seem to disproportionately favor 
the 
Republican 
presidential 

candidate since large blue states 
often have red districts who 
would give electoral votes to 

Republicans. For instance, in 
the 2020 presidential election, 
Republican 
candidate 
Donald 

Trump 
won 
congressional 

districts across Michigan and 
Pennsylvania even though he lost 
both states. Under the current 
system, Trump was awarded 
no electoral votes from either 
of these states; a reformed 
Electoral College would allocate 
a substantial number of votes 
to Trump. The same would be 
true in New York and California, 
states Biden won handily despite 
Trump performing well in rural 
areas.

But awarding votes on the basis 

of congressional districts benefits 
the 
Democratic 
presidential 

candidate too. For example, Biden 
won congressional districts in 
Texas, Florida and Ohio despite 
losing all three of these states. 
Under the winner-take-all model, 
Biden didn’t earn any electoral 
votes from these states. This 
new Electoral College would 
have awarded Biden a significant 
number of electoral votes that he 
didn’t receive under the current 
system.

If the Electoral College were 

reformed, both Republican and 
Democratic candidates would pick 
up votes in areas that otherwise 
would have been glossed over by 
the winner-take-all method. It 
truly is a system that is fairer to 
both sides. It also makes elections 
more competitive, giving every 
candidate a fair shot. Had the 
congressional 
district 
method 

been used in 2016, Democratic 
candidate Hillary Clinton would 
have lost the electoral college by a 
much narrower margin. The same 
would be true in 2020, with Biden 
prevailing over Trump with fewer 
electoral votes. 

Finally, this proposed system 

takes the emphasis off of states 
as a whole and focuses instead 
on individual districts, which are 
smaller areas that have clearer 
needs and priorities. This is 
especially important in larger 
states. For example, California 
has 53 congressional districts, all 
of which have unique situations. 
The people of California lack a 
voice when a state of nearly 40 
million people is treated as one 
unit.

Choosing the president of 

the United States is no simple 
matter. But if we want our chief 
executive to truly be a reflection 
of the will of the people, we 
need to take steps to make sure 
all corners of our republic have 
a say. If our founders had the 
opportunity to live in 2021, they 
would want nothing more than 
that.

KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMNIST

10 — Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ANYA SINGH | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT ANYAS@UMICH.EDU.

T

he 
Republican 
reaction 

to 
Twitter’s 
decision 

to 
permanently 
ban 

former President Donald Trump is 
emblematic of today’s Republican 
Party: hypocritical and purposefully 
misleading. 
Claiming 
that 
it’s 

unconstitutional 
for 
Twitter, 
a 

private company, to ban Trump from 
their platform grossly misinterprets 
what the First Amendment says 
plainly: “Congress shall make no law 
… abridging the freedom of speech.”

The key word in the First 

Amendment 
that 
often 
gets 

overlooked is Congress. The First 
Amendment is supposed to protect us 
— the people — from the government. 
It is not meant to protect us from 
the social consequences that may 
arise because of our speech. It is not 
possible for private companies to 
violate the First Amendment. 

Republicans, while claiming to 

be the party of the Constitution, 
are lying to the American people — 
some of whom now believe that a 
private company is liable under the 
First Amendment. This goes beyond 
Twitter banning Trump. 

Simon & Schuster, a publishing 

company, 
announced 
it 
was 

canceling Sen. Josh Hawley’s, R-Mo., 
book publication for his role in the 
attempt to overturn the election 
results. Hawley responded by saying 
that the situation was “a direct assault 
on the First Amendment.”

Hawley 
is 
a 
constitutional 

lawyer 
who 
clerked 
for 
U.S. 

Supreme Court Chief Justice John 
Roberts. He knows that a private 
company cannot “assault” the First 
Amendment. Hawley, Trump and 
other Republicans who are well-

versed in the true meaning of the 
First Amendment are exploiting the 
political polarization of today to give 
themselves more political power at 
the expense of the United States and 
its citizens.

Simon & Schuster and Twitter 

— as well as the other social media 
companies that deplatformed Trump 
— are not government entities, and 
thus cannot be held accountable 
under the First Amendment. Trump 
broke its terms of service, giving 
Twitter every right to ban him and 
preventing a viable lawsuit from 
taking place. Hawley engaged in 
behavior that Simon & Schuster 
didn’t want associated with their 
brand. The Constitution does not 
guarantee Americans a right to a 
Twitter account or a book deal. 

Rather than a disagreement over 

policy or values, American political 
discourse 
has 
transcended 
to 

disagreement over fact perpetuated 
by purposeful lies. Republicans 
are telling their voters, and all 
Americans, things that are simply 
not true. 

The most prominent lie is that 

President Joe Biden is not the rightful 
president and that Trump lost due 
to rampant voter fraud, which led 
to an insurrection at the Capitol in 
January and continues to threaten 
our democracy. One solution is to 
prevent the spread of this dangerous 
information 
through 
sources 

that anyone can access, like social 
media sites. These platforms play a 
central role in our daily lives, which 
necessitates their proactivity rather 
than retroactivity.

Twitter was right to ban Trump. 

He has been tweeting falsehoods 

for months, which dramatically 
increased 
in 
number 
and 

destructiveness since the election 
in November — culminating when 
he was removed from Twitter after 
the events in January. But while 
the actions taken by social media 
companies to ban Trump and purge 
other misinformation from their 
sites was the right action to take, it is 
possible that beginning to take serious 
action against misinformation in 2021 
is too little, too late. 

The repercussions of waiting to 

curtail the spread of misinformation 
could have serious consequences all 
over the world. German Chancellor 
Angela Merkel and Russian opposition 
leader Alexey Navalny have both 
expressed concern about free speech 
in the wake of a private company 
banning such a prominent figure 
in world politics. Their arguments 
have merit and demonstrate how 
dangerous it was for tech companies 
to allow misinformation on their 
platforms for such long periods of time 
in the first place. 

There are several actions that 

the government or the companies 
themselves can take to show they 
are trying to prevent lies from being 
spread on these platforms. People 
have called for the tech companies to 
be more transparent in their actions, 
such as setting up a committee 
to make decisions about banning 
users and flagging tweets with clear 
standards that they adhere to. 

Twitter and the First Amendment

LYDIA STORELLA | COLUMNIST

Lydia Storella can be reached at 

storella@umich.edu.

EVAN STERN | COLUMNIST

Evan Stern can be reached at 

erstern@umich.edu.

Why we should give the congressional 

district method a try

I 

have many fond childhood 
memories at my local GameStop, 
a 
tiny 
store 
in 
Somerset 

Collection Mall nestled between a 
candle shop and the public restrooms. 
Back in the days before Twitter and 
Instagram, when Amazon was just a 
bookseller who struggled to compete 
with Borders, I spent my time in a 
magnificent little nerdy paradise 
containing a catalog of video games 
dating back to the 1990s and extending 
up to the newest releases. 

While my sisters and parents 

went around the mall running their 
errands, I was sure to be in the shop 
chatting up the workers or playing the 
demo game set up near the entrance. 
Then, sadly, the Internet boomed, 
brick and mortar stores like this 
became increasingly obsolete, and 
this chain fell in stature alongside so 
many others. 

However, this is only half of this 

story. The other side begins in quite 
possibly the complete opposite of 
metro Detroit — Wall Street. 

Typically, when we think of Wall 

Street, we think of the big institutional 
investors like JPMorgan Chase, 
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs 
and so on, but these organizations 
are just one piece of the financial 
world. Instead of these traditionally 
beneficial actors, this story focuses 
on the shadowy world of hedge funds.

Hedge funds are kind of like shadow 

banks for uber-wealthy consumers 
who are willing to take on more risks 
in exchange for potentially massive 
rewards, sometimes increasing their 
investments by 40 to 50%. While these 
funds began as somewhat isolated 
and extremely susceptible to market 
fundamentals — like a business’s 
quarterly earnings and the overall 
economic environment — they have 
steadily gained influence over the 
market, transforming into some of the 
most powerful market actors.

One of their many methods 

of exerting this influence is by 
shorting (betting against) struggling 
companies, spreading misinformation 

by manipulating financial media 
and other institutions to send these 
companies into a downward spiral 
while making a tidy profit off their 
bankruptcies. This practice — while 
not necessarily illegal — is deeply 
unethical 
market 
manipulation 

and a symptom of an increasingly 
out-of-control 
marketplace 
fueled 

by cynicism, greed and a lack of 
government regulation.

However, on Jan. 25, the people 

decided to fight back. 

On the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, 

users organized to conduct a mass 
purchase of GameStop (GME) — one 
of the most shorted stocks by hedge 
funds due to its declining stature, 
inflexible business model and poor 
pandemic response — to artificially 
drive the stock price up and deal a 
financial blow to hedge funds.

This plan, however seemingly 

unlikely, succeeded beyond just about 
anyone’s expectations, skyrocketing 
GME’s price over 1,000% over the last 
week and forcing many hedge funds 
to incur massive losses to the tune of 
billions of dollars. These hedge funds, 
in panic mode, accused these retail 
investors of market manipulation, 
which is not entirely unfounded. 

With 
that 
being 
said, 
their 

argument rings hollow as hedge funds 
are the original market manipulators. 
Regulators have shown them leniency. 
Therefore, regulators should show 
leniency to the everyday Americans 
who are fighting back.

Things were looking good for retail 

investors who were finally getting 
one over on the monied interests 
when, on Thursday morning, what 
can be generously described as 
the most collusive action against 
retail investors in the last decade 
was undertaken. Popular trading 
platforms 
like 
Robinhood, 
TD 

Ameritrade and Webull restricted the 
purchasing of GME and other Reddit-
promoted companies. 

This, in turn, sent GME into a state of 

wild fluctuation rising as high as $483 
per share and sinking as low as $112 per 

share within the day. It also sparked 
major controversy online, motivating 
thousands to sign onto a class-action 
lawsuit against Robinhood — whose 
slogan is “democratizing finance for 
all,” despite recently paying $65M 
to settle an investigation into their 
practice of selling users’ information to 
institutional investors. 

The issue united Sen. Ted Cruz, 

R-Texas, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez, D-N.Y., Barstool Founder 
Dave Portnoy, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 
D-Mass. and political commentator 
Ben Shapiro while bringing investor 
Leon Cooperman to the verge of tears 
in a truly hilarious video that I cannot 
recommend highly enough. 

So, where does that leave us?
Well, I hate to rain on Reddit’s 

parade, but this is probably not the day 
when we #EatTheRich. However, I 
do believe that this event has finally 
woken the American people — on 
both sides of the aisle — up to how 
corrupt the market can be. 

Between 
the 
Trump 

administration’s 
frenzied 
and 

mostly 
half-baked 
deregulation 

and the real world’s increasing 
disconnection 
from 
the 
stock 

market, something like this was 
bound to happen. Personally, I 
thank God that it wasn’t much 
worse, but that is not to say that this 
story is over. In fact, I think it is just 
beginning. 

I think we are headed for more 

market instability on the immediate 
horizon, and it will not stop until 
our politicians say that enough is 
enough and embolden government 
regulators. Until then, this was a good 
first shot where a down-on-our-luck 
Main Street struck back at a bloated 
and overconfident Wall Street. 

For the hedge funds, the party 

is likely winding down, but for the 
people, Mr. Brightside just began 
playing and you better be sure that 
they can hear the people sing.

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Keith Johnstone can be reached at 

keithja@umich.edu. 

Wait ... did you say GameStop?

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