MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. The latest presidential campaign in the United States was one of the most scandal-ridden in history and proved that flaws in the US electoral system have a comprehensive nature, the deputy chief of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, wrote in his op-ed published by tass.com.
"This presidential campaign, likely the most scandal-ridden in history, proved that the flaws in the US electoral system have a comprehensive nature," he stressed. "At first, everything seems quite presentable: alternative candidates, primary elections, and live TV debates. But this is a faзade, a nice stage set which determines the spectacularity of the event and, naturally, the preferences of the voters."
He recalled that in the US electoral system, a candidate who wins a relative majority in a particular state - even by a slight margin - almost always gets all the electoral votes for that state.
"Therefore, in traditionally liberal or conservative states, votes cast by those who support the other party virtually disappear, being reduced to zero," he explained.
Medvedev looked back on recent history, in particular, the situations in which Democratic nominees Albert Gore (2000) and Hillary Clinton (2016) lost the election, despite having won the most votes.
"Since the existing system awards all the electoral votes to the winner, a candidate who won by a small margin in states with a total of 271 electoral votes may win an election, despite having lost by a landslide in other states. In theory, even a candidate who won the popular vote by more than 100 million ballots may still lose the election in the electoral vote," he added.
On top of that, Medvedev drew attention to another significant shortcoming in the Electoral College system, where electors have a right to cast their votes - sometimes without any serious consequences - for someone other than the candidate they have pledged to represent in accordance with the will of the voters. Instances of faithless voting by electors have occurred with regular frequency," he remarked.
Now, he stressed, pending the official results of the election, the winner-take-all principle - rather fairly - has come under a new wave of criticism.
"Even Hillary Clinton, who ran against Donald Trump in the 2016 election, has called for abolishing the Electoral College and selecting a President by the winner of the popular vote, same as every other office. Otherwise, there is a difficult situation where tens of millions of voters do not believe that the outcome of the election reflects the actual will of the people," Medvedev concluded.