Presidential election season has officially kicked off here in the U.S., with 30 million votes already cast. That number is pacing ahead of the cumulative 2020 election vote total of 155 million votes. It’s clear the American people are passionate about having their vote count toward their candidate of choice—at least once every four years.
When it comes to the highest seat in the land, America’s presidential election is designed unlike any other election in our Union. In this case, a specific voting method is used to determine the victor: the Electoral College. Instead of using the popular vote to determine the election’s winner, a group of electors have the last word.
It’s ironic that this method is used to select the president, especially considering that the United States constantly praises the power of meritocracy, lauds “one person one vote” and clings to an unwavering belief in democracy. Under this system, the cream of the crop always rises to the top. But is that, in fact, true?
This week, a Dr. Phil clip went viral, from his speech at a Trump campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In the video, he said, “This country was built on hard work, added value and talent, not on equal outcome, not on DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion]. This country was built on hard work.” The crowd cheered loudly at his remarks.
Given the tone, I believe his comment was meant to lean into a narrative that hard work—not race, gender and/or sexual orientation—are the leading drivers of success. This notion implies that this is how America was built: through meritocracy and dedicated labor—not on government polices intended to create concessions to lower standards and give those who are undeserving equal outcomes.
But Dr. Phil is mistaken. Looking back at the history of the United States, many programs, polices and laws were structured to reward individuals based on identity rather than hard work. Or as the NAACP put it, “This country was absolutely built on hard work Dr. Phil…on the backs of Black, Brown, and immigrants from all across this WORLD! Many of which who were forced to do so! SLAVERY. Let us know when you’re ready to tell the WHOLE story.”
Let’s look at how DEI shaped our system of voting, and how the Electoral College was designed, as well as how its creation is very similar—or even identical, I’d say—to DEI today’s DEI programs.
The system of electors was designed and implemented as a way to level the playing field for a group of Americans who could never win or have access to power without it. Sounds quite similar to DEI today, doesn’t it? Except those who benefited from the electors were Southern white men.
The majority voice of the delegates from the slaveholding Southern states opposed the popular vote, because it would put them at a disadvantage. The populations in the North and South were almost equal, but one-third of those living in the South were enslaved. They weren’t even recognized as being human, simply due to their race, so they certainly weren’t allowed to vote.
This disparity would cost the South power, and they realized their voices and clout could never be leveraged in a democracy they were actively responsible for creating. Therefore, they lobbied for a new system. A more controlled, indirect method of electing the president. One that provided a compromise between two separate systems: 1) the election of the president by a vote in Congress and 2) the election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens.
The result? The Electoral College.
Once the system was agreed upon, the Founding Fathers had to figure out how to ensure their privilege and power wouldn’t be available to any Black Americans. In 1787, the Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed at the Constitutional Convention, to count enslaved people in the South as three-fifths of a white person for purposes of taxation and representation in the House of Representatives and Electoral College.
Blacks lost (among many, many other things) two-fifths of themselves, their power, their identity, their dignity, their voice, their presence, and their opportunity to live the American Dream, and it was written in the Constitution.
Our Founding Fathers agreed this was the best way forward. At the time, future President James Madison went on the record as to why direct popular vote elections for the highest office wouldn’t work:
“There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.”
Could it be that the Electoral College is the oldest and most influential equity program in our country?
Since such an equity program from the past would fall under DEI efforts today, let me suggest that the Electoral College is a DEI program intended to enforce control, rather than concede it.
We’re currently debating DEI, the idea of proactively providing a group of historically underserved Americans in corporate America and at colleges and universities the opportunity, not the guarantee, of an equal playing field. Yet the Electoral College seems to do just that.
Since the Electoral College process is part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution, a Constitutional amendment would need to be passed to change it. Over the years, 700-plus actions have been filed to change or amend the Electoral College, to shift to the modernized system of “one person one vote” toward the popular vote count. Of any element in the Constitution, this feature is the most challenged. But nothing has been passed by Congress and sent to the States to be ratified as a Constitutional amendment.
Few media outlets on either side of the political spectrum take the time to explain the extent to which race and slavery contributed to the creation of the Electoral College. These origins are simply ignored.
Today in corporate America, meritocracy is, in many ways, equivalent to the concept of the popular vote. And in many ways, the design and development of the Electoral College operates similar to the way today’s DEI programs are designed to function.
In order to create a fair system in an environment that is historically unfair, concessions need to be designed to ensure fair outcomes. Sport leagues accomplish this goal with revenue share. The NFL, NBA and others ensure fairness by helping the teams that need assistance, to enhance the league’s overall quality. Similarly, the worst team at the end of the season is first in line for the number one draft pick in the next year’s draft. Or after a team scores a touchdown or a basket, the other team gets the ball back.
It’s called competitive balance, and it seems to be okay in some situations and cases—but not when it comes to DEI programs.
Right from the start, the South’s baked-in advantage—the bonus electoral votes it received for owning slaves, while not allowing those enslaved to vote—made a difference in election outcomes. Slaveholder Thomas Jefferson edged out his opponent, incumbent president and abolitionist John Adams. Southern slaveholders and their allies won the White House until Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 victory. Soon after Lincoln’s death, the Reconstruction Era, the redemption of the old South and the birth of the Jim Crow regime grew from winners of the Electoral College—not from the popular vote.
More than two centuries later, the Electoral College continues to adversely impact Black voters. Five of the six states whose populations are 25 percent or more Black have been reliably red in recent presidential elections. Three of those states have not voted for a Democrat in over four decades. California has the most overall registered Republican count of any state with 22+ million, but you wouldn’t know it on Presidential Election Day. Under the Electoral College, votes are simply and quietly submerged. Not to mention that in 2016, Hillary Clinton had what was, at the time, the highest ever popular vote total—yet still lost.
Many of the same people complaining about the unfairness of current DEI programs don’t seem to recognize that they’re where they are today because their ancestors were beneficiaries of a DEI program.
In 2025, I’d like to propose a new compromise to whomever is President: Either allow DEI in corporate environments to accomplish what it set out to do—level the playing field for those who have been at an historic disadvantage—or get rid of America’s largest and oldest DEI program, the Electoral College.
What’s fair for some should be fair for all.