Read the following paragraph: "I’ve voted in a bunch of elections since I turned 18. Sometimes I skipped a school board primary
or congressional run-off, but I never missed a presidential vote. I cast my ballots more out of duty than a belief that my vote was actually important. With tens of thousands of people in my city and hundreds of millions in the country, I knew I didn’t have much impact. But then 2016 happened. The electoral college* and presidency came down to only 77,000 votes out of 130 million. That’s only 0.06%! Since then I’ve heard of state races won and lost by mere hundreds. One election even tied and was decided by a coin flip! You’d better believe I’m going to vote in every election from now on. Not because I should, but because my vote matters. "*I didn’t really understand what the electoral college was before 2016. In the U.S., presidents aren’t elected by the nationwide vote total, but by electoral votes. Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress. Together, all the electors (there are 538 in all) are called the electoral college. The electoral college meets after the people vote and chooses the president. Most states require all of their electors to pick the candidate who won the state no matter how close the vote. Because of this indirect process, a person can lose the popular vote but win the electoral vote and become president. That’s crazy!" What is the implied main idea of this reading?
Most people don't know about the electoral college.
Explanation:
As the author says, he votes since it's his civic obligation to do so, but he has no idea whether or not his vote is really counted. After a series of votes, he finally realized the electoral college in the 2016 elections. Even though this person was a dedicated voter, they had no idea what the electoral college was.
