Since 2016 we’ve seen a LOT of banter from certain political circles in America saying that we should abolish the Electoral College. They say it’s antiquated, it means that the majority doesn’t rule and that it gives an unfair weight to “lesser” states. They say the popular vote alone should determine the President, and many people agree. However this humble writer would like to submit to the EDM fandom one glaring example of the popular vote gone wrong: the DJ Mag Top 100 Poll. In fact, it almost shows why the Electoral College exists in the first place….and DJ Mag needs its own.
Hear me out – the DJ Mag Top 100 poll is completely based on the popular vote, and the results speak for themselves. Ask anybody and they will tell you it’s a popularity contest, a joke or that they love David Guetta. In fact, techno’s highest ranking is 52 for Carl Cox – and it’s highly unlikely to change any time soon. Anybody can vote and there is 0 consideration besides the points. That’s why the Top 10 is always gonna be the mainstage headliners. That’s why Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Martin Garrix, Marshmello, and The Chainsmokers are the only real contenders for #1. They’ll get the most votes, but are they they best DJ in the world? No. There’s also a lot of questionable votes being cast in certain places that end up affecting the entire vote in depressing ways. Just ask Hardwell how he feels about it.
The Electoral College was designed to allow each region (State) to get fair representation in the vote, so that a mass of people in one place doesn’t outweigh the rest of the geographic areas of the US. An Electoral College would similarly weight the EDM fandom based on its size – let’s say we divide it up by EDM markets: North America, Europe, Asia, Brazil, India (and associated regions) would each be assigned electoral points. Now Martin Garrix might still get the votes from North America, but Europe might give its votes to a techno artist. You could try to weight it based on subgenre, but that would be too difficult to verify. It could be weighted based on countries to be more precise, but this is only a speculative blog article after all. We’re not going to sit down and the numbers, but it could be done.
Let’s face it, as long as the DJ Mag Top 100 runs on straight popular voting you’re not gonna get a real #1 DJ that fairly represents all of the dance music community. Just like the American Electoral College, the Top 100 DJ Electoral College would give all of the regions of dance music a fair chance to be represented.
