It’s a new presidential race now, with opponents who couldn’t be more opposite. As a loudmouthed promoter of democracy and constitutional defender, you’d think I’d be thrilled at casting my vote in what people consider “the most important election in our lifetime.” Every vote counts, right?

But the truth has been hammered home over several decades now, especially since I’ve lived in Massachusetts. Like millions of other voters in states like Alabama, California, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Texas, Wyoming, and others, I have to face an uncomfortable fact: My individual vote is symbolic rather than influential. Whether I vote or not, and who I vote for, doesn’t really matter.

One voting website (nationalpopularvote.com/) estimates that about 80% of all Americans are in the same position because they live in “spectator” states that consist of extremely like-minded voters. My vote, and those of voters in about 40 other states, are taken for granted. Massachusetts will be colored blue the moment the polls close, along with New York, California, Virginia, Colorado, etc. At the same time, Texas, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee will be light up red, along with others across the South and Midwest.

Our winner-take-all system for electoral votes shows only red or blue, when the actual vote totals present a blended shade of purple, ranging from the deepest royal tones to the lightest rose-lilac. Personally, I don’t consider myself monochromatic, and my hopeful side believes only a minority in our country are so rigid that they reject even good ideas if they are proposed by the opposition.

The birth of the Electoral College exposed the deep fears of the aristocratic signers of the Constitution. Not only did they limit the right to vote to only white, land-owning males, but repeatedly showed their fear of “the mob.”

Alexander Hamilton, now celebrated musically as a man of the people, argued against establishing any type of direct democracy (all people voting directly on laws) because it was “unquestionable” that “the body of the people” did not possess “the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government.” He believed “they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion . . . [and] are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden impulses and the intrigues of ambitious men.”

Hamilton supported a “firm barrier,” like the Electoral College, to prevent popular, but unwise, actions by the uneducated masses.

To make the states “united” under the constitution, the Constitutional Convention had to compromise by protecting the power of sparsely populated rural states with equal power in the Senate, while the more populous, urban ones might gain power in the House. It used the same formula for selecting a president.

The Electoral College gave each state two votes (matching its senators) and more votes according to population (equal to its representatives). The result: Today, each electoral vote in Wyoming represents about 181,000 people, while an electoral vote in Massachusetts represents about 640,000 and in California about 730,000. For the Electoral College, one resident of Wyoming has the power of four voters in California and 3.5 in Massachusetts.

Little in today’s world resembles the newly imagined “democracy” of the late 1700s, although voters are still heavily influenced by “misinformation and passion.” But at the national level, a democracy of 330 million people should proudly announce that the “majority rules.”

Americans would rather have a majority winner than one who leveraged a tiny electoral loophole. Today, elections hinge on a few important “swing states” with a minuscule number of undecided voters. Currently, undecided voters in swing states are estimated at about 1% of all U.S. registered voters (tinyurl.com/ydw8hfsz/).

Less than 1% of the popular vote separated winners and losers in six previous elections (tinyurl.com/ypx63rxd). Under popular voting rules, you or I could cast a vote that really counts. We could be a part of that deciding 1%.

In all but five presidential elections, the winner won both the popular and electoral votes. With the help of a conservative Supreme Court in 2000, two of our last four presidents received fewer popular votes than the loser. (Another minority winner in 1876 was created by one of America’s most disastrous compromises: the end of enforced Reconstruction in the South.)

As clearly shown over the last decade, our Constitution isn’t perfect, relying too much on precedent, shared values, and goodwill to create a functioning federal government. The Electoral College is another glaring example of a democracy that doesn’t quite trust its common people to make the right decision. It’s time we changed that.

Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era historical fiction novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. His column appears regularly on Saturdays. Comments are welcome here or at awoods2846@gmail.com.