"All men are created equal," our Declaration of Independence claimed. But the Electoral College suggests otherwise. Rather than counting all voters equally, the Electoral College empowers some voters over others, solely based on where they live.

The number of electoral votes a state gets is based on the number of members of the U.S. House represent that state, which is determined by population, and based on members of the Senate. Each state gets at least two electors, regardless of population (and the District of Columbia gets three). Thus smaller states are over-represented, while more populous states, like Texas, are under-represented. For example, California has roughly 69 times the population of Wyoming, yet only about 18 times as many electoral votes, according to NBC News. That means a person's vote in Wyoming counts significantly more than a person's vote in California.

The Electoral College empowers land area over actual people. States like New York, California and Texas should get more attention in presidential campaigns because that's where more people live. If we are a government "of the people, by the people, for the people," we should count everyone's vote, and we should count them equally. But the Electoral College does neither.

A state's electoral votes are set regardless of voter turnout. A candidate's margin of victory doesn't matter either, because every state except Nebraska and Maine is winner-take-all.

For example, Texas' 38 electoral votes go to the state's winning candidate whether the vote is one to zero, 10 million to zero, 50 to 49, or 4.68 million to 3.87 million (like it was this year.) Trump won Texas by only 9.1 percent, compared to Romney's 15.8 percent victory in 2012. In fact, Trump won Texas with about 450,000 fewer votes than Romney. Nonetheless, Trump, like Romney, received all of Texas' electoral votes.

This year, for the fifth time, a candidate has won the popular vote without winning the Electoral College--roughly a tenth of all U.S. presidential elections. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by at least 1 million votes, according to Politico, despite losing the Electoral College.

The Washington Post reports that, because of the Electoral College, the election was decided by just 107,000 votes in three states -- roughly 0.09 percent of the 120 million votes cast overall.

No wonder the U.S. ranks 31st in voter turnout among developed countries, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Electoral College is especially problematic for people of color. The electoral college was implemented in the Constitution along with the so-called Three-Fifths Compromise, which allowed a state to count three-fifths of its slave population toward electoral votes. This unfairly empowered slave states, despite the fact that enslaved people weren't even allowed to vote (and were in fact treated as property rather than people.)

Yale University constitutional law professor Akhil Reed Amar has noted, after the 1800 census, the free state of Pennsylvania actually had 10 percent more free people than Virginia, but 20 percent fewer electoral votes because of the Three-Fifths Compromise. The result? The president during 32 of the Constitution's first 36 years was a white slaveholder from Virginia.

Still today, the Electoral College unfairly dismisses people of color. The ten whitest states, the three northern New England states, West Virginia, Iowa, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Kentucky and North Dakota, also happen to be over-represented states.

Trump's extremely anti-Hispanic rhetoric hurt him among Latino voters, yet didn't hurt him in the Electoral College. We shouldn't allow a candidate to alienate entire groups of people without facing any consequences in the election. Professors Gabriel Sanchez of the University of New Mexico and Matt Barreto of UCLA concluded that Latino turnout increased significantly this election compared to 2012, and that 79 percent of Latinos voted for Clinton, compared to 18 percent supporting Trump -- the lowest level on record for any presidential candidate.

The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

Opposing the Electoral College has nothing to do with Clinton or Trump. It's about the people, making sure their votes are counted, and counted equally. Back in 2012, Donald Trump tweeted "The electoral college is a disaster for democracy." And he was absolutely right.

Mac McCann is a freelance writer in Dallas. Twitter: @MacMcCannTX