Abolish the Electoral College

The Electoral College has long been a point of controversy in our country. This is probably because it is so different the other electoral systems around the world. However, this uniqueness does not constitute the fact this system is wrong for the growth of our country and for our people in this modern era. The Electoral College is an undemocratic system that encourages the unequal weight and treatment of voters, dubious campaign strategy, and discourages voter's faith in our nation's overall electoral system. Every other non-appointed official is elected by a majority vote, which emphasizes the individual voter in the way our society intended. An election has already been tainted by a clear injustice to voters. This occurrence has misinterpreted the popular national will, which signifies one of the most harmful threats to our representative democracy.

As I mentioned earlier, the Electoral College is different than any other system throughout the world. Every four years, it involves the cooperation of many individuals in various states. In the Electoral College there are 538 electors, a number made up from congress' 100 senators, 435 representatives in the house, and 3 from the District of Columbia. When the public votes, they vote for the particular set of electors for their state and from their party. For example, Connecticut has seven electors because it has 2 senators and 5 representatives. The electors themselves are party workers that have been associated with that group for a long period of time. In December, the winning party's electors meet at their capitol building and vote for their candidate. When a candidate gets 270 electoral votes, they are declared the winner. If no one receives 270, the House of Representatives votes based on the top 3 candidates in the original race, and the Senate votes for vice president based on the top 2 candidates. In each state there is a winner-take-all system except for 2; Maine and Nebraska. The Electoral College is explained in article 2 of the constitution, but the wording is intentionally unclear.

One of the most inherent problems with the Electoral College is that it is possible for one candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election because they did not receive 270 electoral votes. This occurred in the 2000 election when Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush received 270 electoral votes. This election had much effect on the faith of voters because the majority of voters did not vote for the current President. This is a blatant interruption of the growth of the democratic process, and it brings devalue to the phrase winner-take-all. In the election, Gore basically won the east and west coasts, while Bush won most of the center. Electoral College supporters might argue that this system is in place to prevent a candidate from concentrating their votes in a certain area. I would then have to retort by asking why voters should not be worth as much just because many live in the same area. It is only natural for people to live amongst others who share ideas or values. And it is certainly not fair to the candidate if they are made to lose because of this geographical block.

Unequal weight of voters is another problem with the Electoral College. States with larger populations simply have more emphasis put on them which shifts importance away from individual voters in smaller states, but that vote's weight is increased if the individual lives in a smaller state. "...a citizen's individual vote has more weight if he or she lives in a state with a small population than if that citizen lives in a state with a large population. For example, each electoral vote in Alaska is equivalent to approximately 112,000 people. Each electoral vote in New York is equivalent to approximately 404,000 eligible people (based on 1990 census data) and that's if everyone votes (Rourke, 129). The system is also currently inequitable because a vote has more weight if the state's voter turnout is low (Rourke, 129).

A further point of contention with the Electoral College is that it shapes campaign policy. It forces candidates to pay more attention to states with larger populations. There is also a tendency for candidates to stay away from states that are likely going to vote for a certain party. For example, here in Connecticut, rarely do presidential candidates ever visit the state during the peak campaigning period, or sometimes even at all. "If you were a citizen of Kansas or Utah, of Mississippi, or Massachusetts, you might scarcely have known the 2004 election was taking place. Your states were written off by one party and taken for granted by the other. But if you were a citizen of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, or another 'battleground' state, you were bombarded with campaign ads, and the candidates visited your state numerous times" (Fiorina et al, 181).

The Electoral College is simply an undemocratic system because of several levels that are all capable of making mistakes. An example of this is what is called a faithless elector. This is an elector who does not vote for the candidate from his/her party. There is no law in the constitution requiring them to do so and even legislation in some states is never able to be followed through. When this occurs, it is a direct injustice to all of the voters in the state, as well as the entire system, and it should not be allowed to occur. There is a downward trend in voter participation in this country, and Americans are more likely to participate in other ways besides voting than other countries (Fiorina et al, 153). Changing our presidential voting system to winner-take-all may not solve all of our problems, but the current system is seriously flawed.

Works Cited

Fiorina, Morris P., Paul E. Peterson, D. Stephen Voss, and Bertram Johnson. America's New Democracy, 3rd Edition. (New York: Pearson-Longman, 2006).

Rourke, John T. You Decide! Current Events in American Politics, 2006. (New York: Pearson-Longman, 2006).