Pros And Cons Of Abolishing The Electoral College

There are other ways to satisfy the majority rather than abolishing the Electoral College. Lawyer Jeanne Kempthorne states some of the issues seen with the EC. One being that, “[the election] can easily result in an outcome that conflicts with the will of the people, whereby a candidate who loses the popular election nonetheless becomes president, as occurred in 2000 and almost occurred in 2004. This is a serious, recurring problem that afflicts both parties” (Jones 1). Robert Hall, a professor at Stanford University in Economics integrates that, “the Electoral College does not embody the egalitarian principle of popular sovereignty, the concept of "let the people rule" (Hall 1). While this may be the case, the Electoral College is still effective
as it has the expedient of acclimating the term of popular sovereignty into the election. In fact, David Savage a writer for Los Angeles Times reported that, “One possibility for changing the system is the National Popular Vote bill. The Constitution says states may decide on their own how to allocate their electoral votes, and a reform group is calling for states to agree by law to allocate all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
So far, 11 states, including California, New York and Illinois, have said they would support this proposal” (Savage 1). Some people believe that abolishing the Electoral College is the only way to enact a majority rule election. However, this process proves that can be achieved without abolishing the Electoral College. The National Popular Vote, enables majority rule to be taken into effect without abolishing the EC, it is basically an equipollent process. If critics endeavor to call this action unconstitutional, they will be confuted by Article 2 Section 1 Clause 2 of the Constitution which enables the states to dictate how they do elections. The NPV will be able to follow the Natural Rights concept of Popular Sovereignty that has been a precedent in America ever since the Declaration of Independence. Which will allow the people to directly vote for one of the most potent positions in the government. Supplementally, according to Robert Levy the, “the law says it will not be effective unless enough other states pass the same law to yield a total of at least 270 electoral votes” (Levy
1). This process will be able to satisfy both sides of the spectrum: keeping the EC and proving its efficacy, and resorting to majority rule election once enough support has come to back it up. However, it matters not how many states join the NPV but how many electoral college votes they integrate to the total. According to Jeanne Kempthorne, “We are 61 percent of the way there, 165 electoral votes, 105 short” (Jones 1). In turn, the process can go quite quickly or very slowly, it all depends on which states choose to join the compact. In accordance with this, the Electoral College is still effective as it can be altered to a popular vote without the desideratum of abolishing it.