Pros And Cons Of Abolishing The Electoral College

The Electoral College was established in 1787 as a compromise between having Congress select the next President of the United States, and having a direct democracy in which the popular vote selected the next President. The system has worked for over 200 years, so why change it now? Proponents for the Electoral College to remain the same argue that the Electoral College contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president, enhances the status of minority interests, contributes to the political stability of the country by encouraging a two-party system, and maintains a federal system of government and representation. They argue it contributes to the unification of the country because without the Electoral College system, the most populous states would hold all the power in selecting the president and the small states would not matter. With the Electoral College, every state matters in selecting the president. The Electoral College also enhances the status of minority interests. Candidates know that because minorities tend to concentrate in areas with a large number of votes, the minority can make the difference between receiving all the votes from that state, and receiving none of the votes from that state. In continuation, The Electoral College contributes to the political stability of the
country. The system is set up to where it encourages for two parties to dominate the other third-party groups. In this way, it prevents transitory third party movements, and virtually forces third party movements into one of the two main political parties. Finally, proponents also argue that the Electoral College also maintains a federal system of government and representation. The reasoning behind this is that with the current formal structure, powers granted to the states through the Constitution is protected. To them, the disbanding of the Electoral College and moving towards a direct democracy would lead to the nationalization of the central government and would be detrimental to the states.
On the other hand, opponents of the Electoral College object on the grounds that a minority candidate could be elected president, it eliminates the risk of “faithless” electors, eliminates the possible role of the Electoral College in depressing voter turnout, and its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will. Some politicians say they are disturbed by the possibility that a minority president could be elected without the majority of the popular vote. It has happened a couple times in the past, and opponents of the Electoral College do not want to see it happen again. Abolishing the Electoral College would also fix the problem of “faithless” electors. A “faithless” elector would be someone who has been chosen to vote for one political party, but when it comes time to vote, they do not vote for their party. If there is no Electoral College, then there are no electors, and therefore there is no risk of such “faithless” electors. Furthermore, the Electoral College causes some people to feel like their vote does not matter leading to those people to not vote in the election. This effect is only intensified when it comes to elections for Senators, Representatives, and other local officials. Some of the opponents state that the Electoral College fails to accurately reflect the national popular will. They say that votes tend to over-represent people in rural states. In 1988, the seven least populous states had the same amount of votes as the state of Florida, meaning that each Floridian’s vote had one-third the weight of a vote in the other states. Another way it fails to represent the national popular will is through the winner-take-all system. With the winner-take-all system, whichever party has the majority of the votes, gets all of the electoral votes for that state. This system is designed to keep third-party or independent candidates from having a showing in the Electoral College. Even if they had 25% of the popular vote, they would need a majority of one state to see any representation in the Electoral College.
I think that the Electoral College system should not be abolished.
Instead, the system should just be modified. The whole winner-take-all system is what should be abolished in order to more accurately reflect the popular will across the nation. It should be replaced by the Congressional District Plan already put in use in Maine and Nebraska. In this new system, Electoral votes are distributed based on congressional district winners plus another two for whoever receives a majority of the state’s votes. This way, just like in Congress, the will of the people and the state are accurately represented in each
election.