Should Electoral College Be Abolished Essay

Electoral College Should Be Abolished
The Electoral College system was first established in the constitution by the Founding Fathers. The creation of Electoral College is to make sure every states is a viable participant in electing the president, in which giving the small population states a chance. In the day of election, people cast their votes for their candidate and who wins it determines the electors of the state. The system was great when it was first introduced because of how people before relied more in the electors who are very educated and wise, but now people are different has gained more knowledge and can determine who will be a good president. Although electoral college has served the United States since 1787, it has become unfair because it ignores the will of the people, it creates faithless electors, and it gives too much power to the smaller states. The first reason that United States should stop using the electoral college for voting in presidential election because it weigh more votes to smaller states. The senate wants to give a power to smaller
states so in order to do that, they think giving more electors so the candidates would not only focus to populous state. However, instead of the electoral college fix this it’s creating more problems. For example, consider California has a population roughly 36.1 million so they have 55 electors, which means each electoral vote is 656,000 people. While Wyoming, on the other hand, has a population of about 509,000 so they have 3 electors, which means that each vote represents 170,000 people. In other words, a Wyoming resident vote cast 3.9 times more as compare to a California resident (“Electoral College Pros”). By giving the small states more votes per person than the larger population states, imbalance is created across the country. Another effect is that most candidates focus on these smaller states with a larger elector votes than having populous states. It’s easy to see that many larger population states are being underrepresented and the smaller states are overrepresented. Even though the Electoral College System is helping smaller states to be a viable participant for voting, the smallness of a state's shouldn’t be the final verdict of the presidential election. In end, Electoral College is supposed to be making a fair system for voting however, it fails to do it's’ job. As talking about electoral college being an unfair system, second reason why electoral college should be abolished are the faithless electors. First off, electors are the people who directly vote for the next president. Each state has selected number of electors and those electors represents the candidate who won the popular vote in each state (Mayer). Sometimes electors supposed to be voting for the candidate that won in the state do not vote for that candidate. These electors are called faithless electors. During the 2004 election, the mayor of South Charleton of West Virginia, Richard Robb, has appeared on CNN and confesses that he would have voted against George W. Bush in the electoral college, even if the vote of the state is the president. The reason behind was, Robb wanted to use his position to protest against Bush’s unwise policies. However, in the end, he still voted for the party line. It can be seen that electors can justify their votes. Many faithless electors hasn’t really caused a change in the outcome but their behaviors is “the ultimate democratic betrayal and violation of political equality,”(Edwards 58-59). The Electoral College System is creating a system where the votes are in the hands of these faithless electors judgment in which outweighs the votes of millions of citizens. Lastly, the Electoral College is an undemocratic system allows a candidate to win the election even though he or she didn’t win the popular vote. This has happened multiple times throughout the history even up today. In the recent election, the final votes shows about 65.9 million voted for Hillary Clinton while about 63 million voted for Donald Trump, favoring Clinton with 2.9 million votes against Trump. However, Trump won in electoral college with
306 votes against Clinton, who won 232 electoral votes (Campbell).
Another example is the 2000 election, the president candidate Al Gore won the popular vote, however, the other president candidate George W. Bush won the electoral college (Mayer). This occasions hasn’t happened recently, it also happened in the early election history three instances: 1876, 1888 and 1960 (Edwards 62). As a result of these elections, it ignores the will of the people. United States is built with democracy and it seemed that electoral college is an undemocratic system. Jonathan Chait, an American liberal commentator and writer for New York magazine, argues that “the electoral college failed to mention the most egregious aspect of the process: it subverts democracy. It makes an utter mockery of the principle of one man, one vote.,” (“Electoral College, Pros”). It questions if the Electoral College favors the people at
all. The Electoral College has a lot of reason for being a bad system, however, there are good things why Electoral College is a good and workable system. First of all, electoral college has benefited the smaller states by giving more weight on their votes so they won’t be left behind. As a same reason, as it provides a stability between states, it also provides stability having a two part system. One good thing about this system is that it does not allow small parties to emerge and win popular votes. These small parties can also help the two major parties by persuading to join their parties so they the major parties win. Having the electoral college abolished, these small parties can actually stand a chance, and it can result to no majority vote. Another reason if electoral college is replaced to popular votes, it could lead to a disperse because of the uncertain counting of votes. As the votes get counted, it can lead to a mistake. People will start to protest and it will lead to another recounting of votes. Electoral College gives a clear winner, without recounting of votes of the people.
Overall, the Electoral College system has done bad things in the country. The system was built to give a chance to smaller states and help start the U.S, however as time goes by the system is not good anymore and just brings problems. The Electoral College make the smaller states more powerful than larger states.The system itself has a defect in which the electors can be disloyal for their votes, and how the Electoral College can misfire against popular votes. Electoral College system can never be perfect, however it doesn’t mean it can never be change. The United States has grown and develop itself since the constitution was built, creating and adapting a new voting system shouldn’t be a problem.