Abolish the Electoral College

Con begins by saying that 2 of each state's electors come from state senators, so two of those electoral votes are justified. Just because each state automatically gets 2 senate representative votes doesn't mean this addresses any of the other problems with the electoral college though. For example if those 2 senators are Democrat and you are Republican, they do not represent your personal vote. Con does not deny the value of your vote depends on which state you live in. He says that by changing this standard, we would ignore a hefty chunk of the nation's population. But if you implemented a different standard (for example, the popular vote) then everybody's vote counts the same, and nobody in the population's vote is not counted or worth any less. Con says you get 1 elector per 770K people, but Wyoming has one elector for every 177,556 people and Texas has one elector for about every 715,499. Once again this means the people of Wyoming have their vote count almost 4x as much as a Texan's vote. This is not justified and Con says the alternatives would ignore a hefty chunk of the population, when really this standard provides unfair weighing that values each citizen's vote differently based on the state they live in (population). Con says that majority rules, so it's justified that your vote only counts if you are in your state's majority. He says you can move if you want to be part of the majority. It's not fair or reasonable to expect people to move so their vote matters, especially when there are alternatives. This would be bad for diversity. People who are in the minority within their small area (state) still deserve to have their voice's heard, but the electoral college renders their vote useless if other people from their state drown them out. This is ironic in a system that claims to value minority rights. http://www.nytimes.com... Con says "majority rules" but I've explained in the last round how someone with a minority of votes could win through the electoral college. It's not likely but demonstrates how math games determine the outcome of elections. Sometimes politicians ignore entire states while campaigning because they think it is useless to gain support there. And citizens don't bother voting in those states where they know their vote doesn't count, because they do not align with the majority. http://reason.com... Con says that without an electoral college, you would have 12 people running for president. Actually we already have 16 people running for president now even with the electoral college. http://www.politics1.com... Con doesn't know about these other people, because the electoral college encourages a two-party system that does not allow for choice or variety. A direct popular election would make it easier for third-party candidates to succeed. This is not a bad thing. Americans are diverse and we cannot pigeonhole our broad ideologies into 2 categories that most of us do not fit neatly into. Most of the time, we are stuck choosing between the "lesser evil" instead of someone who really represents our views. People are not satisfied with the Democrat and Republican status quo, because major political parties play partisan politics and put the party first (individual politician's success) instead of the country's values or the best candidate from the party. R03;Americans are getting frustrated with the political process and want more influence, not less. More than 65% of citizens are dissatisfied with the way the system works. http://www.gallup.com... So Con tells us the way things work, and I am saying they should be changed. Most Americans agree. Also Con presented the example of a situation where 12 candidates ran for president, and the person with the majority of votes might still be unpopular (say only getting 1/5 of the popular vote). Well voters might choose to consolidate their vote anyway. For example Bernie Sanders might be running for president as an Independent, which is upsetting Democrats who think lost votes that go to Sanders instead of Clinton will make Trump win. We can assume that people would be strategic about their voting or candidacy under any system. Another thing is that politicians can get ahead today even without having a lot of support, because people go with the "lesser evil" vote like I said. A lot of Republicans hate Trump but will vote for him because they prefer Trump to a liberal. It doesn't mean they actually like Trump. We have had unpopular presidents before despite the electoral college, and even the votes people cast doesn't mean they actually support that person, but just think they are the least evil. Con says the popular vote system is the only alternative, but this is not true. In addition to the popular vote (making each citizen's vote count once) there have been other proposals for reform or abolition of the electoral college, including the Bayh"Celler Constitutional amendment, Every Vote Counts amendment, and National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. https://en.wikipedia.org...(United_States) "There have been more proposals for constitutional amendments to change the electoral college than on any other subject. They include: A direct popular vote, with a runoff between the top two finishers if no candidate receives 40 percent of the vote. A district plan awarding two electoral votes to state's popular vote leader and the others to the winner in each congressional district. A proportional method dividing each state's electoral vote to mirror its popular vote, which would do away with the winner-take-all nature of counting electoral votes. Majority preference voting, in which voters rank their preferences; if no candidate received more than 50 percent, the bottom vote-getter would be eliminated and the second choices of those voters would be redistributed, repeating the process until someone had more than 50 percent. Another proposal would keep the electoral college in place, but add another 102 electoral votes (two for each state and the District of Columbia) and award all of the bonus votes to the national popular vote winner." Source: Jim Eskin, "Electoral College a Ticking Time Bomb," Dallas Morning News, November 10, 2000.