Should the electoral college be abolished in favor of a national vote

As the Beatles once said, "Let it be"Mother Mary comes to me. " And because I want Mother Mary to come to me, we should let it be and negate the resolved: should the electoral college be abolished in favor of a national vote. We offer one sole observation: PRO cannot win merely by showing flaws of electoral vote; rather, they must also display solvency. Contention one: The Electoral College increases deliberative democracy. Nicholas Miller of the University of Maryland describes the Electoral College as "a subject terrific for political analysis"it is truly a gift that keeps on giving. " He furthers that "the Electoral College is a boon for political science research and teaching. " This resulting political discourse, according to David Johnson of the University of Minnesota, has a number of results, including "clarifying citizens" understanding of the issue, helping citizens reach their best reasoned judgment, increasing citizen participation in the political process, and socializing the next generation into the procedures and attitudes they need to be active citizens. " Because the Electoral College uniquely creates this political discourse that provides all of the above benefits, it achieves political awareness and participation that would not be brought about by direct popular vote. Contention two: The Electoral College protects against fraud. Sub-point A: Majority fraud. According to Richard Darlington of Cornell University, "Majority fraud is when a majority within a state makes its majority look bigger than it really is, as when they stretch their candidate's vote from 60% to 70%"In an electoral college system, majority fraud conveys no advantage at all"Thus under an electoral college system the easiest type of fraud is totally useless. " In short, under the Electoral College, no matter how big the margin of victory is, the winning candidate will win the same number of electoral votes. However, the Heritage Foundation"s Tara Ross explains "direct popular vote would increase the incentive for fraud" because "any stolen vote would have at least some effect. " The impact is that the Electoral College safeguards against this fraud while direct popular vote does not. Sub-point B: Minority fraud. Darlington continues on to state that "minority fraud is when the minority manages to fraudulently gather enough additional votes to make itself look like a majority. " He explains that when this happens in an electoral college, the effects of minority fraud are restricted to the state in which it happened alone. On the other hand, minority fraud in a popular election would involve the entire nation. The impact we bring you is that direct popular vote is much more conducive to fraud than the Electoral College; thus, the Electoral College should be preferred. Sub-point C: Recounts CON Case November 2011 Beachwood LY Temple University"s Professor Jan Ting explains that under direct vote "if the popular vote should be close"legal battles over counting votes could erupt in"all states where any ballots could be contested. " Abraham Taylor of the Center for Accuracy in Media explains that the benefit of the electoral college is it "isolates the problem and deals with it on a micro level. Without the present system the problem would [be] magnified dramatically as nationwide recounts would have been required. " Jan Ting explains that the impact is that only the electoral college prevents dangerous delays in election results. Contention three: The Electoral College prevents polarization. Sub-point A: Big cities. The implementation of direct popular vote would mean a focus on large cities. Darshan Goux of the University of California Berkeley explains that with popular vote, "resources, principally time and money, would remain limited "" in fact, even more so given the vastly expanded field of play. " Andy Brehm of the Minneapolis Star Tribune furthers, "If attaining the most votes nationally were all that mattered, nominees would turn a deaf ear to the rural electorate"Major cities would be the sole battlegrounds in presidential elections. " Direct popular vote would mean that candidates focus disproportionately on big cities, ignoring rural areas. This makes popular vote an intrinsically unjust system. Sub-point B: Swing states. John R. Wright of OSU conducted an empirical study demonstrating that certain states are swing states because they "closely approximate national trends. " In other words, swing states reflect the beliefs of the entire nation. This is supported by the Cook Partisan Voting Index, or CPVI, a political tool that measures how politically polarized states are. The CPVI finds that swing states such as Ohio or Florida are in the political center. Thus, by campaigning in swing states, candidates are appealing to the political center of America. The impact is that this is clearly preferable to having big cities decide the election.