A Debate On The Electoral College

To a degree he is correct, this is a major function of the EC, but not the only one. The United States is a Federal Republic. A Federal Republic is a collection of sovereign states that give up certain aspects of their autonomy to form a larger 'union', or 'Federation'. [1] Therefore, when electing the Head of State for a Federal Republic there is more to consider than regional population. A state needs to be adequately represented in order to benefit from being a member-state of a Federation. The EC ensures that smaller, less populated states receive the same benefits as the larger ones. Without the EC smaller states such as Wyoming or West Virginia would receive even less federal consideration than they do under the current system. Politicians would have little reason to visit the mid-western states, and even less reason to give them the same benefits of union that larger states like New York and California enjoy. " You make the argument that eliminating the EC will hurt smaller states by giving them little attention in the eletion. However as it is, largely Republican or largely Democrat states are not given attention. This is because both candidates know they will win the state if it is largely bias twoards their party, so the other candidate won't campaign there. This leaves several states neglected. Also, as I explained to you in a message, the resolution is not that the EC should be eliminated, but rather, it should be changed. This means that if you change it to a system such as weighted popular vote, smaller states still recieve benefits. RE: "My young opponent claims that the voices of some citizens voting for the losing candidate go unheard (in cases where the winner of the popular vote loses the EC vote). I find a different interpretation to be more accurate. Their voices do not go unheard, rather the voice of the states Does get heard. " This is true, however, by making the EC "winner take all" you are ignoring many of the state's citizens and The states voice is not heard as one, but rather as a majority. This makes all votes for the losing candidate in any particulaar state, worthless, as they do not inffluence the election. RE: "This is not an argument in favor of reforming the EC. This is an argument in favor of conducting the federal census more often. We have the technology to make this more feasible today than we did when the census was instituted in the mid 1800s. " Holding a more recent census would affect the EC and would be a reformation. I think we'll have to agree on this point. RE: "Con is correct in his historical analysis. However, he offers no explanation as to why the election going into the House of Representatives is a bad thing that suggests that our election methods should be reformed. " The election going into the hands of representatives is bad because votes from citizens rarely affect the representatives. As I stated before bribery was used to buy votes and this, I think you'll agree, is bad. So to keep the election a Democratic one, we must find a different way to resolve a tie. RE: "If someone were to look strictly at the popular vote then Con would be correct in this claim. However, as I have discussed above, there are more things to take into consideration. This nation was founded both on the sovereignty of the people and the sovereignty of separate states. The two branches of congress were created with the same principle as the EC. It apportions some of the representation based on population (House of Representatives) and the rest based on statehood (two votes for each state in the Senate). This gives smaller states like Wyoming the same representational proportion quoted by Con in Congress for the very same reason that the EC takes both measures into consideration - to ensure that the smaller states have some say in the Federal government. Therefore it would be more accurate to say that these states are given a base level of power to make their existence in the federation worthwhile than it would be to say that its citizens exercise more 'power' than others. " Again you say that I am advocating switching to popular vote. This is incorrect. This debate is rather about whether the EC should be changed. There are alternatives to the EC that ensure smaller states have some say in the federal goernment. My final stement is that when I said some citizens have more power than others, I was simply saying that they have more inffluence on THEIR STATE's popular vote, not in the nation as a whole. Thank you JBlake for accepting and I await your response.