In the United States, the Electoral College should be abolished.

The Electoral College should be abolished for the reason that it is an undemocratic system. The United States, and all other nations should strive for a more democratic system. This is supported by the following arguments 1:The Electoral College is a winner-take-all system on the state level. In the Electoral College, a candidate needs not win people over to their side, merely states. In this system, the minority of voters inside of a state can easily be disregarded. For example, in Oklahoma, the winner of the state was Donald Trump. Yet, Donald Trump only won 949,136 votes, or 65.32% of that population. That means that the other roughly 35% of the state's population might as well stay home. In a strictly popular vote system, every vote matters. This means that the system in place is extremely bad for states where the population is not majorly on one side or the other. Take, for example, Michigan, which was won out by 0.3 percent. Michigan ignored 49.7% of its own population. That is extremely undemocratic and does not belong in a nation that prides itself on its democracy. . http://www.politico.com... 2: The Electoral College is unfavorably skewed towards smaller states. The Electoral College works on the system of adding two votes to each state before including population into the mix. Because of this, smaller states are unfairly boosted up so that each person inside of the state has their vote worth more. For example, according to population, Alaska should get one electoral vote, but instead gets 4. California, by contrast, should get 52, but instead gets 55. By using simple mathematics, we can determine that each Alaskans vote is 3 times larger than it should be, whereas Californians is 1.05 times larger than it should be (55/52). As a result, an Alaskan's vote is roughly 2.9 times more important than a Californians. In a democratic system, each vote should count as just one vote. Yet, the Electoral College sets up a scenario where states are rewarded for low population with proportionally higher popular votes. . http://state.1keydata.com... 3: The Electoral College does not allow electors to vote for people from their home state. In the first words of the Twelfth Amendment, "The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. " Or, in other words, Electors cannot vote for people who come from their own states. This means that certain candidates are practically ineligible by birth in larger states. For example, if someone lived in California, then that state's electors would be obligated to vote for someone else, even if the person won their home state. Not only does the Electoral College disagree with the idea of home states, it actually bans them. Even if this part of the Electoral College is not practiced right now, the potential for it to be used in the future remains an omen of issues that the Electoral College presents. The Constitution 4: The Electoral College relies on a First Past the Post System The First Past the Post System, (or Plurality Voting), is a voting system with simple rules. Everyone votes for one person, and the person with the most votes wins. However, there are other systems out there that are more democratic in their approach. For example, Single Transferable Vote systems use a ranking system. This negates what is known as the Spoiler Effect. For example, in the year 2000, Ralph Nader ran, and won a sizable amount of votes. This was enough to cause a shift that led to Al Gore losing the Presidential race. A more recent example might have been Gary Johnson skewing the election, taking votes from certain candidates. . http://www.cbsnews.com... 5: First Past the Post systems are against Third Party Candidates. Although it might seem the Single Transferable Vote system is strange, it definitely helps have a more balanced system. First Past the Post incentivizes a two-party system because of what is known as Strategic Voting. Essentially, Strategic Voting is a theory that claims that populations will tend towards two parties over time under First Past the Post because unfavorable candidates are seen as impractical to vote for. Think about a candidate such as Ralph Nader or Gary Johnson. A part of the populous could have agreed, and yet decided that a more practical candidate is the solution. The Electoral College intensifies this problem by not only having Strategic voting on a national level, but on a state level. Now, people not only vote against their interests because of the nation's undemocratic system, but because of the winner take all system of the states implemented by the Electoral College. . http://science.sciencemag.org... 6:The Electoral College allows for minority presidents Presidents that develop a minority of the votes may sound like an issue not found in America, but it is an issue. In 10.6% of past elections, the losing candidate became president because of the Electoral College. In fact, in the past 5 elections, since 2000, almost half of the elections have been handed over to the more unpopular candidate. Due to the importance that the presidential election holds, it seems that a 40% failure rate of the system should not be tolerated. In a democracy, the country should be able to agree on whether or not the process is fair, even if some people don't like the outcome. The Electoral College goes against the most fundamental principle of democracy. . http://www.bradford-delong.com... 7:The Electoral College creates swing states Swing States are an issue in American politics. Essentially, states that have relatively large voting margins can be safely ignored, regardless of population. Because of this, swing states are states that are inflated in importance due to the fact that some states will tend towards certain parties. For example, in New York Hillary Clinton won by 58.8% of the population. That near 60-40 split made it so that Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton needed to campaign or listen to that state. The same issue comes with 40 of the 50 states. Just ten states were undecided by the time an election comes around. In any other system, where people are prioritized above the states, those 40% of Republicans, Libertarians, and Green Party members, would have a voice in New York. . http://www.politico.com... 8:The Electoral College does not include territories. Not all American citizens live in the United States. Puerto Rico, for instance, has 3.5 million residents, none of whom are a part of the presidential election. That would put its population above 11 of the actual states. Guam, America Samoa, and the Virgin Islands, are all territories that are a part of the country. Yet, the Electoral College denies the existence of more people outside of the states. This is perhaps the most undemocratic part of the Electoral College. In this instance, it ignores the facade of being democratic in some light to completely ignoring some people who could vote. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, and cannot be addressed under the Electoral College. . http://everything-everywhere.com... In summary, The Electoral College should be abolished because of the undemocratic way that it functions. It creates a disparity that cannot be solved under the Electoral College, and protects a voting system that needs to be changed.