The Electoral College Should Distribute Votes Proportionally

Introduction1. The debate has nothing to do with Voting SystemsThe debate is about the electoral college, not about voting systems. We will not be debating whether or not we should keep the First-Past the Post system. Any arguments pertaining to voting systems are irrelevant and should not be considered while voting.2. Counterplan does not applyI said in Round 1 that the debate will be whether or not the plan I'm proposing will be better than the Status Quo (current system). If my opponent proves that abolishing the Electoral College would be better than my plan, I would still win if my plan is proved to be beneficial to the United States.Opening StatementChanging the Electoral College to distribute their votes by how many people voted for each candidate is ultimately better than the current winner take all system. The current system promotes bad campaigning and lets losers win. The plan I'm proposing will not break from the Electoral College system that was established by The Constitution, but will make elections fairer and will encourage better campaigning from candidates.ArgumentsWhy Winner Take All is Bad1.The current system allows losers to winCandidates who lost the popular vote have won the electoral college 5 times in the history of the United States [1]. The 5 presidents who have won the presidency but lost the popular vote are John Quincy Adams (He actually didn't win the Electoral College either), Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Why? The winner take all system unfairly distributes votes to each candidate. This is a failure of democracy. Why would the person who lost the vote of the people win the presidency because they won the Electoral College because of its winner take all system which undermines democracy. 2. Winner take all does not fairly represent the peopleImagine you and your 9 friends are at a restaurant. You and 3 of your friends buy the fried chicken, while the other 6 buy steak. When the waiter brings your food, to your surprise, he gives all of you steak because more people wanted it! This analogy shows the fundamental flaw of the winner take all: Even if you vote for another candidate, your vote could go to the opposing candidate anyway. This doesn't make any sense! What's the point of voting if your vote will go to the other candidate anyway? Now, in a fair democracy, your vote should count toward the candidate you voted for, but your vote doesn't count if the opposing candidate gets more votes. All of your state's votes go to the opposing candidate anyway. The current system makes Republican Californians and Democrat Texans represent someone they didn't vote for.3. Winner take all encourages unequal campaigningOne of the basic ideas of the Electoral college is that it gives smaller states more power and forces candidates to distribute their visits more fairly, not just in the big states. While the Electoral College succeeds in giving smaller states more power, it fails in the latter. Here is a graph of the amount of visits given to each state in the last 2 months of the 2012 campaign: As you can see, it's not even close to being fair. There's not even close to all 50 states on that graph, and only the first couple states on the graph got a ton more visits than the rest of the states. This is because winner takes all lets candidates safely ignore states where it's certain they won't get the majority of votes in. This means that they'll only visit states that have really close races, namely states like Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. You'll rarely see democratic candidates campaign in Montana, and republican candidates campaign in New York. This is because it would just be a waste of time.4. Winner take all discourages votersHave you ever heard your friends say, "I'm not voting because my vote doesn't matter". That sounds ridiculously unguided and wrong, but there is some truth to that statement. As of November 10, 2016, voter turnout was estimated to be at an abysmal 55% [2]. Obviously that number has probably gotten higher as time went on, but according to CNN it would take another 18.7 million votes to reach the high point for turnout of 2008, when nearly 64% of voting age citizens cast a ballot. So that proves that the voter turnout percentage wouldn't have changed that much since November.My point is that the current system discourages voters because their vote really doesn't matter in certain states. For example, a democratic vote in Texas wouldn't matter that much, as the overwhelming majority of voters in Texas are Republican. Therefore, voters who vote against the overwhelming majority will simply not vote, as they know that their vote really doesn't matter in the end.Why We Should Keep the Electoral CollegeEven though I've already said that Counterplans do not apply to this debate, I will make these arguments just to strengthen my case more and erase more doubt within the judges.5. Electoral College is a 2nd line of defenseOne of the reasons we use the Electoral College is so it acts a second line of defense against a purely unqualified and ultimately bad candidate. When the Founding Fathers created the Electoral College, they knew that sometimes the people would not make the best decision. One of the biggest points of the Electoral College is to protect America from misguided votes. Abolishing the Electoral College would get rid of that defense, as the Electors can no longer switch the vote. The people would have complete power over the matter of electing leaders, and they may end up electing someone terrible for president. The electoral college protects against this by giving Electors the last say. The Electors can tell if a candidate is horrible and defend America from a truly terrible president; something that the people cannot.6. Electoral College gives small states more powerThe way the electoral votes are distributed among the states gives small states more power and importance. Every state immediately gets 2 electoral votes for the 2 senators, and the rest are distributed by the total number of congressional districts [3]. This gives small states more power, since they get 2 more votes than they really technically should. For example, if the votes were distributed based on population, Wyoming would only have a lowly 1 electoral vote. That's not enough electoral votes for candidates to care about those states. Other small states would only get 1 or 2 electoral votes, making candidates ignore most of the small states in favor of the big states. This is another reason why we shouldn't abolish the electoral college, but just change it.Why My Plan is Beneficial7. Plan makes party minorities in "solid blue" or "solid red" states count, and promotes more equal campaigningAs explained above, the current system makes Democrats in Texas or Republicans in California irrelevant. Distributing electoral votes based on the percent of people who voted for each candidate in a state makes those voters count! For example, in California there are 55 votes [4]. In the 2016 election, 61% voted for Clinton, while 32.8% voted for Trump. In the current system, Clinton wins all 55 electoral votes, effectively disregarding the people who voted for Trump. Using my plan, Clinton would win 34 electoral votes, while Trump would win 21 electoral votes. (Third-parties don't have enough votes). As you can see, this makes the Republicans in California count a lot. That's 21 more electoral votes to Trump! That's a big deal!This also makes candidates take trips to traditionally solid blue or solid red states, because they can get more electoral votes from these states under the new system. The swing states don't matter that much anymore.8. Plan encourages votingMy plan effectively encourages voting. Since votes are now distributed by how many people voted for each candidate in a state, your democratic vote in Texas now matters! Now that you know that even if you're the minority in your state, but can still give an electoral vote to your candidate, you would want to go out and vote! Party minority voters within traditional solid blue or red states matter under the new system. They can influence the election.9. Plan makes electoral votes represent the peopleThe votes are distributed by proportion, therefore the votes given to each candidate now represents the people. If you have 60% Democrat votes and 40% Republican votes, 60% of the electoral votes will go to the Democrats, while 40% would go to the Republicans. This is representative of the people.10. Plan makes losers loseThe reason why losers win in the current system is because they can win 50.1% of the vote and get 100% of the electoral votes and the winners can get 90% of the vote in a state, but still only win the same amount of electoral votes they would've won if they got 51% of the vote. This means states with overwhelming amounts of Democrats or Republicans devalues the votes of the people in that state, as once they get over 50% additional votes don't matter. This means that a candidate could theoretically win the current Electoral College by winning 50.1% of the vote in small states where they poll with closer margins, because even if you win 99% of the popular vote in a big state, you don't get more electoral votes than you would've with 50.1%.Sources[1]: http://www.factcheck.org...[2]: http://www.cnn.com...[3]: https://www.archives.gov...[4]: http://state.1keydata.com...