The USFG should abolish the Electoral College

I have had a wonderfully warm welcome to this site by whiteflame, I hope the following education and information is appreciated and enjoyed by all the readers. The resolution is stated as "The United States federal government should abolish the Electoral College". Since the system, as it exists today, includes the Electoral College, the burden of proof is on whiteflame to prove that the system should be abolished. I do need to start by clearing up one point that is made multiple times in the opening argument by whiteflame. I welcome all to join me in singing the Pledge of Allegiance, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands....", say that part again "and to the Republic". [1] The United States is a Republic not a representative democracy. A democracy implies a majority rule and that is specifically what the founding fathers did not want to create. I do believe whiteflame was being honest with the use of this term and likely meant the same thing I am addressing, but it's important to be clear for those reading that the nation is a republic, even if it has democratic components. A republic is defined as a government with representatives who are limited by a set of rules, such as the Constitution. [2] Listening to the recent political debates, you will hear the Democratic candidates use the term democracy often, and there are a few Republican candidates who also say that we have a democracy. This, is completely false. Whiteflame includes the term representative, unlikely the presidential candidates, but I wanted to further clear up this point before moving on with the electoral college at hand. Article 4, Section 4 in the Constitution says "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government..."[3] This is important for 2 reasons, 1) the use of the term republican, and 2) that the states are guaranteed this form of government. We use the term United States of America, not the United People of America. We are a nation of states who came together, thanks to a group of people representing each state, to unite. The federal government represents both the states and the people inside those states. The Constitution forms 3 portions of the federal government. In Article 1 describes the legislative branch. There was much debate about how this branch would be formed, but eventually it was agreed that we would have a bicameral body. "The House of Representatives is comprised of members who represent population districts within each state, while members of the Senate represent the states themselves....By forcing the two bodies to work together, a bicameral system ensures more voices are heard..."[4] From the very beginning, the nation was founded upon representing the people and the states. The House of Representatives were elected by the people in their districts and the Senators were elected to represent the states. So it should be no surprise that the next portion of the Constitution, involving the executive branch, is formed with the same to groups in mind (the people and the states). The electoral college (a term not used in the Constitution) , is discussed before most anything else in Article 2. It was so important to the founders that it was addressed very early in their writing to frame the executive branch. I will not take time to quote the Constitution, but you can go here [5] to view how early the founders describe the president's election. When whiteflame addresses his 4 points (listed a-d), he notes in point b that "every vote counts the same", but what he fails to include is that the foundation of the executive branch represents the people and the states. The small states feared that they would have no representation if it was a strict popular vote. The large states felt it unfair that the small states with less population would have the same value as their vote. Through compromise the electoral college was born. If a presidential candidate was interested in just a majority vote, the focus of their campaign may be on very limited issues in a select group of states. For example, the total population of 9 states (of 50) would reach a number greater than 50% of the nations population. It would take 11 states (of 50) based on the electoral college to win the 270 minimum. (numbers can be found here [6]). Issues that are important to states like California, Texas, Florida and New York would get the bulk of the attention. The election would be more about getting their supports to show up at the polls in a majority rule system, and less need to represent the masses of the nation. A wonderful example of this can be found in 1888 when Grover Cleveland lost his bid for reelection. His focus was on a very limited platform, most specifically tariffs. The president supported lower tariffs and focused on the southern states, in hopes of being reelected. He won some states by large majorities: 67% of Alabama, 70% of Georgia, 73% of Louisiana, nearly 74% of Missouri and almost 83% of South Carolina. The president had a narrow focus, and did a poor job at representing many issues of the different people in different states. As a result, he won the popular vote but lost the election. My opponent made a false statement that I wanted to address. "However, it really doesn't help small states at all - the winner-take-all system we have in place ensures that candidates will get all of the electoral votes from a given state, and not a proportional number based on actual votes.[11]" says whiteflame. To start with, his link number 11 will direct you to a poplar vote count and says nothing about the winner-take-all system. I want to correct the earlier comment by whiteflame and note that not every state is winner-take-all; Maine and Nebraska do not use such a system. [7] Further, each state has the chance to change the rules of state's electoral college. [8] The 2000 election focused on Florida, maybe for good reason and maybe not, because there were discrepancies with the number of votes in the state and which candidate would receive their electoral college votes - winning the presidency. But I ask you to just imagine what would have happened if we had a popular vote for the nation and the states did not have their own rules and laws in place, and the majority winner was just a few thousand votes more than the next person - there would be chaos in nearly every district across the nation with lawyers demanding recounts and disqualification of votes. The system would stall and that would a horrible situation for our nation. I will circle back to the focus on the importance of the federal government to represent the people and the states. Congress represents the people in the House and represents the states in the Senate. The presidential election, thanks to the electoral college, melds those two groups in a way to elect a president representing both people and the states across a broad range of the nation. In a popular vote, the candidates, needing to win just 1 more vote than a competitor, would focus on the larger states and the large cities within those states. The candidates would spend their money and energy in the most productive way; concentrating on small regions with large population groups and not the larger regions with a more spread out population. Rural values would no longer be a focus of the president and that could create a more polarized nation. The President of the United States is just that, a president of the states, and to abolish the electoral college would be to abolish the representation of the states in the executive branch of government and move the nation more to a majority-rule democracy - which is in direct opposition to the founding philosophy of our great nation. With that, I turn the debate back to whiteflame 1) http://ipledgeallegiance.com... 2) http://www.lexrex.com... 3) https://www.law.cornell.edu... 4) http://classroom.synonym.com... 5) https://www.law.cornell.edu... 6) https://en.wikipedia.org... 7) http://archive.fairvote.org... 8) https://en.wikipedia.org...(United_States)