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Voting for president should be fair and democratic to all the people. Decisions for the country that affect the people should ultimately be determined by them since their lives could be greatly impacted by those decisions. Today, the country determines the election of the president of the United States by using the electoral college. Although the electoral college is effective in many ways, does it really portray what the people want? Changing the election to election by popular vote would determine what the people want in a more democratic and fair way. The United States was built upon democracy and that strong profile should be kept.

The electoral college is a process by which voters vote for electors that elect the president determined by their political party. In theory it may seem like an effective process, but it can bring many problems. Source 2 says that the single best argument we have against the electoral college is what we might call the disaster factor. The election crisis of 2000 was because of the electoral college process and that even worse things could have happened. The electoral college has brought a lot of problems. "In the same vein, 'faithless' electors have occasionally refused to vote for their party's candidate and cast a deciding vote for whomever they please," (Source 2). Electors refusing to vote for their party's candidtate, or refusing to vote altogether could lead to things like Hawaii sending two slates of electors to Congress in 1960. The electoral college system leads to a lot of complications and using popular vote would make the process simpler.

Voting by the electoral college can bring unfairness to the voting process. Source 3 explains that when you vote for a presidential candidate you're actually voting for a slate of electors. Your votes do not directly go to the president you want, so even if a president wins the popular vote, they could still lose the electoral college vote and the election all together. "A tie in the nationwide electoral vote is possible because the total number of votes-538-is an even number, but it is highly unlikely....," (Source 3). Voting by popular vote would not allow this to happen because of the amount of people voting and the likelihood of that happening is even less. Also, the fairness of small states and big states is not democratic in the electoral college process. Since larger states have a greater population, they tend to get more attention than smaller states do. There would clearly be more equality in voting by popular vote than in the electoral college.

"The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a poplular vote of qualified citizens," (Source 1). Although this compromise was good in theory at the time, the process is not very fair and does not bring the right people to be elected as electors. The electors are chosen depending on how they reach certain criteria by the law. These laws vary though, which could bring a wide variety of people from each state. This would give some states the upper hand compared to others. There would be no worry about the certain people chosen as electors in the process of popular vote.

The electoral college brings complications, unfairness, and the worry of chosing electors from each state. The Untited States was built upon the idea of general democracy and the process of the electoral college does not carry out that idea. Chosing the president by popular vote would give the people a more democratic way of chosing whom they want to be in charge of the country. The people of the country are the ones most impacted by decisions of the country, so they should have more of a say in what is decided.

Score: 5