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Every four years there is an election.  The election is used to decide who our president will be for the next four years.  The Electoral College is currently being used for our elections.  The articles "Does the Electoral College Work?" and "In Defense of the Electoral College: Five reasons to keep our despised method of choosing the President" by Richard Posner believes the Electoral College should continue to stay in use.  On the other hand, the article "The Indefensible Electoral College: Why even the best-laid defenses of the system are wrong" by Bradford Plumer believes that the Electoral College should be removed from the system of electing the President.  While the Electoral College has been in use for a majority of the time, it is time to start a different process called popular vote.

The Electoral College has been in place for many years and has produced good results.  One good thing the Electoral College does is it prevents a candidate from becoming President if they only have regional appeal.  This is crutial because "a candidate with only regional appeal is unlikely to be a successful president" (Posner).  With the Electoral College in place it makes it impossible to for a candidate with only regional appeal to become president because no region has enough electoral votes to elect them.  Another helpful thing the Electoral College does is it has a certainty of outcome, so it is less likely for disputes than popular votes.  It is less likely for disputes because "the winning candidate's share of the Electoral College invariably exceeds his share of the popular vote" (Posner).  Even if a state has a few more votes for the Electoral College it still creates a huge victory.  Even though the Electoral College has produces some good results, presidents being elected through popular vote will be better, more efficient, and more equal.

Again, the popular vote will be more fair.  It will be more fair because a president with more popular votes will win.  In the Electoral College, a candidate with the most popular votes does not ensure victory because the other candidate may have more electoral votes.  This happened in 2000 when Al Gore got more popular votes, but lost the presidency (Plumer).  The Electoral College is not fair to the citizens of this country and to the candidates.  If more people prefer one candidate over the other, then the president should clearly clearly be them.  The Electoral College is also not fair because if there is a tie, then the vote goes to the House of Representatives.  The House of Representatives' "selection can hardly be expected to reflect the will of the people" (Plumer).  The majority of the House of Representatives is Republicans, so the president elected will be reflected by that, and it will not give the Democrats equal representation.  All in all, popular vote should be used to determine the President because it is a more fair and an equal way to do so.

Equally important, popular vote should be used to elect the President because then candidates and voters will pay attention to the campaign.  With the Electoral College candidates only spend time trying to win the votes of the "swing states."  They will not pay attention to the states that they already know have their vote.  In fact, in the 2000 campaign, there were seventeen states that the candidates never visited.  Two of those are Rhode Island and South Carolina (Plumer).  Every state should be able to see the candidates so the voters get to really know who they are voting for, so they will make a better decision.  Also, with the Electoral College people in states that know their vote will not matter will not pay attention to the campaign.  A person such as, a "Republican in California... have less incentive to pay attention to the campaign than they would have if the president were picked by popular vote" (Posner).  Everyones opinion should matter and should be taken into account when electing the President.  To summarize, popular vote is the only way to ensure that the voters get all the knowledge they need to elect the President, and so that everyone's vote matters.

In conclusion, electing the President is a painstaking task and should be done using popular vote, not the Electoral College.  The President of the United States plays an important role in our country.  The President has to make many difficult decisions, and those decisions should be a reflection of the entire country.  It should not just reflect the certain states that contributed their electoral vote.

Score: 5