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In the intense debate concerning the validity of the Electoral College process, it is difficult to choose a position. The Electoral College is a long-standing tradition created by the founding fathers in the early days of the United States. However, the reasons behind the adoption of the Electoral system are not as valid today as they were centuries before. Electoral College was proposed by the founding fathers due to the fact that the average American citizen in the beginning of our nation was a simple farmer, who was not educated enough to make an informed decision in a vote. Nowadays, things are different. General education of the public is very advanced, and there are various easily acessable forms of media from which to learn about the policies and positions of the presidential canidates. After all, the president's job is to care for and protect the people of America, not the politicians. Therefore, shouldn't the people, not the politicians, elect the president?

Even those who support the Electoral College must admit it is a confusing system. When a citizen votes for a presidential canidate, that vote really goes to a slate of electors who were selected by means that vary between states and are pleged to that particular canidate, and those electors then vote for the president. As pointed out in Bradford Plumer's

The Indefensible Electoral College , voters can't control who their electors vote for. Aditionally, "voters sometimes get confused about the electors and vote for the wrong canidate" (also Bradford's

The Indefensible Electoral College

). And Bradford makes a good point; in the past, "'faithless' electors have occasionally refused to vote for their party's canidate".

There is also the fact that canidates for the presidency often focus on "swing states", states whose majority is not decided between political parties and whose votes have a large impact on the election. This is due to the winner-take-all method of the Electoral College. In a state that is mostly Republican, a Democratic presidential canidate may not put much into the local campain, knowing that since most voters are against them they would probably lose the state and gain nothing, because all the electoral votes of a state go to the canidate who won the majority of voters in that state. Thus, presidential campains are focused in the swing states, giving little attention to the others. However, if the presidential election were decided by popular vote, campain efforts would be spread evenly across the United States since every voter everywhere counted in the final election.

The method of electing a president by popular vote is a fair and well-balanced one, giving the minority parties in non-swing states a say in the presidency. Also, it was  discovered that "according to a Gallup poll in 2000...over 60 pecent of voters would prefer a direct election" (Bradford Plumer,

The Indefensible Electoral College

). It was even admitted by pro-Electoral College Richard A. Posner in his

Defense of the Electoral College that "A tie in the national electoral vote is possible" due to the even number of total votes. Posner also states that "no voter's vote swings a national election". However, if everyone believed that, no-one would vote at all. Then there could be no election, Electoral College method or otherwise. Therefore, the individual voter does count, and so do all the minority political parties who's electoral slates do not get to vote for the president due to the Electoral College. Popular vote is the only reasonalble system for electing a president who will do their best for the American people. "Of the people, for the people". So let the all the people Vote.

Score: 5