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The system by which America elects its president is neither democratic nor fair. It favors small states, could possibly elect the loser of the popular vote, and discourages minority voters.

In many states, the electors who vote for president are not required to vote for who won in the state they represent, says Plumer. An elector could decide, "I dont like who won, so I'll vote for this other candidate". One could say, since a party will choose its electors, that it will hardly ever happen, says Posner. It's true, but it shouldn't ever be able to happen, and it has happened. Plumer points out, that several times in America's past, electors have defied the will of the people. It is impossible to be completely sure of someone's loyalty.

Another problem is that it is possible to win enough electoral votes to become president, but not enough of the actual population's vote to have won the popular vote, argues Plumer. Because senatorial seats count towards a state's electoral votes, and the fact that each state gets 2 Senators, no matter their population, more populated states' votes are technically stolen by less populated ones through the Senate. The Electoral College essentiallty has a skewed view of population distribution. Winning a majority of the popular vote in smaller states will give you slightly more electoral votes for population than larger ones. In most cases though, a candidate will win both the electoral and popular vote, says Posner. While that is the case msot of the time, people would not accept the possibility that in, say, a sports game, the loser might randomly win because of the system used to determine it. It is arguably more important that a country is run by the correct person.

Posner claims that the Electoral College prevents a third party jumping in and grabbing enough votes prevent either "big party" candidate from winning. While in a truly direct vote, this could happen, the Electoral College allows for the same exact problem. If a third party candidate manages to win the election in just a few states, he could steal enough electoral votes that no candidate manages to get the 270 votes needed for a victory. Plumer warns that "most worrying is the prospect of a tie in the electoral vote". A tie, with both candidates getting 269 votes, would be solved in the same way as a third party getting enough votes that no one manages to get over 269. The House of Representatives would vote on the president. Here, the bigger states are again cheated of their power, as the delegates for as states, and not individuals. Wyoming's sole representative has as much sway as the 55 from California. On top of this unfairness, the delegates do not have to vote as the states have. If a majority Republican state were to have a majority Democratic representation, the state could very possibly end up voting in the candidate of the opposite party. As the Electoral College was created at the creation of the nation itself, and the president and vice-president didn't campaign together, the Senate chooses the vice-president, indpependantly. If the Senate and House are are opposite parties, the president and vice-president could end up being from opposite parties. Plumer gives the examples of 1968 and 1976, where "a shift of just 41,971 votes would have deadlocked the election," and "a tie would have occured if a mere 5,559 voters in Ohio and 3,687 voters in Hawaii had voted the other way," respectively.

Posner addresses the argument that the Electoral College discourages voters of the opposite party of a state dominated by the other party from voting. He says "no voter's vote swings a national election... Voters in presidential elections are people who want to express a politcal preference, rather than people who think that a single vote may decide an election." That view is what causes people to not vote. Even 1% of America's population would be three million people, and among those three million, there are without a doubt, people who believed that lie that their vote doesn't matter. Plumer's examples of the elections of 1968 and 1976, referenced earlier, are prime examples of times where just about 1% of that 1% of the population's votes were needed to change the possible outcome of the election.

The Electoral College is an outdated and unfair system. The fact that it even has the possibility to essentially make the loser win should be enough of a reason to abolish it in favor of something like a true majority wins election. On top of possible "failure", the Electoral College pretends that more people live where they dont, and less people live where they do, and discourages minority voters from even voting, especially if they're in a larger state, an extreme minority, or a combination of the two.

Score: 5