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When election day comes and you finally drop your vote in the ballet box after waiting in line for the past hour, you walk away knowing that you have helped the candidate of your choice to rise to the top of the voting pole. Oh how wrong you are. The United States works on a voting system called the Electoral College. "Under the electoral college system, voters vote not for the president, but for a slate of electors, who in turn elect the president." (Plumer 10). This system has stood the test of time, however it has masked its flaws for long enough. "60 percent of voters would prefer a direct election to the kind we have now." (Plumer 9). The people have spoken, now it is time to break down the logistics...

In order to understand the flaws in the electoral college, you need to know what the electoral college is, and how it came to be. "The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress." (Office of the Federal Register 2). This system was created by the founding fathers as a compromise between the congressional vote and the popular vote. However there was a reason for this new, seperated voting system. During their time the founding fathers where among the most educated men in the country. Back then education was not standard and very few people could read or write. The founding fathers did not want uneducated citizens voting on the individual who would lead the country. So they created a system where the uneducated would vote for a group of educated men, who would in turn vote on a president. Thus the electoral college was born. The founding fathers reasons for forging this system where justified in their day and age. However the world has changed since then. These days education is standard and people have enough sense to know what each candidate has to offer, and who can guide our country to prosperity. If United States citizens are well educated, then why leave this barrier up?

Another large issue with the electoral college is its favoritism towards larger states. The United States was founded on federalism and democracy, giving power to the people instead of an over-arching central government ruling everything. So any policy that goes against our right to equal say in politics ought to be abbolished, right? The number of electors per state under the Electoral College is determined by the number of representatives the state has in congress. "... one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your senators..." (Office of the Federal Register 3). Since this system is based on population, bigger states get a emense priority over smaller states. "The popular vote was very close in Florida [in 2012]; nevertheless Obama, who won that vote , got 29 electoral votes. A victory by the same margin in Wyoming would net the winner only 3 electoral votes." (Posner 21). This means that presidential candidates are going to focus on appealing to larger swing states that have more electoral votes, rather than smaller ones who only provide a few votes. That is not fair now is it? No matter how small a state may be its population still consists of United States' citizens, and they deserve just as much say as a bigger state. After all, that is the concept our country was founded on, equality and freedom.

If the Electoral College does not seem like a flawed system now, allow me to open your eyes to one last variable in our little Electoral equation. The disaster factor. The disaster factor deals with the will of the people, and them doing anything to get what they want. "Back in 1960, segregationists in the Louisiana legislature nearly succeeded in replacing the Democratic electors with new electors who would oppose John F. Kennedy. (So that the popular vote for Kennedy would not actually gone to Kennedy.)" (Plumer 11). That kind of scenario could completely change a close call to a landslide victory! The 1960 election is not the only case of this either. It happened again when Hawaii sent two slates of electors to congress, and in other various cases electors did not vote for their designated candidate. Finally there is the case of the 2000 election, where Al Gore won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College! If just one person decides to go against the grain, everything gets thrown off.

Case and point, the Electoral College is a flawed system. People are educated and can make a smart choice for a president, everyone deserves fair say in the political world, and people need to open their eyes to the corruption that the Electoral College allows for. It may have made sense back in the day of the founding fathers, but it is time to move on and adopt the popular vote system that the people have asked for.

Score: 5