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Evidence: Each candidate running for president in our state has his or her own of electors. The electors are generally chosen by the candidate's political party, but state laws vary on how the electors are selected and what their responsibilties are.

Under the electoral college system, voters vote not for the president, but for a slate of electors, who in turn elect the president. The singal best argument against theelectoral college is what we might call the disaster factor. The American people should consider themselves lucky for the 2000 fiasco was the biggest election crisis in a century; the sysytem allows for much worse. Consider that state allows for much worse. Consider that state legislatures are technically responsible for picking electors, and that those electors could always defy the will of the people.

Perhaps most worrying is the prospect of a tie in the elecrtoral vote. In that case, the election would be thrown to the House of the Representatives, where state delegations vote on the president. Because each state casts only one vote, the singal representative from Wyoming, representating 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the representative from California. Given that many voters vote one party for president and another for Congress, the House's seletion can hardly be expected to reflect the will of the people. And if an electoral tie seems unlikely, consider this: In 1968, a shift of just 41,971 votes would have occured if a mere 5,559 voters in Ohio and 3,687 voters in Hawaii had voted the other way. The election is only a few swing voters away from catastrophe.

It's official: The electoral college is unfair, outdated, and irrational. The best arguments in favor of it are mostly assertions without much basis in reality. And the arguments against direct elections are spurious at best. It's hard to say thsi, but Bob Dole was right: Abolish the electoral college!

The Electoral College requires a presidential candidate to have trans-regional appeal. No region has enough electoral votes to elect a president. So a solid regional favorite, such as Romney was in the South, has no incentive to campaign heavily in those states, for he gains no electoral; votes by increasing his plurity in states that he knows he will win. This is a desirable resuly because a candidate with only regional appeal is unlikely to be succesful president. The residents of the other regions are likely to fell disenfranchised-to feel that their votes do not count, that the new president will have no regard for their interests, that he really isn't their president.

It can be argued that the Electoral College method of selecting the president may turn off potential voters for a candidate who has no hope for carrying their state-Democrats in Texas, for example, or Republicians in California. Knowing their vote will have no effect, they have less incentive to pay attention to the campaign than they would have if the president were picked by the popular vote. But of course no voter's vote swings a national election, and in spite of that, about one-half the eligible American population did vote in election. Voters in presidential elections are people who want to express a political preference rather than people who think that a single vote may decide an election.

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