Dear, Senator

I think the president should be elected by popular vote not electors. Heres some reasons why i think the president should be voted by popular vote and not electors.

One reason is when you vote for your president your acually voting for the presidents elector. So basically your not voting fot a president your votng for a elector that votes for you. After the election the government prepares a "certificate of ascertainment" a certificate of ascertainment is a listing of all the candidates who ran for president along with the names of there electors. The certificate of ascertainment also declares the winning president and which electors will represent your state at the meeting of the elector in december of election year.

Another reason is more people would rather abolish electoral college. Electoral college is dumb because there was a gallup poll in 2000 taken shortly afte Al Gore. In the poll Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the presidency because of the electoral college. (In the 2000 U.S. presidential race, Al Gore received more indiviual votes than George W. Bush nationwide, but Bush won the election, Bush received 271 electoral votes and Gore received 266.) Under the electoral college system voters vote not for the president but for slate electors. Who can be electors? It can be anyone not holding public office. Who picks the electors in the first place? It depends on the state, sometimes state conventions, sometimes state partys central committee, and sometimes the presidential candidates.

Last but not least the disaster factor. Consider that state legislatures are technically responsible for picking electors, and that those electors could always defy the will of the people. In 1960 segregationnists in the louisiana legislature nearly succeeded in replacing the democratic electors with new electors who would oppose John F. Kennedy. In the same vein, "faithless" electors have occasionally refused to vote for their partys candidate and cast a deciding vote for whoever they please. What happens if a state sends two slates of electors to congress? It happened in Hawaii in 1960. Luckily Vice President Richard Nixon, who was presiding over the senate, validated only his opponents electors. The most worrying is the prospect of a tie in the electoral vote in that case the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, where state delegations vote on the president and The Senate would choose the vice-president. Each state only casts one vote that means the single representatives from Wyoming representing 500,000 voters would have as much say as California who represents 35 million voters. An electoral tie seems unlikely think of this: In 1968, a shift of just 41,971 votes would have deadlocked the election; In 1976 a tie would have occured if 5,559 voters in Ohio and 3,687 voters in Hawaii had voted diffrently. The election is only a few swing voters away from catastrophe.

What im trying to say is the electoral college is unfair to voters. Because of the winner-take-all system in each state, candidates dont spend time in states they know they have no chance of winning. During 2000 campaign, seventeen states didnt see the candidates at all including Rhode island and South Carolina, and voters in 25 of the largest media markets didnt get to see a single campaigh ad. The electoral college is unfair, outdated, and irrartional. The best arguements in favor of it are mostly assertions. Bob Dole was right: Abolish the electoral college.