The Dissapearene of the Electroral College

The United States of America has come a long with in regards to its legal system. For example, the new laws that are currently being added to allow gay couples to marry. That shows true progress, however there are other laws that we have, which simply are not needed anymore and are quite outdated. An example of this would be the Electoral College. The system that it abides by is horrendous and unjust. In the eyes of many the Electoral College should be removed from the law and will make Democratic decisions within this country much better.

Now there are quite a few well known people who believe that the Electoral College should be abolished. These people include Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter,and Bob Dole just to name a few. One of the biggest controversial events that had to do with a failure of the Electoral College was the election of 2000. In this situation Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the precidency due to the methods of the Electoral College. It all seems to just be an irrational method as well as a waste of time. This is to be believed because you have citizen voters who add up to the popular vote, yet afterwards it is then turned over to the electors who may be unfair and corrupted. The votes would be much simpler and much more fair if it was a direct popular vote. Not to mention that over sixty perecent of voters whould prefer a direct election as oppossed to the method of voting we have now.

(Source 2, Brad Plumer)

The way that the Electoral College works is selection of electors, then a meeting of electors where they vote for the President and Vice President, and finally the elctoral votes are counted by Congress. All thats done is adding a middleman who makes a decision for the people who spent their time to vote for the candidates they elected. Also with this "winner-take-all system

(Source 1, The Office of Federal Register)

it leaves those who "chose wrong" left with nothing, however let it be noted that in Maine and Nebraska there is a variation of "proportional representation". Finally, after the election the governer of your state prepares a "Certificate of Ascertainment" which lists all the candidates who had run for President in your stae as well as a list of the representing electors.

Along the lines of voting not only do voters practically have no say in who they are voting for due to basically voting for representing electors thus its up to the electors to vote for a President and Vice President, not the people of this nation. For example, if you lived in Texas and wanted to vote for John Kerry, you would end up voting for a slate of thirty four Democratic electors pledged to Kerry. With the very small chance that the electors won the statewide election kept in mind, they would then have to go to Congress and as a result Kerry would have thirty four more electoral votes. To be honest this whole system seems to be rediculously unnecessary and tedious. As said beofre a direct method of voting from the citizens would be more beneficial to the whole nation. In the end, that is one of the most important things to keep in mind because that is what will end up being affected the most which is the entireiety of the U.S.A.

Lets not forget that in this whle voting via the Electoral College, there is a very apparent disaster factor looming above their heads. When you put it into context that a candidate that a majority of the population of voters appealed to and voted for did not end up being elected because of the choices of the electors theres going to be a huge problem as a result. Not to mention the fact that many are afriad of the chance that there will eventually be a situtaion where there is a tie. Furthermore, this can also be taken into account in a vice versa manner because if there is a candidate that lost the popular vote but won the votes of the electors there will be ridiculous amounts of uproar to follow. In the close there are just too many comlexities and problems that follow the Electoral College and it would be for the benefit of all if it was abolished.