Why the Electoral College Should be Replaced

Dear Mr. Senator, ever since the Presidential Election of 2000, the concept of our electoral college has been highly scrutinized, and this is rightly so. The electoral college is undemocratic, unfair, and should be replaced with the popular vote.

Even people who support keeping the electoral college (such as the author of

In Defense of the Electoral College: Five reasons to keep our despised method of choosing the President , Richard A. Posner) agree that "...the Electoral College method is not democratic in a modern sense.." (paragraph 15). America was founded on democracy and making sure that the people's voices were heard, and not allowing the people to directly vote for the leader of the country goes against that.

The electoral college is also extremely unfair to voters. Because of how the election system is set up, a candidate could win the people's popular vote, but not the electoral votes and would then not recieve presidency. This occured in 2000 in the Gore vs Busch election. Even though a majority of people voted for Gore, Busch still ended up with the presidency (paragraph 9). Having the electoral votes take pecedence over the popular vote takes away the people's voice and bscially tells them that their opinion doesn't matter as much as the electoral college's opinion.

The electoral college is also unfair because it discourages campaigning in non-swing states. A democratic candidate would not campaign in a state like California that is heavily democratic because they know they are almost definitley going to win the election in that state, meaning they will get all of that state's electoral votes. A republican candidate would not campaign in Caliornia either because they know they would have almost no chance of winning in such a heavily democratic state, and they would be wasting campaign money with no hope of electoral votes from that state (paragraph 13). This means that people in non-swing states like California don't really know much about either candidate because they were never informed. Then the people in these states tend to vote for their party solely because they have nothing else to go off of. It is unfair for voters in non-swing states to be left in the dark just because all of the electoral votes are almost guaranteed to go one way. If the US used popular votes for the Presidential Election, republicans in democratic states and democrats in republican states would have a voice too.

Another way the electoral college is unfair, is the standing procedure in the event of a tie. There are 538 electors in the electoral college (paragraph 3) which is an even number, meaning the electoral votes for each candidate could be tied. In the event of a tie, the House of Representatives would have an election and each state would get one vote. That would mean "...the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters" (paragraph 12). This would make someone from California's vote count for much less than someone from Wyomig's vote.

It can be argued that the electoral college is beneficial in the fact that the winning candidate's share of electoral votes exceeds his share of popular votes. For example, in the 2012 election, Obama recieved 61.7% of the electoral votes compared to 51.3% of popular votes (paragraph 18). Some say this is beneficial because it reduces the chance of a dispute of vote counting. However, this is actually not a good thing. 51.3% of people wanted Obama to be President. Not 61.7%. Yet Obama still got credit for 61.7%. About 10% of voters who didn't support Obama didn't get their opinion heard.

The electoral college has been around for a long time, and it's time for a change. It is simply undemocratic and unfair. It prevents every person for having an equally weighted vote. The electoral college needs to be replaced with a popular vote.

Thank you for your time Mr. Senator.

Sinceraly,

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