Florida Senator-

I had not known much about the electoral college until now, and I am appauled that this election process has been used ever since the establishment of the Constitution-decades ago.  The electoral college is unfair, raises dispute, does not provide an accurate representation of the country's vote as a whole, and the process is simply not logical.  I feel like we, as a country, could avoid a great deal of dispute that arises, regarding the electoral college voting system, if it were changed to election by popular vote.

First of all, when the electoral college voting system is used, while people may think they are voting for a presidential canidate, they are not.  Voters are actually choosing a group of electors that then elect a president.  Shouldn't something that has a great impact on our country, such as electing the president of the United States, be chosen by the people living in the country under the president's decisions?  Anyone would agree that the people should have the power to contribute to these decisions, yet somehow the electors are taking this huge responsibility into their own hands.

Another issue with the electoral college is that it gives canidates different motives for their campaign.  I believe that in an electoral campaign, canidates should be advertising their views equally to all parts of the country, if all parts of the country get to have a say in their voting.  However, most of the time, entire countries are skipped over by canidates, as if they don't matter, so that the canidates can talk to states that they find more important to get a vote from.  In the election of 2000, a seventeen whole states didn't see the canidates at all, and some of the larger states didn't see a single campaign ad.  If the presidents know that they are practically guaranteed the electoral votes by a state, why would they waste their time trying to persuade a state that is already persuaded?  It makes sense for the canidates to see "swing states"-the states that are more divided, and whose electoral votes are not guaranteed one way or another.  I don't blame the canidates for their methods, but the electoral college itself for bringing about these techniques for campaigning.

The last problem with the electoral college that I would like to address is how the electoral college discourages people from certain states from voting.  For example, a Rebulican in California or a Democrat in Texas are obviously aware that their vote isn't going to count towards the majority of the state's votes, or to which canidate the state's electoral votes will be going to.  People are definitely more likely to vote if they know that their vote will be heard in some way.  The "winner takes all" method is eliminating any representation of the opposing party's vote and discourages the minority of the state from voting.  Everyone says that being a good citizen requires being aware and involved with government decisions, and voting whenever possible, yet in the 2012 election, one-half of Americans that were eligible to vote, did not.  I'm sure that a good portion of non-voters were influenced by the unfair ways of the electoral college.

As you can see, the electoral college brings about many issues-issues that could be easily avoided if the electoral college was changed to the much simpler and straight forward popular voting system.  Our country would be accurately represented, people would feel as if their vote actually makes a difference, presidential campaign would be consistent for all states, and we would actually be able to vote for the specific person we are trying to vote for in the first place.  With all of these reasons been said, I think it is pretty clear that the electoral college should be abolished, and that government should change to election of the president of the United States simply by popular vote.