I argue in favor of keeping the electoral college because of the fact that if the popular vote and the vote in congress were to fail, there would be a backup way of casting, counting and recording votes by a qualified group of citizens, as stated in the first paragraph of the prompt. I believe the Electoral College should not be abolished also, for the reason that each candidate for president has an amount of electors chosen, varying on the state laws in effect in the given state he or she is being elected from. Also, an advantage of the Electoral College is also that the winning presidential candidate is awarded all of the electors in most states, except Maine and Nebraska, stated in the seventh paragraph.

The College also identifies which electors will represent your state at the meeting of electors, as well as the presidential candidate. Just like almost anything, the Electoral College has flaws, such as electors can be any person not holding public office, and, dependng on the state, whoever selects electors may vary. Plus, not everyone can control who their electors vote for, but the Electoral College has been in effect for over 200 years, established by the founding fathers themselves in the Constitution, so why not trust that they knew what they were doing? Besides, when each party selects a slate of electors, they put their trust, which, might I add, is rarely betrayed. But there is the problem that not all winners of electoral votes will not win the national vote; such an instance happened in 2000, when Al Gore had more popular votes than George Bush, yet fewer electoral votes. Even so, that was the first time since 1888, as said in paragraph 16.

There are a few practical reasons the Electoral College, even though it lacks a democratic pedigree, should be retained. Reason one is a certainty of outcome. An example is in the 2012 election, when Obama recieved 61.7 percent of electoral votes, while Romney recieved 51.3 percent of popular votes. A tie, is also possible, seeing as the total number of votes, (538,) is even. Another example is how the electoral college restores some of the weight in political balance, in which large states, population-wise, lose by virtue of the mal-apportionment of the Senate decreed in the Constitution. The subject of the Electoral Coolege's method of selecting a president is controversial in the sense that it may turn off potential voters for a candidate who has no hope of carrying their state, such as Democrats in Texas, or Republicans in California,when they know their vote will have no effect, their incentive is much less than if it were picked by popular vote.