Dear Senator,

The Presidential Election is one of the most important events that goes on in the United States. At the core of this election is the Electoral College. The only problem is, the college has many flaws. Like in Source 1, it states that our Founding Fathers established the Electoral College as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election by a popular vote from the citizens who qualify. As you know the E.C consists of the selection of electors, meeting of electors where they vote for the President and Vice, and the counting of the votes by Congress. There are 538 electors, 538 votes, and it takes a majority of 270 votes to win the election. This flawed system has been around too long and it needs to be altered. I am in favor of getting rid of the E.C and going to winner by a popular vote.

If the Presidential candidate is favored by more than 50% of the country then he or she should win. Like in Source 2 history shows that in the past candidates have clearly won the popular vote, but sill lost the presidency race. The problem with the current system we have in place is that the people who are supposed to have a direct voice in the government do not. Instead the people vote for other people who they are supposed to trust vote in favor of their opinion. I can see how some people believe in this system of trust, however some history has shown us otherwise.

History has shown that electors can go against the opinion of the public. When you vote for electors most of the time they in turn vote for what the people want. The only thing is you are not ensured that this will occur. In the end it is up to the elector who can decide however they wish. Personally for the U.S. it would be more effective to go to winner by popular vote, not only because of the unsureness of the electors, but also because that is what the people want. Another valid arguement to get rid of the whole Electoral College process is in Source 2, it states that sometimes voters get confused with the electors and vote for the wrong candidate. That could be detrimental to the country if the wrong person for the job was elected. If it was the popular vote sytem the selection of candidates would be clear and easy to understand, which leads to less mistakes when voting.

The view of getting rid of the Electoral College is actually quite popular. In Source 2 it tells us Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bob Dole, the U.S Chamber of Commerce, and others have all agreed that we should abolish the Electoral College. Going all the way back to the beginning of our country we started off on the base priciple that the people must have a direct voice in the government. That is the reason our country was made a democracy. The Electoral College has bent those principles and hasn't fully allowed the voice of the people to be heard. With the popular vote put in place their are no middle men, it is just the people voicing what they want and who they want to represent them.

Looking over the information that has been presented it is clear that the Electoral College has to go. The system is flawed for many reasons such as the popular candidate not winning, voices not being ensured that they will be heard, and the confusing system of not voting directly for your President. If the change of winner by popular vote in the election is made none of the previous flaws will be present. The popular vote sytem will ensure the people get what they want and the process is completely fair. For these reasons it is in our society's best interest that our government makes this change. Abolish the Electoral College and bring on a new age of simple and fair elections!

From,

A concerned citizen.