The Electoral College

Question

Should the Electoral College be abolished, reformed, or preserved? Why or why not?

Answer 1

The Electoral College is perhaps the most underrated compromise the founding fathers were able to create when crafting the Constitution. At the time, the rift between large and small states was such an insurmountable issue that it threatened the Union's ability to survive the transition from the disastrous Articles of Confederation into a stronger more binding agreement between the states that allowed the federal government enough power to rule effectively.

This was an existential threat to small states who felt a large federal government would erase all the state power that they felt they had earned by fighting the British for their Independence. The Electoral College was created to alleviate these concerns by allowing the ability for a popular vote to be held to elect the leader of the Union, while still giving smaller states outsized influence simply by the minimum elector count for being a state. This gives citizens from both large and small states the ability to feel represented on a national level and stops a handful of large populations from teaming up and dominating national elections, wedging out the majority of the other states in the process.

Answer 2

Wow...that is a controversial question. All three options have very valid pros and cons.

The electoral college was the result of a compromise. Some of the Founding Fathers did not trust Congress to elect the President while others did not trust voters to directly choose a President. So the Electoral College was born; something new anywhere in the world since most rulers at that time got their position by inheriting it. So, one could argue that today's voters are better educated and better informed than those of the late 1700s therefore, a direct election of the President would be more representative of the actual will of the people. Reforming the Electoral College could avoid those instances where a candidate did not win the popular vote yet became President because they won the votes of the Elecortal College. But, implementing reforms could be complicated and confusing. The argument to keep the Electoral College could include its historical value and the stability that comes with using a system that has been in place for as long as our country. Yet, it could also be argued that this is an outdated system and that the advances in technology change everything. Whatever your opinion, this is a subject the needs careful consideration because of the implications it has on the way our country is run.

Answer 3

In my opinion, the Electoral College is a system that should be preserved. It gives rural states more representation and voice in our federal government. It makes it harder for one political party to win presidential elections consistently, and also prevents more populated urban states from being the only ones deciding the direction of our federal government.

However, in recent years some people have wanted to do away with the Electoral College because they think it's an old, outdated system and it would be fairer if people's votes would be represented with a popular vote (which is used in non-presidential elections in America).

But I strongly disagree with this position because it would allow more populated urban states (such as California, New York, New Jersey, Washington State) to decide these elections without competition just because many more people live in those states.

Answer 4

The electoral college has created a system where Millions of Americans, unless they live in a "battleground state" feel as if their vote does not matter. The founding fathers created the electoral college to make it so that it was not just the highly populated states that mattered. Now though the system has created a quasi-disenfranchisement.

A method to combine electoral college and popular vote may be to follow the methods used in Nebraska and Maine. Those states divide their electoral votes. Two votes go to the popular vote winner of the state, and the remaining electoral votes are decided by Congressional District. A system like this nationwide would I believe give more Americans a true voice voting for the President, while still holding on to aspects of the Electoral College devised by the Founding Fathers

Answer 5

I would argue that it is an undemocratic institution that has not lived up to the promise that the founders intended and should be reformed.

The idea behind the Electoral College was that a direct democracy would be unfair to smaller states with fewer citizens, which would get less attention in presidential primaries and, thus, less representation. But, by bumping up their voting power, the Electoral College has not increased how much candidates care about them.

Since political polarization exists, presidential candidates only care about swing states like Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. No presidential candidate visits smaller, more rural states like Missouri, for example, because it's not in play for Democrats and not in danger for Republicans. The same goes for many other states. Here is a map to prove my point: https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/map-general-election-campaign-events-and-tv-ad-spending-2020-presidential-candidates

The Electoral College has also made it so that candidates with less than a majority of voters have won the election four times, which sounds terribly undemocratic to me.

In modern days, Republicans love the Electoral College because it makes their voters count for more, and Democrats hate it because it makes their voters count for less.

Answer 6

It's virtually impossible to change it, as the super majority needed for a constitutional amendment isn't present.

it's part & parcel of the Constitution and 9th & 10th Amendments protecting states & minorities from lynch mob democracy, which isn't all that bad an idea

only reason to object to the Electoral College is sour grapes from the losing side, who would suddenly become big Electoral College defenders if the other side were in their shoes

the US Electoral College is far more democratic than the UN General Assembly where it's one country one vote regardless of population, and no chance of the UN changing its rules either

the Electoral College means, today, that a handful of swing states will decide the election, making voter fraud less incentivized in the other 45 or so states. Voter fraud will be more closely monitored this way, focusing on just 5 or so states, giving us fairer elections. With a strict popular vote there's an incentive to cheat and commit voter fraud in every precinct in every state and county, with less ability to stop it

See Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow's impossibilty theorem or voting paradox, proving mathematically that any social decision rule is irrational, violating simple axioms of rationality. the paradox most comes into play in close elections, precisely the kind the electoral college opponents propose to rectify with a popular vote, but that's impossible, as Arrow proved beyond all doubt

Answer 7

The American Founders wrote the Electoral College system into Article Two of the United States Constitution, mainly as a compromise between two competing ideas: 1) the democratic election of the majority vote of “qualified” voters, and 2) Congress will have the sole power to elect the American president by congressional vote. The system of electors was essentially an 18th-century compromise between an anti-democratic system (2) and a robustly democratic system of government (1). Because the Electoral College is in the original design of the Constitution, Congress would have to amend the Constitution to change this antiquated election process.

The inequity and unfairness of the Electoral College is a clear and present danger to the preservation of American democracy. Why not just allow the most popular candidate to win the presidential election? No other modern, industrialized country today allows the candidate that wins the popular vote to lose the presidential election. This is not how a democracy is supposed to work.

Answer 8

I would argue that it is an antiquated and un-democratic institution that should be abolished in order to fulfill the promise of American democracy more fully. If the majority of the United States voters vote for a candidate, then that candidate should be president. That is how democracy works. As it stands, the Electoral College is actually a check against the will of the people... though it's often referred to as some sort of safety against extremism.