Electoral College

I am against the Electoral College, and there are many reasons why. The way the Presidential election is set up, a candidate for President has to get 270 electoral votes to win the election. Electoral votes are given out based on what candidate receives the plurality of votes in a given state. Since each state has a certain amount of delegates based on its population, the Electoral College does not take the popular vote into consideration.

First, it gives a person's vote in one state more power than a person's vote in another state. For example, Rhode Island has 4 Electoral votes and California has 55 Electoral votes. When a person votes in Rhode Island, there is only a possible 4 Electoral College votes that can be gained by a candidate as a result of that vote, whereas there are 55 Electoral College votes which can be gained by a candidate from your vote in California. With this difference in Electoral votes, a candidate will seek to win California more than he/she will seek to win Rhode Island. Candidates will thus seek a person's vote in California more than they will seek a vote in Rhode Island. This leads to a person's vote in California having more importance than a person's vote in Rhode Island.



The Electoral College also leads to the candidates spending most of their time campaigning in states that have a high number of electoral votes. Candidates do this because winning the more populous states will get them more electoral votes than will winning the less populous states. This means that the voters in the smaller states are left mostly to themselves and ignored by the candidates.



The Electoral College is also unfair to third party and independent candidates. With the "winner take all" setup of the electoral votes, third party candidates are not given an adequate chance to win the election. Instead, all of the states go to one of the major two parties: at this time the Democratic and Republican parties. Candidates from other parties, such as the Green Party and Libertarian Party, and independent candidates are mostly excluded from the process by the Democratic and Republican parties. The way voting is set up now, third party and independent candidates have to fight just to get their names on the ballot.



What I think would work better than the Electoral College is having a national popular vote. If that were to happen, that would mean that every single person's vote would be just as equal as every other person's vote. This would make it so one state does not have more say in the election than another. I think it could also help give third parties more recognition and say in politics. This would by no means solve all of the problems that are in the Electoral College, but I think it would solve more than it would create.