Friedenthal 1

Adam Friedenthal

Mrs.Everett

American Literature

20 March, 2017

Abolishing the Electoral College

The year is 1787, at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia, and the founding

fathers of our nation are creating a document that the country will use as guideline for all aspects

of life in the United States, also known as the constitution. The Founding fathers also discussed

other issues, more specifically, the issue on how to elect the president. They came up with a

system known as the Electoral College which would assign electors to each state based on the

population to represent the population as a whole. America has used this system as long as it has

been a country, however it has not kept up with the changing times. A new system is needed to

meet the issues the Electoral College poses. The Electoral College should be abolished because it

is outdated ,allows for a minority president to be elected without winning the popular vote, and

undermines the notion that every vote counts.

The Electoral College is outdated as the development and creation of this system was

influenced by slavery and the concern about lack of readily available information for voters,

which is not applicable to today. At the time the Electoral College was created, slavery was still

legal, so when developing the the system, the founding fathers made it so as it would be accepted

by many. Though slaves could not vote at the time, slave owners could count their slaves vote

towards who they wanted to vote for. The Electoral College benefited Southern states because
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slaves would be excluded from the direct vote, but could be counted as of a white person when

electoral college votes were given(Outdated). The Founding Fathers also saw the lack of

readily available information to be an issue towards electing the president. The printing press

was the main means of widespread communication when the Electoral College was being

created. The founders were worried that voters from far and wide could not get enough

information. Thus, the founding fathers then believed the voters should select local officials,

whom the voters knew more about, to be electors. These electors would vote for their

constituents presidential choice(Outdated). However,today in the twenty-first century,

information is available through a multitude of mediums, most especially the internet, where

pertinent data on the candidates can be accessed within a matter of seconds.

Not only is the Electoral College outdated, it allows for the potential of a minority

president to be elected into office without winning the majority vote. The Electoral College

system can have cases where the candidate with fewer popular votes can win the presidency.

Erik Black, a journalist for the Minnesota Post even stated that the Electoral College can create

the possibility for the loser of the popular vote to win the electoral vote. This situation where a

minority president has been elected has been seen multiple times where one candidate won the

presidential election by close margins in enough states to win the Electoral College, but loses by

large margins in other states and thus gets elected with fewer popular votes than his

rival(Bolinger 180). The Electoral College does not accurately depict who the majority of the

population want as their president. Rather, it shows the want of the states which is not the want

of the American people as whole.

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Another reason why the Electoral College should be abolished is because it undermines

the notion that every vote counts. The Electoral College does not support the idea that every vote

counts, rather it further distorts the one-person, one-vote principle of democracy because

electoral votes are not distributed according to population. Every state gets one electoral vote for

each member of its delegation to the House of Representatives (this by itself would be a rough

measure of its population) and each state also gets two bonus electors representing its two

senators.This causes significant overrepresentation of small states in the College. In the most

extreme case, using 2010 Census figures and the new distribution of House seats based on that

census, an individual citizen in Wyoming has more than triple the weight in electoral votes as an

individual in California(Black). People in different states have more of a significant vote than in

other states solely based on the population. Every vote is counted, however in different states a

vote can have more or less power than in others such as in the case of the recent election where

California would vote Democratic in the presidential election (Clinton won it by 29 points) and

that West Virginia would go Republican (Trump won by nearly 42 points)And because of the

United States' peculiar electoral college system, in which the winner takes all the electoral votes

in all but two states, all the California Trump votes and West Virginia Clinton votes didn't really

matter much. So voters in those states might have reasonably shrugged and stayed home on

Election Day(Kurtzleben). The Electoral College system also does not account for all United

States citizens.The Electoral College system awards votes to states, however many citizens are

left out. Even though residents of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands are U.S. citizens,

they are fully excluded from the Electoral College voting system. Puerto Rico by itself has a

population of 3,808,610. After adding this population to that of the other territories, it can found
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that over four million citizens are not represented in the Electoral College system. These citizens

are all interested in who becomes commander-in- chief, however they do not have a say(Bolinger

180). The people of these territories are able to vote, however they are not counted in the

Electoral College system.

There are many reasons why the Electoral College should be abolished yet, opponents

can still argue that the Electoral College should be preserved as it preserves the two-party system

and has the ability to maintain the system of checks and balances in American government. The

two party system balances out the election process and it parallels those found within the

Electoral College itself(the people and the Electoral College vote) as well as the nature of the

American federal government, such as the two-house legislature(McCollester 184). Having a

two party system may split the country in terms of opinions, however it still allows for the

United States to have a functioning government. Maria Lynn McCollester states how:

Historically, multi-party systems have divided nations, destabilizing them beyond the point of

having a functioning and successful government(184). Also, the values of the United States can

be seen in every aspect of the constitution, which includes its system of checks and balances that

is predominantly the most important. Americans desire to maintain a balanced government,

where one source of power cannot be greater than another. This requires systems such as the

bicameral legislature and the Electoral College. With these systems, the United States

government is able to be federalist in nature(McCollester 184).

The Electoral College was created for purposed that no longer apply to today. If the

Electoral College were to be abolished, would open up many solutions to the problems it has

created. The Electoral College being outdated, does not keep up with the demands of today's
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time and for it to be abolished would allow for a new system of how the president is to be

elected that pertains more to today and for future elections. Also, for the Electoral College to be

abolished there would be no more cases where a minority candidate(according to the popular

vote) wins the presidency, and a clear representation of who was to become president would be

shown. Every vote would be accounted for, and more people would be encouraged to go out and

vote. Overall, for the Electoral Colleges abolishment would be an tremendous improvement and

would be something more aligned with the United States of today.

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Works Cited

Americas outdated Electoral College New York Times.Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., 20 Oct

2008. Accessed 13 Mar 2017.

Black, Erik. 10 reasons why the Electoral College is a problem The Minnesota Post. Andrew

Wallmeyer, 16 Oct 2012. Accessed 13 Mar 2017.

Bolinger, Benjamin. Abolishing the Electoral College. International Social Science Review

vol. 82 no. (2007): pp.179-182. JSTOR. Accessed 7 Mar 2017.

Kurtzleben, Danielle. CHARTS: Is The Electoral College Dragging Down Voter Turnout In

Your State?. NPR. Triton Digital, 26 Nov 2016. Accessed 13 Mar 2017.

McCollester, Maria Lynn. Counterpoint: Preserving the Electoral College.International Social

Science Review, Vol.82 no. ( 2007): pp. 182-186. JSTOR. Accessed 7 Mar 2017.