Electoral college drop out

 

 

The rules of the Electoral College need to be reformed because it has failed some. I explicitly remember the Electoral College being the reason why Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, despite having won the majority popular vote.

However, this isn’t the only time electoral votes elected a president despite opposing candidates winning the popular vote. The elections of 1876 and 1888 also illustrated how the Electoral College can cheat a candidate out of victory.

I have some major issues with the Electoral College.  This system was designed by the framers to decrease the direct voting power of the people.  Each state has its own policy for how it chooses its electors, equivalent to the representatives in the House of Representatives. 

There are a total of 538 electoral votes, and a candidate needs at least 270 to win. Voters in Florida, New York, California, Texas and Ohio can expect their opinions of presidential candidates to count more than those who live in states such as Wyoming. They have larger populations and, therefore, a greater stake in the presidential election.

This is a skewed sense of balance the country has implemented.  Each state is guaranteed at least three votes in the Electoral College, regardless of its population. Each year, however, more money is spent on advertisements in more populous states while the lesser-populous states are almost completely ignored.

The Electoral College was discussed briefly during a debate between Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart on Oct. 6.

Stewart said the Electoral College “makes absolutely no sense” to him. O’Reilly said the system keeps the larger states from “bullying” the smaller states.

Is that really the case? In reality, the Electoral College snuffs out votes for candidates opposite of the most popular party of each state.

All it takes is a popular vote of 51 percent to take 100 percent of the votes in each state. So if you’re a Democrat voting in Texas or a Republican voting in New York, too bad. There’s a major chance your votes won’t matter in the electoral process.

All other elections held in the United Stated are decided by popular vote. Why didn’t the framers trust voters? A popular vote would guarantee a larger voter turnout in our democracy because citizens would have an equal opinion. A popular vote would give