The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

For many years, America’s voting system has been criticized, with the main point of interest being the Electoral College. Some say that the Electoral College is necessary to streamline and simplify the voting process, while others say that it is outdated and takes away power from American citizens. After investigating the subject, it is clear that the Electoral College should be abolished due to the three major defects its critics find in the system; its undemocratic nature, its tendency to give small states’ votes too much power, and its disastrous effects on third-party candidates. The first, and possibly largest, defect in the Electoral College is its undemocratic nature. A professor of political science once said that “the Electoral College violates political equality” (Edwards 453). In a democracy, all citizens of a nation should be equal in every way. The Electoral College’s violation of political equality diminishes one of the most important staples of a democratic government. An even worse scenario can occur in the Electoral College in the case of a tie, in which “the election is thrown to the House of Representatives, where state delegations vote on the president” (Plumer 457). When this occurs, the general public’s votes are cast aside and

The United States prides itself on being a democratic nation that serves its citizens, yet its voting system throws democracy away in favor of efficiency. Even on the state level, not all states are represented equally when electoral votes are distributed. Finally, the Electoral College discourages third-party candidates from running, giving too much power to the two political parties of the nation and robbing the nation’s citizens from potential leaders who could change the country for the better if they could win the