Electoral College Position Paper Defining a new system of government after a revolution is no easy task, even for the revered founding fathers of the United States. Ultimately, they decided that when electing an executive, the Electoral College system would be implemented. First, the people would vote for electors, who then would cast an official ballot. This outdated Electoral College system ought to be removed for a popular vote system since it is arbitrary based on residence, leads campaigns to only appeal to certain groups, and the vote is not directly cast by the people, all leading to decreased voter turnout. To begin, the Electoral College takes into account the individual states that people live in. This is considered arbitrary since people now identify with the nation as a whole rather than their individual states. Since the Electoral College is “winner take all”, this renders certain sections of the country as “already decided”. People who choose to deviate from the …show more content…
This is especially ironic because the founding fathers believed that the people would not look out for the greater good due to personal considerations, but the Electoral College system encourages this behavior from politicians who only need to appeal to ten or so swing states. These few states are of utmost importance to both parties. For instance, no republican has ever won without winning Ohio and Florida is often the deciding vote. This is problematic because the people who actually determine the outcome of the population are a subset of the population and do not represent the country’s interests as a whole. In turn, this leads to a lower voter turnout because people become discouraged and are less likely to engage in the democratic process. Voter participation dropped to an astonishingly low number, down to 54.5 percent in 2004, the exact opposite of the ideal republic where everyone’s vote is