Should Electoral College Be Abolished

“The Electoral College is a disaster for a democracy.” Donald Trump, the forty-fifth President of the United States who ironically won from the votes of the Electoral College, declares that this unpatriotic system hinders the people from choosing their president. A “disaster” for the American system, the Electoral College displays an authoritarian structure, giving citizens little to no choice of their leader. Since a president was not chosen by the majority vote in 1824, there has been heated debate on whether or not to eliminate the Electoral College. The Electoral College was created in 1787 during the Constitutional Convention. The framers of the Constitution incorrectly believed that the people would abuse their power if they decided to

Primarily, the Electoral College promotes a racial bias and gives more electoral weight to the Southern Republican states. Moreover, the popular vote system would enable third-party candidates to have a higher probability of becoming the president. However, several misguided Americans believe that the popular vote would not protect small states, but small states actually become ignored during presidential campaigns. Hence, the federal government’s elimination of the Electoral College would strengthen the representative government and the chances of third-party candidates, giving states and American citizens the power to choose their president as they

Jerry Fresia, a former professor of political science, explains that if a popular third-party candidate runs for the presidency, such as Ross Perot in the 1992 election with twenty percent national support, the House of Representatives chose the president. The two dominant parties ruled the House anyway, so the chances of a third-party win became slim to none (Fresia). In that case when the Electoral College was split in their decision, the biased House chose the person to take office. The Electoral College still displays partiality and should be eliminated, because Republicans and Democrats control almost all government systems, the Electoral College included. The elimination of the Electoral College and the election of third-party candidates may bring real change to America. Furthermore, the Electoral College forces smaller parties to merge with one of the major parties, diluting their true cause. According to the aforementioned article, the People’s Party in 1896 had as high as forty-five percent support in over twenty states. However, they knew their candidate could not win the presidency because of the small amount of electoral votes for their supporting states in the Electoral College, so they hoped to unite with the Democrats rather than advocating for their own