Should Electoral College Be Abolished Essay

The Electoral College is a system that has been used to elect the president of the United States since the country’s founding. It is essentially groups of people called electors who cast votes for the president and vice president of the US. Each state has a slate of electors chosen by political parties. This system is prone to manipulation and fraud and takes away the meaning from the American people’s fundamental right to vote. For three reasons, the Electoral College should be abolished. These reasons are: it creates a biased voting process, violates political equality, and does not represent the people.

One reason the Electoral College should be abolished is because it creates a biased voting process. Electors are chosen based on state

The principle of political equality holds that every citizen should have an equal say in the political process. The winner-take-all system is used by most states, meaning presidential candidates only need to win a large number of votes in each state to win all of its electoral votes. Voters who live in states that are not contested for are wasted versus those who live in swing (or battleground) states. Swing states refers to states that do not have a major political party on lock. According to the “Comparison of Population and Electoral Votes, 2010” chart, 12 states and DC have a population of 12,500,722 with 44 electoral votes. However, the state of Illinois has a population of 12,830,632 with 20 electoral votes. There is an obvious violation in this principle as it is illogical how smaller states seem to have more of a voice than the larger states. These examples show that the Electoral College should be abolished because it violates the political principle of political

As stated before, the winner-take-all system is used by most states in which presidential candidates only need to win a large number of votes in each state to win all of its electoral votes. This means candidates can win the presidency without winning the popular vote. First, according to the “Four Presidential Elections” chart, in the 2000 presidential election, the three candidates were Bush, Gore and Nader. Bush had 50,456,002 votes, Gore had 50,999,897 votes and Nader had 2,882,955 votes in the popular vote. However, in the electoral vote, Bush had 271 votes, Gore had 266, but Nader did not have any. Bush won the election because he had more electoral votes, even though he did not win the popular vote. This also shows how the Electoral College fails to show the American people’s views. In another example, back in 1980, the presidential election had 3 candidates: Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and John B. Anderson. In the popular vote, Reagan had 50.7% of the votes, Carter had 41% of the votes and Anderson had 6.6% of the votes. In the electoral votes, Reagan had 91% of the votes, Carter had 9% of the votes, but Anderson did not have any. Again, this is an inaccurate representation of the American people. It is illogical for Reagan to have 91% of the votes if the race was 50/50 between him and Carter. It is also unfair for Anderson to have 0