Electoral College Should Be Abolished Dbq

President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were the two candidates running for president in the 2016 election. They tore every aspect of one another to shreds trying to get elected. It forced America to split and pick sides. Riots, racist or sexist slurs all contributed to the Democrats and the Republicans fighting to have their candidate elected. America was left as a nation divided and has yet to fully heal. President Trump was elected because he won the electoral college, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Most Americans voted for Clinton but because of the outdated electoral college, Trump won. The electoral college should be abolished because it does not hear the voice of all the voters. The electoral college does not represent the true majority of the public.
In the 1992 presidential election Bill Clinton won only 43% of the popular vote but he won 69% of the electoral college. No one won the majority but the electoral college caused Clinton to win (Document B). Many times candidates who did not win the popular vote, won the electoral college which put them into office. Like in the 2016 election, Clinton 48% of the popular vote while Trump won only 42%. Two point nine million more americans voted for Hillary Clinton. The current president was elected by an outdated system that does not

hear the true voice of America.
If the electoral college were to finish with a tie, the House of Representatives would decide the next president.

In that case Bradford Plumer pointed out that each state would only have one vote. Wyoming, which only has 500,000 voters and California, which has 35 million voters each only have one vote to represent their citizens (Document F). The true voice of the people would not be heard. 500,000 voters could cancel out the voices of thirty five million voters. The electoral college is the reason many Americans think their voices are not heard. If the electoral college was abolished, then more voters would come out and presidents would be chosen by the true

majority.
The electoral college is a winner take all system. If one candidate has more votes, they take all the electoral votes for that state. All the votes that support the candidate that lost the state go to waste. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. said that the abolition of state-by-state electoral votes would speed up the degeneration of America’s two-party system (Document E). America’s republican versus democrat system is already weak. One more blow to it’s foundation, like the electoral college being abolished, would not shake America to its breaking point.
In the 1876 election Rutherford B. Hayes won the election with one hundred and fifty eight electoral votes although Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote by about two hundred thousand (Document G). More people voted for Tilden but because of the electoral college Hayes won. If the electoral college did not exist, then the president would be who the people had truly wanted. The electoral college does not elect who the people genuinely want.
In conclusion, the electoral college should be abolished. It is an outdated system that ultimately leads to arguments between the parties. If there were no electoral college, then maybe tere would be more peace between democrats and republicans. The winner of the election would be who the people truly wanted and needed. The electoral college should be abolished because it does not represent a true majority.