Should Electoral College Be Abolished Essay

Imagine a system where the ruler of a country is chosen indirectly and the minority is valued more than the majority. This is how the United States Electoral College operates and this is why many wonder whether or not the Electoral College should be abolished. The Electoral College is a system in which the a portion popular vote in each state counts as Electoral vote. Whichever candidate wins the most votes wins the states electoral votes. So, should the Electoral College be abolished? The Electoral College should be abolished for 3 main reasons; The Electoral College is undemocratic, it over-represents small states and it hurts third parties.

One reason the Electoral College should be abolished is because it is an archaic, erroneous and undemocratic

system that contradicts everything the United States represents. In a democratic society, all votes have the same value. Yet in the electoral college, less votes from smaller states appear to have more value. To win the electoral College, a candidate requires 270 out of 538 votes. A candidate could get 270 votes by winning only 11 states.(DocA) Because of the winner-take-all ideology, once a candidate wins 270 votes, they still win the other 268 votes, thus making opposing votes invalid. This means the person wins presidency, even supposing they didn't win the popular vote(DocG). These examples show that the Electoral College should be abolished because they show how the Electoral College disregards the concept of a democratic society by undermining the other votes and giving some states more value than others.

A second reason the Electoral College should be abolished is that small states are over-represented.

In an electoral College the number of Electoral votes allocated to each state is dependent on the states population. If they state has a greater population then the state has more representatives, thus more electoral votes. In spite of this, which seems to be an advantage, states with larger population have a much harder time generating Electoral votes for the mere fact that they are underrepresented. Because states with lower populations have less representatives, they require less votes to acquire one Electoral vote. For example, a state with about 500,000 voters would have 3 representatives and therefore represent about 16,666 people each. By the same token, A state with about 35 million voters would have around 55 representatives, meaning the each representative represents 636,363 people.This means that two regions with the same population can have different amounts of Electoral votes because one region is a state and the other a group of them.(DocD) This imbalance of power highlights the fact that the Electoral College should be abolished because it expresses how the amount of votes you get does not determine whether or not you win. It also expresses how smaller states have more impact in the electoral college because they are not only easier to generate but also they have more value. It is unfair for larger states to have less votes than a group of states with similar

populations simply because they are a state.

A final reason the Electoral College should be abolished is because it hurts third parties.

Traditionally, there are two main candidates; a democrat and a republican. They often have very opposing views and disagree on most topics. But there is frequently a third party candidate who is neither a democrat nor a republican but is an independant. Independants often struggle when it comes to getting votes because many people don't acknowledge their stance and normally follow the main parties, democrat or republican. The Electoral gives third parties a harder time acquirring votes. Third party candidates normally get 0% of the electoral vote despite getting a respectable amount of the popular vote. (DocB) Third party candidates are already at a disadvantage because they already are struggling to get the support of the faithful democrats/republicans. By keeping the Electoral College we are putting third party candidates at a worse disadvantage because it gives them virtually no chance to win

presidency.

Some may argue that the Electoral College is an accurate representation of the will of the people because it boosts the power of small states, discourages splinter parties and extremists, and that was what the Framers wanted.However, for the three reasons presented above, that it's undemocratic, the over-representation of smaller states, and its disacknowledgement of third parties, the Electoral College should be abolished.