Sunday, November 19, 2017
What should be the future of The Electoral College?
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The election of 2000 raised questions of whether The Electoral College needed to be modified or replaced as the winner of the popular vote was the loser of the general election. Last year's election brought further attention to the issue with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote by a wider margin than in 2000 and falling way short in The Electoral College. These letters to the editor propose various solutions that many of you proposed as well when we studied the topic in class. The proposal to scrap the winner take all component in favor of electoral votes going to candidates based on their percentage of the popular vote is one solution. Another idea is what Maine and Nebraska already do, which is award electoral votes to the winner of each representative's district. One letter suggests we need to consider mandatory voting given that only 55% of the eligible electorate came out to vote in a major election. It makes one wonder what voter turnout will look like in next year's midterm election. Anyhow, how do you think the electoral system can be improved? You can also argue the status quo (no change necessary) or for scrapping The Electoral College entirely.
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9 comments:
I believe that there is no need for the electoral college anymore. The reason that the electoral college was founded was because the founding fathers did not trust the American public to chose a president, as they were not informed of the current state of government. This process would allow politicians to chose the president based off of what their state wanted. This makes the electoral college unnecessary because the American public is much more informed than they were in the 1700s and now, the electoral votes usually go to the candidate the American voters already selected. The winner take all system is not fair, because if one candidate only gets 51% of the vote in a state (other than Nebraska or Maine), they get all the electoral votes. The electoral college does not make sense because a candidate who did not get a majority of the popular vote, can still win the presidency. This is not fair because a majority of the country voted for another candidate, but the minority candidate wins anyway. In conclusion, I do not care if the electoral college stays or goes, but I want the electoral votes to be distributed proportionally to the popular vote, so that the presidency is chosen based off the popular vote.
I think that the best solution is to get rid of the electoral college completely. With the two solutions proposed in the post, symptoms of the electoral college still exist. In the example of giving electoral votes based on percentage, the electoral college only serves to make the process longer without any benefit. In the example of giving electoral votes based on district wins, gerrymandering would still be a problem. If the electoral college was scrapped, these downsides would disappear, and turnout would be much higher because people in areas highly concentrated with one political party would be more inclined to vote since their vote matters more than if the electoral votes of the state were dependent on districts.
I agree with both Bela and Lucas that the electoral college is unneeded and should be scrapped entirely. The founders instituted the electoral college system supposedly to prevent direct democracy, and the faults of that---uneducated citizens making decisions. As Bela pointed out, the average citizen has a lot more information about candidates now, than they ever have had before(even if contemporary youth do not necessarily use those resources to become politically informed). Therefore, the Founders' point does not really remain valid. I also think that the electoral college system is biased towards the smaller states because according to this article, the votes in a less densely populated state like Wyoming, is worth "3.6 times as much as each vote in California." This is not really fair as each vote should count the same. Finally, I think that taking away the electoral college system may encourage more political participation. After elections like the one in 2016, where the winner of the popular vote did not win the presidency, people may wonder what the point of voting is, if the voices of the majority are not reflected by the outcome. The electoral college system is unnecessarily complicated and brings about too much political tension to really be worth its apparent merits.
I do not believe the Electoral College is the right way to choose our presidents. I think the power should be in the people, the popular vote, not the decisions made by a few select people. Also, as we learned in class, many smaller states are overrepresented in the electoral college and are given the same or almost the same power as larger states. I think some people argue that without the electoral college, states with large populations like California and New York would be the deciders of presidential elections. However, I believe that of that is where the majority of the population is, then of course that should be the case. Right now, it feels to me as if our votes do not matter, and I hope in the future a new plan can be made to change that.
Although most of the comments above argue that we should do away with the Electoral College and embrace a more democratic system of electing presidents, I would argue that we should keep the Electoral College as is. The founding fathers had the right to worry that people could be swayed irrationally in the wrong direction to vote for the wrong candidate. Imagine, for an instance, that Kanye West hypothetically ran for president. It would be likely that several millions of Kanye West fans around the United States would contribute their popular vote to him. If popular vote was the only thing that determined the presidential winner, we would have a rapper as a president. The Electoral College would protect against such an scenario, by allowing party elders and politician incumbents to review presidential nomination decisions. It is also important to keep in mind that although there have been about 55 elections in US history, only 5 of them have had scenarios where the popular candidate didn't win the electoral vote. Therefore, the concern that the less popular candidate wins the presidential role is relatively rare.
The popular vote is not relevant when arguing if the electoral college should be removed. If I were to argue with somebody that the team that scored the most runs should win the world series, I would not say "the baseball system is terrible because X team lost even though they scored the most runs", because the players weren't trying to get the most runs, they were trying to win games, as that's all that matters. I would say that my way is better than your way, not that your way is bad because it's not my way.
The reason we have the electoral college is that we are a country made up of states and aren't one whole population. I don't see people arguing that the senate should be abolished because it's undemocratic, we have a system that balances all the state's power. I'd like to keep it.
I agree with "the electoral vote is not the popular vote" is not a valid argument for abolishing the electoral vote. But I do believe that the popular vote is better because the constitution states that all men are created equal, so therefore they must have an equal say in their government. The electoral vote gives residents in Montana a significant majority over residents in California. I don't understand Frank's argument of a rapper becoming president; I'm sure that >150 million people would vote for Kanye as president, so I have no idea how this is relevant to the popular vote.
It should be noted that just because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote doesn't mean she deserves to be president. Had the system of determining the president actually had been based on the popular vote, both presidents would have had vastly different campaigns, and likely would have targeted different areas. Voters would have also been more compelled to vote, so we really don't know who really would have won the popular vote.
I don't know about completely scrapping the Electoral College. While I do think of it as an archaic system that almost devalues the American population's opinion with the popular vote and over represents small states, I think it is important in the sense that, as Frank suggested, it prevents the country from making totally irrational decisions in electing a president. Still, though I think the electoral college can act as a safeguard in some cases, I think some emphasis should be taken away from the electoral college. It may encourage more people to get out and vote, once they realize that their vote actually does matter.
Although the electoral college does have the benefits of protecting minority interests and giving more power to the states, I still think that the electoral college should either be abolished or altered. I feel as if there are too many cons of the current system. For example, everyone's vote is not equal. Someone's vote in Wyoming is much more valuable than someone's in California. This also effects voter turnout. Many people tend not to vote because they think their vote won't count. If California is democratic every year, why would you waste your time to vote if you were a resident of California. However, because of this, I think that the popular vote currently is not a completely accurate representation of what all Americans think. I think since the electoral college decreases voter turnout, it slightly skews the popular vote. Because of the cons outweighing the pros of the electoral college, it ought to be modified or abolished.
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