Electoral College

The Electoral College: And why we should Change
For those who do not know, the Electoral College is how the president is elected in the United States, and it works by the number of Senators (always two) plus the number of Representatives in the House (which depends on the number of people in the state). The total number of electoral votes is 538, and to win a presidential election you need 270 votes. Although this system was started by the founding fathers and adapted over time, now most believe it is time to change to the popular vote. This would prevent the less populated states from having more influence in the election, and allow everyone’s vote to count.
The Electoral College was developed to accommodate the needs of the political parties. When the founding fathers were deciding how to elect a president, some of the problems they faced were that the states wanted to have more power and have less of a national government. The country contained 4,000,000 people spread out along the Atlantic coast with no quick and easy transportation to reach the people or inform them about the candidates running. There were many different ideas that were discussed. One idea was that congress would pick the president, but that idea was quickly shot down because of a fear that this would cause an imbalance of power. Another idea was that the State legislations could select the president, but that was not approved because of the fear that the states would have too much power. The third idea was that the popular vote would be the only determining factor of who was elected President, but this was also rejected because they did not trust the uneducated farmers and they feared that people would just vote for the hometown person that is running and no one would ever get a majority. The idea for the Electoral College was selected to avoid these issues. The population of the states using the last census would determine the number of votes, and then each state would choose electors to travel to Washington to vote. The electors would vote for their top two candidates. This helped to avoid the problem of the electors wanting to only vote for the candidate from their home state. If there was a tie, then the U.S. House of Representatives would vote on it. The person with the second highest votes would be the vice president. This system only lasted for four presidential elections; it changed because of the formation of separate politic parties. Now there is a presidential candidate and a vice presidential candidate who run together.(1)
There are a number of reasons that the Electoral College should be changed to the popular vote. The first and most important reason is that a candidate can win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote and thereby lose the election. This means that the more popular candidate would lose, and the least popular candidate would win. This has happened three times in U.S. history. It occurred in the Hayes/Tilden election of 1876, the Harrison/Cleveland election of 1888, and a in the more recent Bush/Gore election in 2000. To use the Bush/Gore election as an example, Bush received 50,456,002 (47.9%) of the popular vote and Gore received 50,999,897 (48.4%) of the popular vote (3). Although those numbers seem close, that is around a 500,000 difference. The results of this extremely close election left the country waiting for weeks to find out who the next president was going to be.
Most arguments against the Electoral College usually say that it is unfair for the smaller states but is also unfair for larger states. This article in the Los Angeles Times by Frank McMillan considers the inequities of the electoral voting system,
Consider that California has a population of roughly 36.1 million. The state has 55 electoral votes, which means that each electoral vote represents 656,000 people. Wyoming, on the other hand, has a population of about 509,000. Wyoming has three electoral votes, which means that each vote represents 170,000 people. What this gives us is a situation that, when voting for president, a Wyoming resident casts a vote that carries 3.9 times as much weight as a Californian's vote. (Info from (2))
This idea goes against the idea of one-person one vote if votes carry unequal weights. It is time for the Electoral College to change because there is now a vast amount of political information available to all, especially during elections years. No matter how populated or unpopulated a state is Americans should be trusted to vote for whom they want. Now because of the expansion of the information age the Electoral College is no longer needed for the purpose that the founding fathers had in mind.
On the other hand those that argue that the Electoral College is a good thing say that it reduces the impact of voter fraud as argued by Jonathan Chait in a Los Angeles Times article,
States control a voter registration process that is too susceptible to fraud. Imagine such states as California, New York or Illinois controlled by a Democratic Party that decides to look the other way while activists register tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. Under the Electoral College, at least this kind of fraud is confined to the number of electoral votes of those states and would not add net new electoral votes for Democrats. However, if all votes are thrown into a national pool, then there would be enormous incentives to register illegal voters to cast fraudulent votes. (Info from (2))
Although this has not been proven to actually happen, it is still a fear of some people in both parties not just Republicans but Democrats too. Even though this is a valid concern, it is mostly just paranoia. Another reason why some people do not want to change the current system is that they believe that since the Electoral College has worked so far, why change it. However, this also is not true because most do not understand how the Electoral College works and how it affects an election. The Electoral College has affected an election three times in history, which leaves a what if, question. What if Gore beat Bush? What if Tilden beat Hayes? What if Cleveland beat Harrison? Would this be the same country that it is to day had any of those elections been reversed? The popular vote leaves no what if. You either lose or win. The American voter can be trusted more now days because unlike in the past there is constant media coverage and a greater number of people are educated than in the past when the founding fathers came up with the Electoral College. These differences enable the voter to make an informed decision.
Recent election results have illustrated the growing differences between the sparsely populated “Red States” and the more densely populated “Blue States.” America is always changing and our election system needs to adapt to those changes or we may have more situations such as what happened in 2000. The Electoral College should change to the popular vote because it is fair, and although there are arguments against the change, there will still be controversies whenever the election is decided by the electoral votes and discounts the popular vote.
Sources:
(1) http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html

(2)http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.everettcc.edu/pqdweb?index=5&did=1149038031&SrchMode=2&sid=2&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1266469264&clientId=8125

(3) http://www.presidentelect.org/e2000.html