Abolish the Electoral College
posted by Joshua Dungee | November 6, 2020 | In OpinionThe Electoral College is an outdated institution and is no longer needed in the United States, therefore, it should be abolished.
The Electoral College is a process that disregards the popular vote. According to The National Popular Vote, there are a total of 538 total electoral votes and each state is given a specific amount of votes based on the size of the state in terms of population; the more people in a state, the more electoral votes it has.
“On election day, voters choosing a presidential candidate are actually casting a vote for an elector. Most states use the “winner-take-all” method, in which all electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the popular vote in that state,” according to Procon.org.
There have been 5 times when a president was elected despite losing the popular vote. In 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and, most recently, 2016 “when Donald Trump lost the general election to Hillary Clinton by over 2.8 million votes and won the Electoral College by 74 votes,” but he gained 304 electoral votes, while Clinton only received 227 thus making Trump the president, according to Britannica.
The founding fathers created the Electoral College in 1788 and now because of modern technology, it is no longer needed. Political parties now have the ability to get voters all the necessary information to make their decisions that was not as accessible back in 1788.
According to Jessica Pearce Rotondi at History, swing states, also known as purple states are “are highly competitive states that have historically swung between voting for different parties in presidential elections.” The Electoral College also gives way too much power to “swing states” allowing the whole election to be mostly dependent on a handful of states. Both main political parties usually never have to worry about certain states not voting for them, which just leaves the election in the hands of the swing states.
The Electoral College is not for the will of the people. There are over 330 million people in the United States, according to the World Meter. Though all of these people are not eligible to vote, there are still way more people voting than the 538 electoral votes that are used to decide the election results.
There was a bit of vagueness in the U.S. Constitution when creating the Electoral College leaving states with the ability to find loopholes when awarding votes to presidential candidates. According to the Brookings Institute, “15 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws to adopt the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), which is an multi-state agreement to commit electors to vote for candidates who win the nationwide popular vote, even if that candidate loses the popular vote within their state.”
A more permanent way solution of abolishing the Electoral College would be to amend the Constitution itself. It would be a very tedious and lengthy process because it would require “at least two-thirds affirmation from both the House and Senate, and approval from at least 38 out of 50 states” according to Brookings, but in 1934 Congress came very close, falling short by only two Senate votes according to the Washington Post.
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