I am doing a debate on Why we should get rid of the Electoral College. Any Ideas?

Answer 1

Those who object to the Electoral College system and favor a direct popular election of the president generally do so on four grounds:
the possibility of electing a minority president

the risk of so-called "faithless" Electors,

the possible role of the Electoral College in depressing voter turnout, and

its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will.

Opponents of the Electoral College are disturbed by the possibility of electing a minority president (one without the absolute majority of popular votes). Nor is this concern entirely unfounded since there are three ways in which that could happen.

One way in which a minority president could be elected is if the country were so deeply divided politically that three or more presidential candidates split the electoral votes among them such that no one obtained the necessary majority. This occurred, as noted above, in 1824 and was unsuccessfully attempted in 1948 and again in 1968. Should that happen today, there are two possible resolutions: either one candidate could throw his electoral votes to the support of another (before the meeting of the Electors) or else, absent an absolute majority in the Electoral College, the U.S. House of Representatives would select the president in accordance with the 12th Amendment. Either way, though, the person taking office would not have obtained the absolute majority of the popular vote. Yet it is unclear how a direct election of the president could resolve such a deep national conflict without introducing a presidential run-off election -- a procedure which would add substantially to the time, cost, and effort already devoted to selecting a president and which might well deepen the political divisions while trying to resolve them.

Opponents of the Electoral College system also point to the risk of so-called "faithless" Electors. A "faithless Elector" is one who is pledged to vote for his party's candidate for president but nevertheless votes of another candidate. There have been 7 such Electors in this century and as recently as 1988 when a Democrat Elector in the State of West Virginia cast his votes for Lloyd Bensen for president and Michael Dukakis for vice president instead of the other way around. Faithless Electors have never changed the outcome of an election, though, simply because most often their purpose is to make a statement rather than make a difference. That is to say, when the electoral vote outcome is so obviously going to be for one candidate or the other, an occasional Elector casts a vote for some personal favorite knowing full well that it will not make a difference in the result. Still, if the prospect of a faithless Elector is so fearsome as to warrant a Constitutional amendment, then it is possible to solve the problem without abolishing the Electoral College merely by eliminating the individual Electors in favor of a purely mathematical process (since the individual Electors are no longer essential to its operation).

Opponents of the Electoral College are further concerned about its possible role in depressing voter turnout. Their argument is that, since each State is entitled to the same number of electoral votes regardless of its voter turnout, there is no incentive in the States to encourage voter participation. Indeed, there may even be an incentive to discourage participation (and they often cite the South here) so as to enable a minority of citizens to decide the electoral vote for the whole State. While this argument has a certain surface plausibility, it fails to account for the fact that presidential elections do not occur in a vacuum. States also conduct other elections (for U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, State Governors, State legislators, and a host of local officials) in which these same incentives and disincentives are likely to operate, if at all, with an even greater force. It is hard to imagine what counter-incentive would be created by eliminating the Electoral College.

Finally, some opponents of the Electoral College point out, quite correctly, its failure to accurately reflect the national popular will in at least two respects.

First, the distribution of Electoral votes in the College tends to over-represent people in rural States. This is because the number of Electors for each State is determined by the number of members it has in the House (which more or less reflects the State's population size) plus the number of members it has in the Senate (which is always two regardless of the State's population). The result is that in 1988, for example, the combined voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven least populous jurisdiction of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming carried the same voting strength in the Electoral College (21 Electoral votes) as the 9,614,000 persons of voting age in the State of Florida. Each Floridian's potential vote, then, carried about one third the weight of a potential vote in the other States listed.

A second way in which the Electoral College fails to accurately reflect the national popular will stems primarily from the winner-take-all mechanism whereby the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes in the State wins all the Electoral votes of that State. One effect of this mechanism is to make it extremely difficult for third party or independent candidates ever to make much of a showing in the Electoral College. If, for example, a third party or independent candidate were to win the support of even as many as 25% of the voters nationwide, he might still end up with no Electoral College votes at all unless he won a plurality of votes in at least one State. And even if he managed to win a few States, his support elsewhere would not be reflected. By thus failing to accurately reflect the national popular will, the argument goes, the Electoral College reinforces a two party system, discourages third party or independent candidates, and thereby tends to restrict choices available to the electorate.

In response to these arguments, proponents of the Electoral College point out that is was never intended to reflect the national popular will. As for the first issue, that the Electoral College over-represents rural populations, proponents respond that the United State Senate - with two seats per State regardless of its population - over-represents rural populations far more dramatically. But since there have been no serious proposals to abolish the United States Senate on these grounds, why should such an argument be used to abolish the lesser case of the Electoral College? Because the presidency represents the whole country? But so, as an institution, does the United States Senate.

Answer 2

Which side of the debate are you on? Pro or Con Electoral College?

Pro - The Electoral College is unnecessary because: 1) the Presidency is identified with the people, 2) it can be hurtful to the integrity of the electoral process and the institution of the Presidency by thwarting the will of the people and electing a president with a minority of the popular vote; 3) democratic-republic forms of government do best when the process of governing is simple and the Electoral College provides a needless complication.

Con - We must keep the Electoral College because it is the last vestage of State's Rights. US Senators and the president were both elected by the states. Then the Constitution was changed to provde that US Senators be elected by the people and now some would have the president elected by the people as well. Federalism isn't just a separation of powers and layering of government, but a separation of sovereignty and a constant tension between all aspects of government and governing. The Founding Fathers understood this and they specifically reserved rights to the states (Amendment X - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.) and they granted specific powers to the states -- namely the election of the president. Why this power? Because it is the United States -- STATES, not people or voters -- of America and it is a FEDERAL government which means it is a federation and the states who join the federation, while they can never leave it, can always votes for its leader.

Answer 3

Ideas in favor of scrapping the Electoral College:
1) It's possible to win the total popular vote but lose in the Electoral College (this happens more often than you think).
2) Since most state use a "winner take all" system to allocate votes in the Electoral College, small differences in votes in a state get translated into landslides
3) These combine to give undue weight to smaller states.
4) If a candidate feels that a state is very likely to go to one or the other candidates, the candidate has no need to campaign there - either s/he gets all the votes or none, with no prize/penalty for getting some swing votes.

In favor of the Electoral College:
1) Since it's not just the total nationwide vote, candidates also have to pay attention to smaller states that might otherwise get ignored.

Answer 4

The electoral college is no longer necessary. We already know how many 'points' (electoral votes) you get for winning each state. Why not just look at the popular vote in each state. Consult the table to see how many points it's worth and add up the number. There's no reason to have electors (people) go through the formality of physically being somewhere to cast the vote. Also, in theory, an elector doesn't need to abide by the vote in his state. He can go for a different candidate. (Of course this almost never happens).

Finally, to scrap the whole system where representation is based on senators + representatives, we can just go with the popular vote on a nationwide basis (and not a state by state basis). That way, whoever wins the most votes nationwide gets elected...and we won't have a Bush-Gore 2000 situation where Gore won the national popular vote but Bush got elected because the votes that he did get were in states will high electoral counts.

Answer 5

The number one reason why we should get rid of the Electoral College; Election Day 2000.

We should get rid of the electoral college because it would level the playing field for voter's and EVERY American's vote would then "count."

The fear the Republicans have is that if every person's vote counted, the majority of America would be voting either for a Democrat or a third party candidate and the rich wouldn't get all the tax breaks, special favors, contract deals etc. they currently get with a Republican run Congress and White House.

I say it;'s high time we gave the Electoral College the boot. It made sense back in the day when populations clustered in certain areas of the country. Not anymore. I want my vote to have full power.

Answer 6

a million. A 2. a three. A 4. The Electoral college is sturdy in line with the unique purpose of the Founding Fathers. to sidestep the tyranny of the common public. we are a republic no longer an instant democracy. as properly no modification to the Electoral college will probable ever take place. As component of the approach it would take 39 states to ratify. tell me which of 39 states might vote to disallow themselves from selection of the President of the USA? unlikely.

Answer 7

I don't think we should. In rare cases, it might not give the same results as the popular vote. But it will prevent someone winning a few large states and running away with an election.

If we do eliminate the EC then we should also make sure that a winning canidate has to carry more than 50 percent of the popular vote.

If they don't then, we have a run off. (Wouldn't that be fun?)

Multiple parties can dilute popular vote and give someone a easy popular win. The EC brings it back into focus.

Sore losers on the left want to get rid of the process when it doesn't suit their agenda but the Founding Fathers had something right.

Answer 8

I dont' think we should....I think that it would make elections one sided if we went with the straight popular vote... Think about it....there are more people in LA or New York than in my whole state. I don' think that the key areas of interest in those match mine....The electoral college is designed to even the playing field a bit, just like that is why we have two houses in congress. One based on population, to make the larger states happy, and one with a set number, to make the small states happy. It give us rural states with a lower population a chance to have a big say. however I do think it does need a little tune up....as was said it is a dinosaur...an upgrade is in order.

Answer 9

Because you never want to have to see another Presidential candidate again - they will always be in New York, California or in big cities, and the rest of the country be damned. You just have to win one more vote than the other guy. You want to see power entrusted into small, centralized, urban areas - and small town, rural areas, states with lower population (probably the smallest 30 states) would be left out of the process. It would be all about the east and west coasts, Florida and Texas - the rest of the country wouldn't matter a pinch.

Get rid of it and get rid of representative democracy...

Answer 10

The electoral college is a dinosaur. It was created in a time when communication was difficult and the ability to compile large amounts of data in a short period of time was nearly impossible. Now, when we can imput and compute data, especially simple "yes or no" data, in seconds, the need for the electoral college is gone.

Answer 11

Because, as currently implement, it effectively forces a two-party system in which any third-party candidate is automatically shut out.

The electoral college can be fixed, without being abandoned and without requiring a constitutional amendment. But it won't happen as long as the two dominant parties control everything, because the current system gets them exactly the exclusive playing field they want.