Jabari Smith Mr.

Buescher 3/27/13 Government Final Draft

With all the hubbub about the Electoral College, it is hard to separate fact from fiction, and to decide whether it still is functioning for our government or as obsolete as horse drawn carriages. Many people support the old system for its abilities to lower the chances of fraud, or how it gives more sway to our votes while critics and others oppose the system because it demeans the value of democracy by changing the weight of our votes. Something else against the system is that it greatly lowers the diversity of the government. The truth of the matter is that the Electoral College should be abolished because it goes in direct conflict with one of the fundamental parts of our government; one person, one vote. One person, one vote, is a simple idea, which is extremely important. It simply means that everyone gets to vote what her or she wants, and that no matter who you are, your vote is equal to everyone elses and it counts the same way. In the Electoral College, your vote doesnt count in the traditional sense, that it goes straight to the candidate and helps that person get elected. Instead, it is tallied with all the other votes for that candidate, and is ranked among the other candidates, and the candidate that gets the most votes total, gets all the electoral points for that electoral section. Confusing wasnt it? Many Americans, who live in the states where their political party is in the minority, feel that the voting process is irrelevant because their vote

wont be counted for their party if the opposing party wins. Or even if they did vote in close proximity, their votes will be irrelevant if their political party losses. There are more than 20 political parties in the United States of America, but all the attention is drawn to two of them because of the way our political system is built around the Electoral College. People who wish to vote for parties such as the Green Party, or Libertarian Party, practically throw their votes away when they cast them for these parties because they are so insignificant against the much larger Democratic and Republican Parties. People feel inferior because in the current political system, their parties will be small, remain small, or decline because growth is nearly impossible when people feel that every time they vote for a 3rd party, they waste a vote. Growth is nearly impossible under our current system. A colossal flaw in the Electoral College is that there are circumstances where the candidate who holds the majority of the actual votes, loses the election to the candidate who has the most electoral points. This is directly contradicts the idea of the Commander in Chief actually being wanted by the majority of the populace. While these points are all strong against the Electoral College, supporters of it have a few things to say in its defense. They say that the Electoral College reduces the chances of fraud because only the majority votes are counted towards the election, and fraudulent votes rarely sway the election. While that can be true, fraudulent votes actually can sway the election for smaller states, and for larger ones whose votes are within close proximity of each other. Also, counted fraudulent votes under a direct democracy hardly impact the national average. Defenders of the system also say that the victories are always clear, where candidates win by wide electoral margins. While that can be true, it also remains true for elections under a direct democracy, and

there have been case where the electoral system can come to a 269-269 tie, or that more people voted for the candidate who lost the electoral vote, but not the majority vote from the people. While the electoral system has done its job in the past, it is long past due that we retire the system for one that more accurately portrays the vibe of the nation, allows for more of a divers democratic system, and one where all the votes of all the people are equal. This system could possibly work on a smaller scale, but the fundamental value of one person one vote is still not accounted for, and that the people still need to be equally represented. The Electoral College should be abolished because it goes in direct conflict with one of the fundamental parts of our government; one person, one vote.