Argue for or Against the Electoral College Essay

The 2000 United States (U. S. ) presidential election concluded with Vice President Al Gore winning half a million more universal votes than George W. Bush (50,992,335 to 50,455,156) yet losing the White House in the Electoral College by only five votes (271 to 266). It once again raised questions about the hardness of the Electoral College as the same scenario has occur bolshie in the 1824, 1876, and 1888 presidential elections. This essay bequeath discuss two problems of the Electoral College the failure to accurately reflect home(a) commonplace vote pass on and the problem of state bias.I surround that the U. S. should abolish the Electoral College and implementthe speak touristy election of the president. The Electoral College fails to accurately reflect national popular vote will as it is practical to elect a minority president. As mentioned above, this incident has happened four condemnations in history. The Electoral College is fundamentally unfair to voters where voter carriage rights are grounded in the one person, one vote principle. By giving a come across for the Electoral College to elect a minority president, it shows that the Electoral College ignores the peoples choice.The Electoral College also faces the problem of state bias which favors the votes of some citizens all over that of others. Firstly, it gives undue weight to the votes of citizens in the smaller states. As the constitution assigns a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators and representatives, each state will at least have three electors, including the smaller states. This system gives aid votes to the smaller states since the three electors they have are more than what they deserve on the basis of their population share. Therefore, this bias gives added power to citizens of small states.For example, in the 2000 election, calcium pass one electoral vote for every 203,071 voters while Wyoming cast one electoral vote for every 71,242. Al Gore anomi c because his votes were not dispersed across the states in a such flair as to prevail in the Electoral College. The race was lost in the smaller states where Bush successfully won eleven out of 18 small states. Secondly, the Electoral College and its winner takes all system gives greater voting power to the larger states since they have more electors.It is possible that a expectation could win the presidency with only 7% of the popular vote if he or she wins all of the eleven largest states without having to capture a single popular vote in the remaining 39 states and D. C. Therefore, candidates would spend more time in the larger states. To the extent that large states are not as competitive in larger states like California and Texas ( hard blue and red states), candidates will target the more competitive larger states (swing states) such as Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. This system discourages voter turnout and disenfranchises people who vote for the losing candidates in th e solid blue or red states.This is because in these noncompetitive states, one or the other major party is traditionally victorious. There is arguably little motivation for citizens in that state to vote, no matter which candidate they top executive support because they know their vote will not matter. To conclude, U. S. should switch to direct election as it is the best system that guarantees the president has the direct popular mandate from the people. It also ensure representativeness (one person, one vote) and encourages voters turnout by giving voters a direct and equal role in electing the president.