Does one vote really make the difference?
The Electoral College is an archaic system that is used in the presidential election. This system was devised so the election of the president could be simplified. However since its inception, the Electoral College has become ineffective in providing an accurate winner. In addition to this the lack of laws that govern this system is astounding. I can’t help but feel that the Electoral College has served its purpose and there is a better system to elect the leader of our country.
The Electoral College is a system where every state is assigned as certain number of Electoral votes based on the size of its population. These votes are casted by Electors which are selected by state legislature and given the task of casting their state’s allocated votes (Archives.gov). Though the Electors tend to vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote, by federal law they are not required to (Archives.gov). Though many states have enacted their own legislation that requires their electors to vote for a specific candidate, 22 states have not including Arizona, Texas, and New York (Archives.gov). Meaning that if an Elector resides in one of the 22 states that don’t have laws that govern the votes; they are free to vote as they chose. As an example if a candidate were to win the election in Arizona, that candidate should win the 10 Electoral votes allocated for Arizona but could very well not receive any if the Electors chose not to vote for that candidate, thus completely negating the choice and rights of the general public. My personal opinion is that the Electoral College is an ungoverned, lawless system that has the potential to completely negate the options and rights of the American public to choosing the President.
In addition to the lack of laws and regulations of Electors, It has become more apparent that the Electoral College is an inaccurate way to elect the candidate Americans want to represent them as President. In 2000 the Presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore was a very close one. More important than that Al Gore had won the popular vote meaning that he had received a more of the votes nationwide than the other candidates did (Britannica.com). The official vote count was 50,456,002 votes for George Bush and 50,999,897 for Al Gore (Britannica.com). However the vote count using the Electoral College was 271 for Bush to 266 for Gore (Britannica.com). Though the winning margin of popular votes is small, Al Gore was the candidate that Americans wanted for President. Had Al Gore been running for Senate, House of Representatives, Sate held office, or City held office he would have been declared the victor because those offices use the popular vote to declare the winner, but due to the Electoral College Al Gore lost. During the history of our nation the Electoral College has declared 3 candidates as the winners that have lost the popular vote (Britannica.com). As a Representative Republic we cannot let this issue be ignored any longer. The leader of our country should be a person that American people as a whole chose and not a majority of states.
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