Should the electoral college be abolished?

Yes

10 of 27

by Chad Trahan

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There are a lot of really good reasons to keep the Electoral College. I just think there are even more really good reasons to make it go away. The Electoral College is steeped in history. It is one of the greatest ideas our founding fathers had and shows their ability to think ahead and out of the box. The Electoral College served our country well for as long as it was needed, but I fear that it has far outlived its usefulness. It has become one of many propaganda tools ultimately at the disposal of politicians who are usually more interested in jockeying for position than doing much of anything to actually solve the country's problems.

First, a word about why it was a great idea when it started. Before the internet, television or even telephones, getting information out about Presidential candidates was tough. The fact is it didn't really happen at all, let alone in a timely manner. So groups of people had a couple of options. They could vote blindly based on limited information and prepared propaganda or they could ask someone who was a little more "in the know." The Electoral College was a way for uneducated and untraveled people to make their voice heard and their vote count. They could choose an Elector they had access to and that they trusted to go and hear the candidates, challenge them, interview them, hear their thoughts and then make a decision about who would best represent that groups interest in the presidency. Thus, the more people there were in an area, the more Electors they were entitled to. The divisions and allocations were made by state because the states functioned as independent entities in a large Republic. So the Electoral College allowed the states with larger stakes in the health of the Republic to have a larger say.

Today, the climate is different. Much different. First, our Republic doesn't look much like a Republic at all any more. We are a Nation of people. There are only minute differences from state to state and the Federal Government has stepped in to make even those differences have as little real impact as possible without abolishing state's rights altogether.

There is also a huge difference in the availability of information and the ability of people to use it. Now, I won't get into a commentary about how qualified the average American is to make political decisions, but the truth is that the average American today is much more educated than two hundred years ago. Our culture has also introduced a lot of entitlement and one of many results is that people want their voices to be heard directly, not place their trust in someone else. That said, information is readily available today. When something happens in Miami, people know about it seconds later in Honolulu. Speeches, debates and all manners of campaign activity can be watched in real time regardless of where we are. With so much information available in so many formats, people can be just as informed about presidential candidates as they once were about their assigned Elector. All of this works together at the very least to lay a foundation for the argument that today's American is at least as well prepared and qualified to cast a direct vote for the Presidency as they once were to choose their Electors.

Now that we have talked about why a popular vote is a reasonable thought in general, it is worth discussing the changes that would come to the campaign trail and why those changes might be good. Under today's system, an Electoral College that understands itself to be outdated has adopted tradition. The tradition is that the popular vote of a state wins all the Electoral votes for that state. This has shaped how campaigns are run today. Presidential Candidates don't have to meet the people where they are. They merely have to figure out which states are a shoe-in based on their party and which states ought to really be catered because they are on the fence. Electoral representation is symbolic and campaign promises are metaphors. The representation symbolizes a number and the promises are mere metaphors shadows of truth. People sense this and so Democrats don't feel like their vote counts in Texas and Republicans in California stay home on Election Day. Your vote counts!.... sort of.

So removing the Electoral College would shake things up on two important fronts. First, it would change the way politicians campaign for the presidency. They would literally have to address the country instead of tickling the ears of a few people in strategic locations. Demographic-based voting would be changed and candidates might find that it becomes just a little easier to just tell the truth about what they really intend to do. Second, in a popular vote, every vote actually counts. If this were true, maybe we could spend a few billion less funding campaigns that spin truth to key groups and millions less trying to get people to come out and vote. Instead of renting billboards that say, "Your Vote Counts!" we could just show them that it does.

Maybe getting rid of the Electoral College won't make politicians honest or get even one more person to the polls, but it would let the people choose who they want their leader to be. That was always the idea, and the Electoral College was a great solution to a slew of challenges to that end that simply do not exist anymore.

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