by Denis Knezovic

Created on: May 01, 2010

The Electoral College is the most undemocratic institution in American politics. It is really a shame that the most powerful head of state in the world is being selected this way. The average person's vote clearly does not matter with this system. That is especially the case if one does not live in one of the battleground states.

A few of these states usually determine the president. That is the main flaw in the logic of proponents of the Electoral College. They argue that a few places would decide the election  were it based on the popular vote. The fact of the matter is that few places decide it now.

The candidates in the general election usually do not waste their time campaigning in states they have no chance of winning. If the election were based on popular vote, they would have to travel the nation and every state would be worth campaigning in.

Furthermore, every vote in every part of the country would count equally. That is the essence of democracy. Now the worth of one's vote depends on the importance of that state to the outcome of the election. But in any case, the chances of casting the decisive vote in a state no matter how small, are more minuscule than winning the lottery. 

And if a voter cannot choose the winner in his or her state, that vote does not mean much. But the worst  aspect of the Electoral College is its winner-take -all system. Through it, the results of the electoral college often look very different from the actual public will that is the popular vote.

They sometimes even result in different winners.It makes no difference, whether a candidate wins a state by a small or a large margin. Additionally, the votes of millions of people who cast their vote for someone other than the winner in their state make no difference to the outcome of the election.

If these votes would somehow be factored into the results, then the each vote would make a certain difference. It is no coincidence that other democracies around the world, that decide their elections based on the popular vote, have much higher voter turn out  than the United States does.

There are certainly other reasons for that, such as the two-party duopoly. But that is a completely different subject altogether. The bottom line is that in order to empower voters and for their votes to matter, the Electoral College has to go!

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