The Electoral College.

Megan Luckey
July 9th, 2012

* Note: The ideas in the article are not my own and have been adopted from those with much greater minds than I ;)

Upon research, I noticed the most popular opinion held by Americans about the Electoral College involves replacing it completely with a direct popular vote. Many people like this idea because it represents the idea of majority rule; however, this would not be an appropriate replacement for the Electoral College as it does not adequately represent minorities. I believe instead of completely replacing it, perhaps it should simply be mended and altered to better accommodate the country in its present state.

The largest problem people seem to have with the Electoral College lies with the fact the outcome of elections is greatly exaggerated in comparison to the popular vote. In order to solve this and still keep power within the Electoral College, we would need to balance the difference between the two outcomes, so it is relatively equal. The constitution currently gives each state a number of electors for the Electoral College based on the number of representatives and senators it has. I think instead of granting electors based on both representatives and senators, they should be granted based on the amount of representative alone. This would represent population better, and would therefore follow more closely with the popular vote.

Another way to help solve problems that lie with the Electoral College would be to make the winner-take-all system nationwide. When people vote for president, the president is generally part of a political party. If the political party the winner belongs to gets to choose all electors for the state, the electors are more likely to vote along with popular vote.

An additional method to ensure electors follow popular vote without taking away from minority rights would be to require all electors to vote as they have pledged, if legally possible. I think electors should be able to vote at state elections like any other person, and nothing more. Giving electors the power to vote as they choose in the Electoral College gives them too much power. If they were forced to vote as they pledged, they would have just as much say in the elections as any other person.

The current laws have it so if no majority is reached in the Electoral College, the decision is sent to be made by Congress. This leaves the House of Representative to select the president, and the Senate to choose the Vice President. In the House, each state only gets one vote, which completely misrepresents states of different sizes. In order to solve this, each state should get votes based on its number of representatives.

With all these changes made, I believe the problems people have with the Electoral College would be fewer. Consequently, it would more closely resemble popular vote without taking away from minority rights. With this as a solution, we would still be able to retain all the advantages of having an Electoral College, while eliminating some of the disadvantages.