The origins of the Electoral College go all the way back to 1804. It was created through the 12th amendment. The electoral college was established so that the people were represented fairly and not just by population. Their sole purpose is to pick the president and the vice president every four years. The electoral college is a group of electors that are picked from each of the 50 states and Washington D.C. The electors usually base their vote on the popular vote but it is not always the case. There are 538 electors total and 270 electoral votes are needed to win.Â
So what is the problem with the electoral college? The electoral college constantly goes against the people and no longer represents America fairly. Back in the 2016 Trump vs Clinton election, Clinton won the popular vote but did not win the electoral vote and therefore did not become president. This is just one problem that the electoral college has. Another one is that the electoral college is undemocratic. The electoral college does not fairly represent everyone. A state could win the popular vote by .1% and all of a sudden the whole state is now the color that won. This shows that the electoral college doesn’t fairly represent all of the people living in an area. The whole fate of the presidency is solely chosen by a few people compared to the population of the states. Another reason the electoral college needs to go is that if it was abolished then the voter turnout would skyrocket. So many people don’t vote because they don’t believe that their voice is being heard when they vote and don’t believe that it makes a difference if they vote or not since someone else is choosing what color the state will turn. The voter turnout rate would skyrocket because then they would know that they are directly helping to make a difference and getting to voice their opinion in one of the fairest ways possible. Â
Why do we still have the electoral college then? A lot of people will argue that if the electoral college was abolished then voter fraud would increase. There are ways to prevent this though. Many restrictions and requirements could be put into place to prevent this from happening. Another argument is that this has just always been the way that it has been done so why change it. This argument is outdated and isn’t adjusting with the times. Everything else in the world is slowly becoming modernized so this should be as well. The electoral college is used to be accurate and not allow one part of a state to have too much of a say in what color the state turns but this doesn’t have to be the case. If the electoral college was abolished then states wouldn’t have to be just one color, they could then represent everyone living in that state and show just how they feel through themselves and their personal opinions. Â
I am not saying the electoral college is a terrible thing and that it is completely bad but I do believe that some parts of it should at least change. As a democratic society, the peoples’ voices should be heard from the people, not from a small part of the society that might not even want to represent them accurately. Take from it what you want, but the electoral college has been here for a while without any reforms to it and times are changing in many ways. Just this year we can see that with the outstanding number of absentee request ballots. The electoral college may always be here but maybe it won’t, we will see. Â