Yousuf Khaled

10/14/08
Water

The United States of America always boasts itself as the icon of

democracy for the world to follow. Although America is a democracy

many aspects of government aren’t democratic. For example, how

America elects its president is not democratic. Some people have

proposed a constitutional amendment disbanding the Electoral College.

A constitutional amendment proposed to disband the Electoral College

is necessary for the United States to become more of a democracy.

Many will oppose the amendment. These are some of the

arguments that will be used against the amendment.

“The Electoral College and the popular vote always match up so

why get rid of the it.”

The problem is that it is possible for the electoral vote and the

popular vote to not match up. The electors don’t necessarily have to

vote for what won the popular vote in their state. Also, another

problem is the idea of “winner takes all” If a candidate wins by 51%

and the other 49% all the electoral votes will all go to the winning

candidate. That makes the 49% not really matter.

 "Going with a straight popular vote would cause candidates to

ignore the small population states entirely, both in the campaign and

at budget time."

Voter turnout is also low with the Electoral College because

states that are always blue or red won't be places where the

candidates spend their time. For example, Barack Obama hasn't been

in California a lot because it is almost always blue. Also a candidate

cannot and shouldn’t have to campaign in every single state. In this

day and age TV and the internet can be used to get information about

a candidate and their platform.

“Keeping the Electoral College will allow smaller states to get

more attention then they normally would.”

If the popular vote were the only thing that mattered candidates would

still campaign in small states because every vote counts so if a

candidate receive a vote from a small state it would count towards the

percentage of the popular vote regardless of state. With the Electoral

College that vote might not count depending on the state they’re in

“Awarding our electoral votes to the nationwide popular winner

would be foolish because we as voters in Illinois would then be

surrendering our votes to the will of the rest of the nation.”

 That would happen with the Electoral College because if a

candidate that doesn’t win Illinois wins the states electoral vote

doesn’t count. Also on the state level if 49% vote for a candidate but

51% vote for another then those 49% are disenfranchised because of

the “winner take all” in the electoral college. If the election went by

popular vote everyone’s vote would count regardless of what state he

or she lived in.

Work Cited

“How can we get rid of the Electoral College?” On The Issues. August

30, 2004. October 15, 2008 <

http://www.ontheissues.org/askme/electoral_college.htm>

Shipely, Aaron “Don't change how state casts its electoral votes”

Pantagraph.com April 16, 2008. October 16, 2008 <

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2008/04/17/opinion/letters/1

31136.txt>