Should the Electoral College Be Dissolved?

Although many people believe the Electoral College is a place where people come together to elect the President, it is not. It is a procedure created by the Founding Fathers that is explained in the Constitution. It serves as a compromise between the congressional and popular votes for President. (National Archives and Records Administration, “What is the Electoral College?”).

In my opinion, I believe the Electoral College should be abolished. As Abraham Lincoln stated in his Gettysburg Address, the United States’ government is the “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Since the government is for the people, the President should be elected by the people directly. Since the Electoral College is the one choosing the President, I feel as if that turns people away from voting. People always consider their vote to not matter so why would they bother going to the polls if it is not going to mean anything. I also think it creates tension between the government and its people because the people are just going to dismiss the government because they are not listening to their people.

Tyler Lewis wrote an article in The Huffington Post titled, “Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College.” Within this article, Lewis provides four reasons as to why the Electoral College should not be used anymore. In the first reason, he argues the electoral votes are not equally distributed amongst the states. For instance, Texas has 32 while Wyoming only has three. Because of the big difference in population size between these two states, the less populated states are given more votes per person when you look at it statistically. As a result, Lewis concludes that “With the Electoral College, the value of a vote depends on what state a person lives in” (Lewis, “Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College,” para. 13). This is not fair. Each state should either have the equal amount of representation or nothing at all in the Electoral College. Another reason that Lewis writes about in his article is that of a “faithless elector.” He says that “just because a candidate won the popular vote in your state does not mean that your electors have to cast a vote for said candidate themselves. Electors that vote against the will of the people are called ‘faithless elector’” (Lewis, “Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College,” para. 25). In short, it can only take one person to influence the vote of many other people (Lewis, “Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College”).

There was an article published on ProCon.org titled “The Electoral College: Top 3 Pros and Cons.” One of the pairs of pros and cons that stood out to me was the pro of “The Electoral College guarantees certainty to the outcome of the presidential election” and the con of “The Electoral College ignores the will of the people” (ProCon.org, “The Electoral College: Top 3 Pros and Cons”). For that specific pro, the article states that if the presidential election to be solely based on the popular vote, then it would be difficult for someone to earn the largest amount of votes without winning the majority. Although that is a good point, the contradicting viewpoint states that although the population of the United States is over 300 million, only 538 of those people are electing the president (ProCon.org, “The Electoral College: Top 3 Pros and Cons”). The difference between those two numbers is outstanding.

Overall, there are many people who believe the Electoral College should be abolished. They are not wrong for believing that, but those who believe it should continue functioning the way it does are not wrong either. At the end of the day, it will be difficult to determine whether the United States can actually keep it or not because it was established in the Constitution. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but it can always be up for discussion.