The Reform of the Electoral College Essay example -- Political Reform

The United States, well known for its democracy, holds elections every four years to elect its President. Every American citizen over the age of 18 has a right to cast a vote in the presidential election. The voting process, although it seems easy and straightforward, can be very complicated. In the 2000 election, Al Gore captured the majority of votes, but George Bush won. The reason for this strange outcome and why Al Gore lost was because of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is voting system where different states are given a certain amount of votes in the election, and which ever candidate wins a state, is given that state’s votes. The Electoral College is out of date, and should be replaced by the Popular Vote system, which declares a president purely on who collects the most votes from the American people. The Popular Vote system is better than the electoral college, because it gives the American people a true say in the presidential election, and doesn ’t filter their votes out in so called â€Å"mini state elections†. The electoral college is too flawed to continue to run the presedential elections of the united states, it gives an unfair advantage to smaller states in the United States, it promotes the two party system, it restricts campainging process because of the way certain canidates are forced to strategically focuse on certain states, and finally it elects minority presidents into office. Why should america keep the flawed electoral college, and continue to see all the problems occur over and over agan, if there is a better way. Some people still feel that the electoral college is the best voting system to elect the president. They claim that if the electoral college was removed and replaced with th... .... New Haven: Yale UP, 1999. United States of America. The U.S. Constitution. 17 Sept. 1787. 15 Feb. 2004 . Keyssar, Alex. "It Pays to Win the Smaller States." The New York Times 20 Nov. 2000, Late ed., sec. A: 27. Plissner, Martin. "Bush by 537; Gore by 537,179." The New York Times 16 Nov. 2001, sec. A: 25. Knipp, Katie , and Stephanie Lazzaro. Electoral College -- Outdated or Valuable Asset to Election Process? 9 Dec. 2003. Digital Partners Network. 1 Feb. 2004 Dunham, Richard S. "Will History Repeat Itself in 2004?" Business Week 22 Dec. 2003: 51. Rothwell, Jenn T. "Prospects for the Electoral College after Election 2000." Social Education 65 (2001) Abbott, David W., and James P. Levine. Wrong Winner. New York: Praeger, 1991