If there is one in thing I have always felt should be changed in America it is the Electoral College System along with the English system of measurement and the law that claims that one need be 21 or older to legally drink alcoholic beverages. However before I go in to reasons why I feel the electoral college system needs to be changed, I will explain for those who are not aware what this system is.
In most countries that elect their leaders via direct democratic elections as is the case with France; the procedure which is followed is one that sees the country in question hold elections where all the candidates who aspire to be president run in an election with the winner not necessarily becoming president as he or she needs to have obtained over fifty percent of the vote do to so. If the winner (this meaning the candidate who got the most votes) did not get a figure (any figure) higher then 50 percent what is done is; a second election is held which is referred to as a “runoff election” which basically is that an election is held between the first place finisher and the second place finisher. This basically guaranteeing that somebody does not win because the opposition vote was split as might have been the case when Abraham Lincoln was first elected. It even turns out that very often the candidate who won the first round did not go on to win the second round as was the case in Poland in 2005 with Tusk (who lost to Kaczynski) or in Peru with writer Llosa (who lost to Fujimori) in 1990 or with Le Pen (who lost to Chirac) in France in 2002. However more often then not he or she who won the first round; won the second round or sometimes it happens that the candidate who wins the first round goes over the fifty percent mark and becomes president outright as was the case in Poland 2000 with Kwasniewski.
As a footnote to this and being a republican; I can add to this that if the United States had had a system like this in 92 then Clinton might not have won the election because if memory serves us well where he did get 370 electoral votes (100 more then needed) he only got 47% of the popular vote. Which under the system most countries who elect their leaders through popular vote as opposed to those like the UK or Italy who elect their prime ministers through parliamentary elections; Clinton would have had to face that year’s runner-up who was George Bush senior. In an election most would argue though none can prove would have been won by George Bush since arguably Perot took more votes away from George Bush then he did from Bill Clinton; however at the end of the day who can say with any preciseness what would have happened. Then again democrats might argue that if the same system had been in place in 2000 then Al Gore would have occupied the White House from 2001 to 2006 instead of George W. Bush. This I say might have been however I will give reasons in this article why it did not have to be so.
This article I write to give my reasons why I feel the electoral college should be changed to the one practiced by most countries which elect their presidents through popular vote which I have already explained. The electoral college is a system which goes back to the begging when George Washington was elected president which is a system in which every state is granted a certain amount of what is known as “electoral votes”. The bigger the population of the state the more electoral votes it gets; naturally with California being the state with the largest population it also has the most electoral votes. Once we add up the total amount of electoral votes from all 50 states the sum we get is 538; out of which the candidate hoping to be elected president needs to win a figure no less then 270 to be assured the presidency of the United States of America. As a personal comment I will state that it is strange that if one really thinks about the issue we are the only country in the world that technically speaking does not really have a name.
The way the electoral college works is simple; which is not to say that it does so efficiently. Elections are held in each state, where people vote in the state they are registered in for the candidate of their choosing; who is on a list of those who are running for president. In these elections; with one being held in each and every state through out the US of A; the candidate who wins the state in question also gets all the electoral votes the state has. In all this it should be made clear that to get all the electoral votes the candidate need not do anymore then win the popular vote of the state in question. This meaning he or she need not have a 50% majority, as 35% of the vote might suffice or have a margin of victory over his closest rival of literally one vote, which on the lighter side of the argument might have come because he or she had one more son or daughter to vote for him or her. This system as history has already proven on two occasions does lend itself to the possibility that the person who wins the electoral college and by virtue of which becomes president to do so in spite of not necessarily winning the popular vote. This in a way making it that the will of the people was not really respected as the candidate most Americans voted for did not get to occupy the house on Pennsylvania avenue also known as the White House, not because enough people did not vote for him but because they did so in the wrong states.
I for my part in what could be considered a personal opinion see a flaw in this system which is basically one of theory apart from several of practice with the one of theory being the following. The point of presidential elections is or should be to chose a man or a woman to rule the government and represent the nation that elects him or her till the next election as a whole; not as separate regions or states but I repeat as a whole. By this I mean those who voted for the winning candidate as well as those who did not and those states (as is the case in the United States) where he or she won along with those states he or she did not win. Taking this idea in to consideration one could ask what need is there for a system which holds elections in each individual state? None, I would retort if the candidate their choosing is going to represent the country as a whole as opposed to the governors or local officials such as senators who are only going to do so for the individual state that elected them. I ask at the end of the day does it really matter if George W. Bush lost California in both 2000 and 2004 or that Clinton lost Texas in 92 or Reagan lost Washington DC in 84? It is obvious that it does not as these men still served as president to those states; though the majority of their population voted for another candidate whom they could not claim was their president though they might have wanted to do so.
Naturally, I am aware that some will say this is a theoretical argument which I would agree on but if we get to the practical arguments then let us begin like this. First of all when a nation has a system like the one the US has for electing its leader which I might say it because it is fact is the only one that does, then in which state each individual votes takes on a much larger significance and therefore requires those that do vote to be registered in one particular state or another. This being to avoid someone voting twice in two different states. This is in and of itself can be a problem for some voters who can not register for the vote on time as is the case with many people given that there is a deadline before in which to do so though some states offer same day registration though this is a very recent phenomenon. This naturally leading to some people who wanted to vote but did not because they did not register on time which does not happen in countries that do not have this system. As in those that have the now standard system all one need do is present oneself with one’s id to any place where one may do so with no need to worry about having to register.
The problems with registration go further as one can not do it at American embassies or consulates (or at least not yet) not even in advanced let alone the same day. This creating a more complicated situation then need be for those who are residing abroad (who are not serving in the US armed forces) as one needs to order an absentee ballot by mail which takes its sweet time in coming. This in my case lead to my not being able to cast my vote in 2004 (which would have been my first time) as I got the ballot the day of the election which made it impossible for me to get my vote in which would have had to be sent by registered mail or dropped of at the American embassy a few days before election day. This according to the board of elections of the state of New York where I am registered. This being a situation I can not imagine that those who came up with this system so many years ago could have foreseen that a day would come when some Americans would be voting from overseas.
I even see that a system like this might lead some people to feel the need not to vote being that if one considers the matter carefully their vote will make less of a difference then one vote usually does. To justify this claim I can give the example of myself that if I were living in California; with me being a republican I basically would not bother to vote as I know my vote would not make any difference in the overall outcome of a state which has voted democrat in every presidential election since 1988. However if the vote were nationwide then my vote would make a difference (very little) in the population tally though not in the state and since the winner gets all the electoral votes regardless of how wide or narrow his or her margin of victory was then why should I or anybody else bother to vote if he or she hears for instance on his or her radio or TV that 90% of the votes in the state have been counted with the opposing candidate or even his own holding a 20% lead.
This leading one to believe that even if that missing 10% were to vote for the candidate trailing it would change nothing as the other candidate has already assured victory and by virtue of which the right to add up all the electoral votes the state has to offer to his or her tally. It is because of this that I insist in stating how this would not occur if the United States had a system like all other countries of the world that elect their leaders through a nation wide election instead of several local elections. This also being why I claim that George W. Bush might not have lost the popular vote in 2000. As looking at it from this point of view it is feasible to see how some voters who would have voted for him refrained from doing so feeling that in the state they were registered to vote in their vote would not have made a difference. Of course, I am not saying the same might not have held true for Al Gore’s voters making it that he might have won the popular vote by an even wider margin.
I however do not wish those who read this article to get the impression that I am not aware of the rights of individual states and the reason why this system was implemented in the first place which was to in a way force every candidate wishing to become president of the United States to take in to consideration the rights and needs of each and every state instead of only concentrating on those whose populations are large. This system nonetheless in many ways has contributed to what it was trying to avoid because if we may face reality for a moment; it has not made candidates with realistic chances of winning choose to campaign in less densely populated states such as Montana, Wyoming or Idaho over the more populous states such as New York, California or Illinois. This being the case with no offense to anybody intended; fore as always the more populous states have more to offer in the way of electoral votes so with regards to this it has not changed the trend that makes candidates campaign in the more populated areas of their country or even created a situation where a candidate will offer less populated states a better deal if their voters pick them over their opponents.
Many will say that the electoral college should be kept because it is tradition and it was the way our founding forefathers meant it to be which may be true but then again let us not overlook the more then obvious which is that these gentleman are dead. With this being a fact, my point is the following the United States which they started is no longer their nation but ours; those who are its citizens in the present and not those who were in the very distant past so with this in mind I claim it should be us to make laws and have systems that are suited to the reality of today and not keep outdated systems simply because they were the will of those who are no longer with us.
To the previous argument I would like to add that democracy, with demo being a Greek word meaning people while cracy meaning government which would make this word government of the people is the rule of the majority which may change and usually does; which is the reason elections are held, constitutions amended and laws changed to suit the changes in the mood of the people. This is what a democracy should be as opposed to what sometimes occurs in America which is that those who arrived a long time ago, sometimes many generations ago feel that those whose families immigrated to America later should either give in to their will or simply leave the country. This being a democracy where rule of the majority gets replaced by rule of those whose families go back the furthest in America.
In conclusion I will say that because of my above mentioned reasons; I am wholly convinced the electoral college needs to be replaced as soon as possible by the one practiced in most countries that hold presidential elections. With regards to the system that would be replaced I do not take away its credit that it has elected over 40 US Presidents and was first though this does not mean that a more efficient system is not be found. The case being that just because a system was first that does not mean it is the best. This logic even applicable to the English system of measurement which most countries have replaced with the metric; as it is easier to use and more precise when it comes to measuring things of small size.
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