The Electoral College

The Electoral College

There are many reasons for the existence of the Electoral College. Many famous politicians such as George Washington and Alexander Hamilton felt it was necessary to have the electoral college for the integrity of the nation. However, as the nation has evolved many people are beginning to wonder if it still has the same relevance today as it did when it was first introduced. While the outcomes of elections can and have been changed by the electoral college, is that a strong enough argument to change or even get rid of it completely? In order to make that decision we must first understand why it came to be in the first place.

The electoral college was brought about for several reasons. In the forefront of these reasons was to preserve the nation. The founding fathers didn't feel that the average citizen was educated enough to vote in their own best interests. Starting after the Civil War, 4 million slaves gained their citizenship which entitled them to a right to vote. While this was a wonderful thing, it led to a staggering problem when it came to electing public officials. Most, if not all slaves had never been outside of the plantation they worked on. Furthermore, they were illiterate and incapable of productively participating in government. This created two important problems. The first problem was the slaves could be easily influenced by a politician which led quickly to corruption. The second problem was that the slaves had no clue what voting even meant or what it had the power to do. It was because of this that the Electoral College was first invented. It shielded our government from societies whims, and it prevented a presidential candidate to from taking advantage of the uneducated masses.

Another key factor was that information traveled at a snails pace through the states making it difficult for most citizens to even know who was running for President in the first place. This obviously created a huge issue for who should have the most say in electing government officials. Many voters never got to meet the president, they didn't even know what he looked like. More importantly though is that most voters didn't know what any of the presidential candidates stood for. It is very tough to vote when you don't know where the candidates stand on key issues. This problem was especially prevalent in the smaller states because due to the decreased population, information by word of mouth took much longer to spread. Not only that, but if you've ever played a game of telephone as a child you know how mixed up a message can become after it is passed on to hundreds of other people.

So all of these reasons lead up to the great debate. Does the electoral college work? Is it really necessary in today's day and age? Can it be adjusted to make it more effective? The answer to many of these questions are all different. Obviously the electoral college works, we are all still here speaking English, living in a democracy, and we have held presidential elections 43 times. I would say that based on those 3 things alone that it is a proven method for election. It isn't always the most fair way, but no one can take away its effectiveness.

Just as our constitution has been amended, the electoral college could be amended as well. We can all agree that the times are different now than they were in the 1800's. As society changes, and technology changes, so should our philosophies. However, the electoral college hasn't been altered since its inception. I would argue at the very least it needs a makeover, but even that wouldn't be enough to make up for the injustice it has caused to thousands of voters. Many people believe that by forcing the electoral college to vote according to the popular vote of that state would help overcome some of the problems. I'm not sure if anyone would disagree with that position, except that a better position other than that does exist. We can examine the different outcomes of an election and realize that even if this were implemented, the candidate that won the national popular vote could still lose the election. So one would then ask why the change was made in the first place as it didn't really solve the main issue to begin with.

The final question that is asked requires us to again look back at why the electoral college was introduced in the first place. It was implemented to make the country more stable because