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The Electoral College has outlived its usefulness and it is past time to abolish it. It is an antiquated and complicated method of electing our President. When the framers of the U.S. Constitution chose the Electoral College, it was a compromise between those that wanted Congress to elect the President and those that wanted the President elected by popular vote. They were also concerned that voters that had no real knowledge of the issues would simply vote for someone from their own state. Of everyone involved in this decision, Alexander Hamilton is the individual we have to thank most for this complicated method of electing our President. Hamilton was an elitist and did not trust the ignorant public to decide who should be President. Above all these men were dedicated to making sure that control of the government remained in the hands of landed, upper class white men.
The concerns of the original founders no longer exist. We have access to more information that we can ever use. We have national issues that cross state boundaries. We pay taxes and we wage wars as a country. It is time we started voting as a country. With the Electoral College, the votes of those living in smaller states count more than those living in large states. This country has a problem with unity and this element of the Electoral College contributes to the problem. People need to start voting based on what is best for America not what is best for their state.
I live in California but I understand that the infrastructure in other states is just as important as the infrastructure in California. If a bridge fails in the Midwest or levy fails in New Orleans, my tax dollars help fix the situation. Two hundred years ago we were a group of states, today we are a nation. We promote democracy all over the world, it is time we started practicing it at home.
We have made many attempts to abolish the Electoral College and all of them failed. Abolishing the Electoral College will require a constitutional amendment. This is doable. We have already amended the constitution five times related to voting.
Any amendment must pass two-thirds of both houses of Congress. The only way this is going to happen is if we the people demand it of our representatives. Because it is working to their favor, they are not going to fix the problem unless we demand that they do so.
Just think about this. In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote. If he had become President, we would not have invaded Iraq and we would not be so deep in debt. The real estate bubble would still have burst but we would have all of the money we squandered in Iraq to help fix our current financial crisis. To date the cost is more than 600 billion dollars. I think we can all agree that the money would have been better spent at home.
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