Sunday, October 14, 2012

Should we abolish, alter, or keep the Electoral College?

Column: End the electoral college (10-8-12)
http://tinyurl.com/9d6qj39

AND...REST IN PEACE SENATOR.  WE WILL MISS YOU.
http://tinyurl.com/9p4jxo4

42 comments:

Unknown said...

i think it should be kept becouse it represents each state and nothing terrible has been caused by it yet

Zach Matusinec said...

The electoral college should not be kept as a part of the presidential election system. Currently, those who make up the minority party in a large state (such as Democrats in Texas) do not have any say in the outcome of their states electoral votes. A popular vote would give a better measure of the sentiments of the country as a whole.

Unknown said...

We should keep the Electoral College because the Founders of our Nation wanted our government to be a representative democracy and not a direct democracy. In order to keep this a representative democracy we must keep the Electoral College to represent each states' voters.

Unknown said...

I believe we should alter the Electoral College. If a form of representative democracy has worked for almost 250 years, there must be some good to its ways. The Electoral college is a good example of representative democracy and should be kept in place. However, I believe that the winning candidate should not receive all of the electoral votes. I think that each district should have its vote and those votes should be directly counted instead of having the state use a 'winner take all' system. This would lessen the campaigning in states with large vote amounts and spread the campaigning to more Americans. With more Americans interested and affected by campaigning, voter turnout may also increase. The electoral college should be altered to be more representative of the U.S citizens.

Natalie S said...

I believe that the Electoral College should be abolished. The framers of the Constitution found it necessary to make sure a radical was not elected as President. It would prevent a Shay's Rebellion to take control of the government. However, in today's time, this would be near impossible to occur. If the College were to be abolished, I believe can increase of voters would occur. California is a Democratic. Majority of the republicans in this state probably do not vote, knowing the Electoral College will be voting Democratic for their state. By eliminating the Electoral College, campaigning will have to be nation wide, not just in undecided states. I believe this would benefit the nation.

Jack P. said...

I believe the ideas of the framers of the constitution still hold true today in that the average person can not be fully trusted in selecting the president of the United States. With this being said, the electoral college should be kept the way it is because there are to many people out there that have no clue what is going on in the world and are easily swayed back and forth by false statements made by people and advertisements around them.

Haley S said...

I believe the electoral college should be abolished. A popular vote would be significantly more accurate with regards to the representation of who the American citizens want as a president.

Mike O said...

I believe that the Electoral College should be kept since our founding fathers thought that this was the best way to elect the president and represent each state.

Kyle Johnson-Evers said...

We should definitely alter the Electoral College. This way of voting is not democratic even though it represents the peoples wants and vote it was made in a time without any political parties or mass media. The founding fathers created the electoral college because they wanted less power to the actual citizens and more to a few elites. Now citizens who vote are more informed because of media and we do not need the electoral college how it is. We should change it like a couple states have already done and make the electoral college number in each state not go to all to one candidate but have a portion of it go to one candidate. This will help even out the way a candidate campaigns because with the electoral college the way it is now there is too much campaigning in just swing states and if changed it will even out more. The Electoral College should be changed from a winner take all system because it does not fully represent the democratic ideals we have in our country and will make the Presidential Elections more closely represent what the citizens of the United States want.

Noah Rusch said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kyle Yaklovich said...

I believe that the Electoral College should be abolished. It is much worse than a popular vote in representing what the American citizens want. Abolishing the Electoral College and replacing it with a popular vote will also, most likely, greatly increase voter turnout. This is especially true in states like California and Texas where the minority party voter does not feel like thay have a say in the turnout of an EC election.

KurtO said...

I think that we should get alter the electoral college, because it alienates the minority in states that have a dominate majority. I believe that if we change it so that there would be votes associated with each fraction of the state's voting population so that everyone's vote is reflected in the presidential election.

Anne L. said...

I think that we should keep the electoral college as it is today. It shows a good representative democracry that the founding fathers would have wanted.

Unknown said...

I believe that we should alter the Electoral College. I don't think we should get rid of it because our government has worked better with a representive democracy instead of a direct democracy. I believe that we should alter it so that it becomes more equal. We shouldnt allow public vote to be way different then what the electoral college wants due to the party it is for.

Noah Rusch said...

I believe that it could go either way. The Electoral College as it is now fairly represents the public vote throughout the United States. If it was split by district, it would give an even more accurate reading of how many electoral votes each candidate should get.

If it was eliminated, going by popular vote throughout the United States would give an accurate reading of opinion. Since many people are swayed by slanderous commercials and hearsay, it could be inaccurate display of the best candidate for the job as well (a problem that can be associated with both methods). It could also encourage more people to vote in states that are predominantly one party or another because they know that their votes will count on a much larger scale.

Tony M. said...

The electoral college should be rid of because it does not represent the United States as a whole. It makes the opposite party votes in that state nonexistent.

Unknown said...

We should alter the Electoral College. It was set up by the framers of the constitution to help elect the president where the candidate with the most votes would be president and the runner up vice president, but in this time elections do noit work like this. Therefore the Electoral College should be altered to fit modern processes.

Big Al said...

Josh I bet you feel your post was smart and sounded legit;)
The electoral college system I feel should be changed. The Founders did want a representative democracy, but direct democracy does not apply in this case. America is voting on one issue not every issue. I feel that the peoples vote is more important than the electoral college. The president is a representative of the entire nation. That means the president's view is supposed to represent what the people want. In gore vs. bush more people wanted gore but bush won because of the electoral college system. The people were not represented in what they wanted.

Katie Beckman said...

I believe that the electoral college should be kept. It does have its faults--but no more than any alternative that has been suggested. The congressional district plan would make presidential campaigning limited to swing districts, and a presidential election by popular vote would minimize the influence of small states. Any effort to put a new system through congress would not reap enough benefits to be worth the effort.

Unknown said...

The electoral vote is flawed because it does not always act in the way of the popular vote. in the case of the 2000 presidencial election George Bush won the election through the electoral college even though Al Gore won the popular vote. I believe that who ever wins the popular ote should win the election so the electoral college should either be alterd or abolished.

Alec J said...

We should keep the electoral college because as the population changes so does the number of votes, so it stays current. Also there has not been a huge problem with it yet so its working.

Jared Lederman said...

I believe we should keep the electoral college because we should keep a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. With saying that, nothing bad has happened from the results of the vote from the electoral college.

Unknown said...

We should keep it because its been working for our country now for awhile. most voters dont like this system because they feel like their vote barley counts but it does. it may not be the best setup but it works and gets the job done.

Unknown said...

i think we should abolish the electoral college and use popular vote because it will be more accurate when people are deciding who they want representing as president.

Unknown said...

i think we should keep the Electoral College because it represents each state and so far there has been no problems with the Electoral College.

Unknown said...

I think the Electoral College should be abolished, because it would make more sense if the people voted and decided who they would want to be president instead of the Electoral College deciding.

Unknown said...

I believe the electorate college should be abolished because having a popular vote would be more accurate in reflecting who the people want representing our country as president.

Nick Berry said...

I think we should alter the Electoral College. We should make it based on a district by district race for president. Rather than winning all Electoral College votes after winning a state, candidates would win votes by district and be given the senator votes if the candidate wins a majority of the state's districts. This would lead to candidates having to campaign in more areas and would create competition in highly partisan states (California and Texas).

Brittany R said...

I believe the electoral college should be abolished. It does not represent the United States as a whole. It makes the opposite party votes in that state nonexistent. One of the reasons the electoral college exists is to eliminate voters from voting drastically after a huge event. If something were to happen that drastically alters an election, so be it. it was the country that voted and thats fair.

Unknown said...

i think we should alter the electoral college, i think it would be more effective and would better represent each state if we would alter it so that instead of a candidate winning the whole state, if we divided the votes depending on the percentage of votes a candidate receives in that state, that way states that are dominated by a certain party can still be an option for the opposing candidate.

Hannah G. said...

The electoral college should not be kept as a part of the presidential election system because a popular vote would be a better measurement of our countries choice for an office as a whole.

Unknown said...

We should keep the electoral college because we, as Americans, believe in representative democracy and not direct democracy. The electoral college is like an individual state election that for every state, and then is weighted based on population. It is not a perfect system, but with the electoral college, the individuals' vote actually counts for more voting in a state election than if at was an individual's vote compared with the nation. Secondly, with individual state elections, campaigns have the opportunity to advertise and win over swing states. This allows campaigns to target one region of the country, as opposed to a national general election.

PatrickW said...

I believe the electoral college should be kept. The Framers wanted this country to have a Representative system, the Electoral college is apart of this system. Also, the College ensures that the public's opinion does not directly influence our president. This is a positive because the public is not educated on many of the important topics and is easily influenced by outside organisations.

Unknown said...

The electoral college is based upon the idea that not every person knows enough to have an accurate opinion. This system reflects the general view, but helps prevent a candidate from winning through popularity instead of ideals. Thus, this system should be kept.

Unknown said...

peytons comment was great, like everything he does in this class..it was full of details and supporting arguements. He made a valid point that it should be altered but not deleted. well done peyton.

Unknown said...

I liked Patrick's comment because it explains why the Electoral College was made in the first place. He explains that the Framers of the Constitution wanted what was best for the United States, and that is and was a representative system. These men knew that the people would not and should not be able to hold all of the power in picking a president.

Kyle Johnson-Evers said...

Haley's post was good it was short but she supported her opinion with reason.

Anne L. said...

I liked Max's comment on how we should keep the Electoral College. He brought up a good point such as the power it has over campaigning in swings states. His arguments were well reasoned and supported. Nice job!

Unknown said...

I think the Electoral College should be kept in the American governmental system; but altered. I think it is a tradition that gives equal power to the states based on population. Many people have a problem with the college especially because a president can win an election without having the majority of votes from its citizens. I think this is where the Electoral college needs to make a change. There should be an exception that allows for president elects to be chosen by the majority of the people if the electoral votes do not line up with that representation. I think the Electoral college is a strong and smart system that adds balance to this democracy, and I think it should always be a part of the nation's government.

Unknown said...

This blog post is from about a year and a half ago, but after searching through some from the past, I liked the topic and actually wanted to comment on it. I've never entirely understood the electoral college. It took someone in our class several minutes to even try to explain to me how it worked, and even now I don't entirely remember. However, I know I thought it wasn't fair. I can't say I want it completely abolished. I feel like there wouldn't be as much organization when it comes to elections if it were.

The Electoral College should be altered. How exactly that is done, I'm not sure. I'm not an expert on the topic. I'm barely a novice. However, I don't believe it's 100% fair how the Electoral College works with votes right now.

Anonymous said...

We need to keep the electoral college since our founding fathers thought that this was the best way to elect the president and represent each state. This has been going on for over 250 years and it should not be changed now. It is successful.

Anonymous said...

I think the Electoral college is dumb and should be removed. The popular vote should be the way the president is picked because everyone has the chance to vote. I think removing the Electoral College would incluence more people to vote because it would make citizens feel like their vote actually counts and matters