Should The Electoral College Be Abolished

Michael A. Thomas
Caitlyn Ryan
English 1550
14 April 2010
The Electoral College: An Education in Unfair Politics To the extent this country has advanced in technology and modern conveniences, some laws have not changed since the early days of the establishment of our nation. One area in particular which has in more recent years caused controversy is the function of the Electoral College. The functionality and purpose of the Electoral College has become outdated and should be revamped in order to bring the system in to the twenty-first century. The world has changed and representation through the Electoral College is no longer functional. The Electoral College should be abolished and replaced by a system which allows for a more even distribution of the popular vote nationwide. William Beaman, author of “Words We Remember” has such a negative view of the Electoral College for many reasons but he specifically feels:
…for two centuries supporters of the Electoral College have built their arguments on a series of faulty premises. The Electoral College is a gross violation of
When first introduced in 1787, there was little availability in communication throughout the country. The Founding Fathers were well aware of this when forming the Electoral College “A popular election in this case is radically vicious. The ignorance of the people would put it in the power of some one set of men dispersed through the Union, and acting in concert, to delude them into any appointment” (Marchette 72). Rather than have the Congress or Senate choose the president, the Electoral College seemed to be a compromise where a specific representative of a state would pick the president. The theory of using the popular vote at the time was not feasible because people would only vote for the candidate they personally knew, therefore leaving no candidate with the majority of the