Electoral College

Power to the People. Rock the Vote. Freedom to Choose. Democracy for all! With thousands of colorful colloquialisms out there stressing the importance of voting it’s funny that we don’t elect the most important office in our government. But what is the system that allows us to entertain the fallacy of democracy? Why do we not directly elect the highest office in the land? Is it for our protection, or for the governments?

When the Founders of our Constitution settled on the Electoral College as the means of selecting a president, one of their primary concerns was to protect the interests of smaller states against potential domination by larger, more densely-populated states. The results of the 2000 race illustrate how easily such domination could be brought about through direct popular election of the president. President Bush won practically the entire rural area of the United States whereas Al Gore won the densely-populated states in the popular election. If the Electoral College was to be abolished, then the Presidential candidate would only focus their time and effort in the populous states rather than, say forty-four rural states who deserve equal representation.

The feeling of over half of the country is that

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Every other popular election is based on a region of no larger than one state. Hitler came to power in Germany after a perfectly democratic election (with little, if any vote fraud) in which a majority of the voters cast ballots for either the Communist or Nazi party. However, when our Founding Fathers set up this system, they foresaw problems. The idea is NOT to prevent the majority from electing the President, only to moderate this power to prevent irreversible harm to minorities.

Our system of government is not a true Democracy, but rather a Representative Democracy or a Republic form of government. An election that is based only on the popularity of a candidate would not work fairly, on

a scale that is as large and diverse as our nation is. He quickly consolidated dictatorial powers, and abolished what remained of the independence of Germany's individual states. An individual is then just one of the millions, a small phish in a large ocean. Since this system is a compromise, the majority is given some deference by applying the electors in a way that the larger states have more votes. The system was designed to be the best possible system for the most possible people. The Electoral College is proof to the world that the American system of government is the best in the world. The 2000 election, for example, and the partisanship that is now appearing, as a result of the closeness of the election, is clear evidence of how divided and partisan people can be. did not win the election, because Al Gore won half a million more of the popular votes, and therefore should be president today. There must be some protection to the minorities and a check or limit to the authority and power of a majority or plurality. There cannot be a system which can be totally fair or perfect.

Approximate Word count = 1128
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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