And although proponents have verifiable reasons as to the importance and necessity of the Electoral College, one must ask in our current day whether it suits our needs and aids problems that have and could occur.

In order to do this an understanding of the creation of the Electoral College is necessary. First, it was created during a time in which inter-state communication was extremely difficult, making political campaigning virtually impossible outside of the candidate’s home state.

In addition, political parties were thought to be mischievous if not evil, and men were not encouraged to seek office but instead ran under the adage, “The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office.”

Considering these conditions under which the Electoral College was created, one can understand how different the country was during the founding of our nation.

Today there is certainly inter-state communication through TV, radio and the Internet — making sound bites the staple of the campaign. Also there is definitely a strong two party system that seems almost impenetrable by a third party.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every presidential campaign to reach out to the populace for its votes. The modern public is certainly not seeking officials, and candidates seek the office so persistently that it almost bridges on annoyance during the election months.

Two major problems exist with the Electoral College today, although there may be more minor ones. One, it gives certain states a higher value than other states during the campaign season. For instance, states with higher electoral votes, such as Florida, are given more attention from the candidates who are vying for that large number of votes in the winner-take-all system.

States such as Virginia, which is always counted as a red state, are not even considered a state to invest money (advertisements) or time in, even though Virginia later shocked the nation when it was too close to call at its close of polls.

Alaska, with only 3 electoral votes, is rarely campaigned, but who is to say that Alaska’s people and their votes are less valuable than those in Florida? If I recall, we are all American citizens who are supposed to have an equal say in our government.

But when Virginians have been drilled into thinking that the state will never elect a democratic nominee, where is the incentive for democrats or others to vote? Many Virginians have resigned to the thought that their votes don’t matter because the state will always be red, so they simply don’t vote.

A second major problem is that the Electoral College discourages third or independent parties, thus endorsing and sustaining the two-party system. The only reason that the United States has just two parties is that Electoral College makes sure it stays that way, and therefore there is no incentive for the two parties to change these rules.

A third or independent party would need enough votes to capture the electoral votes in enough states to win the presidency, which is nearly impossible in the current political arena of the powerful Democratic and Republican parties. Third and independent parties are highly discouraged, and it is hard many times for them to even make it on the ballot, because of the measures that the two parties go to get them discredited for the election.

We are supposed to be a nation that gives the right of free speech, yet these outside parties are constantly silenced and sometimes exhausted in their pursuit for office. Perhaps a new party has better ideas, but we will never hear them because they will never make it through the Electoral College.

I understand that the Electoral College supports the involvement of the states (the electoral votes are determined by a state’s congressional representation), but when the federal system is applied to a single person, it seems that a popular vote would guarantee the equality of the votes in the states, rather than further divide them.

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Electoral College Table of Contents