Burkett 1

Spencer Burkett

Mr. Forette

English 12a

19 May 2021

Electoral College Argumentative Essay

Voting in the United States is a big responsibility of those above eighteen. Imagine this: a

voter waits for their chance to vote for their leader, and finally turns eighteen. As luck would

have it, they turned eighteen at just the right time for the Presidential election. They excitedly

cast their vote, and carefully watch the polls. They are extremely excited, as their candidate has

won 68% of the popular vote. Then, when the electoral votes are tallied, they see that another

candidate has one with only 23% of the popular vote. Shocked and outraged, they have just

become a victim of our electoral college system. The electoral college should be removed from

the presidential voting process.

The electoral college is horrible for voters. The winner-takes-all style that most states

employ discourages most people from voting. According to Ruth Herman of East Central

Univerity, both Maine and Nebraska do not employ this type of system. Both of these states have

bolstered higher than average voter turnout for the past two decades. This supports the idea that

with better representation, voter turnout would increase. Data from the 2020 election collected

by the Pew Research Center shows that 58% of people believe in the popular vote system while

only 40% believe in the current system. In a system about the representation of the people,

should the word of the people not overrule tradition? In my opinion, the decision to remove the

electoral college in favor of a newer system is a clear choice.

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The electoral college is a relic of the past. There were two main reasons for the electoral

college being created: to keep the misinformed from making a mistake, and to make counting the

vote easier. Within the current age, the second reason is obviously outdated. The vote can easily

be counted electronically, as it almost entirely is. Even paper votes are counted by a machine,

and coverage for cell phones and the internet spreads across the nation. As for being

misinformed, information is spread everywhere. Education is at an all-time high, with 88% of

people completing high school and 57% completing at least some college, according to the PEW

research center. These numbers can easily show that our education is not an issue. With the

means to inform the people and the education to make informed decisions, why still use a

several-century-old relic?

The electoral college makes having a third party in an election a horrible outcome. A

third party will almost never win within the current system, as winner-takes-all means that their

votes will almost never be counted. They can, however, cause major changes to the election. For

instance, a third party could siphon votes from one of the two main parties. This isn’t an unseen

situation, as it has happened in both the 2000 election and the 2016 election, as Sam Feist of

CNN stated. Such a situation allows lobbyists to use smaller parties to further their political

standpoint much easier than ever before.

Some may say that the electoral college is good because it mitigates voter fraud. I

understand how a person might feel that way. However, there isn’t much evidence to support this

idea. While a couple hundred thousand fraud votes may cause a change in which candidate wins

without the electoral college, the same can be said with the electoral college. The issue in fact

becomes much large when connected to the electoral college, as winner-takes-all means that a

candidate could gain much more from fraud votes than with a popular vote system.
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Returning to our story of a devastated voter. Without the electoral college, the popular

vote would reflect who wins. No longer would they be devastated by a ridiculous system that

betrays the people. No longer would they have to endure an antique of the past. No longer would

the mere prospect of a third party shock the entire process. But for this to happen, there must be a

major change. The electoral college needs to be removed. If the president is to fit the nation, this

antique mockery of democracy must be removed.

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Works Cited:

Americans Are More Educated Than Ever--But It's Still Not Enough. (n.d.).

https://www.careerprofiles.info/americans-educated.html#:~:text=The%20percentage%20of%20

Americans%20with,most%20educated%20it's%20ever%20been.

Daniller, A. (2021, January 28). A majority of Americans continue to favor replacing Electoral

College with a nationwide popular vote. Pew Research Center.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/13/a-majority-of-americans-continue-to-favor-re

placing-electoral-college-with-a-nationwide-popular-vote/.

Feist, S. (2019, January 28). Why the Constitution makes a third-party presidency extremely

difficult | CNN Politics. CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/politics/howard-schultz-electoral-college-difficulty/index.html.

Herman, R. (2020, September 1). Winner Takes All, Voters Don't Show: An Examination of the

Electoral College and Voter Turnout. Alpha Chi.

https://alphachihonor.org/winner-takes-all-voters-dont-show-an-examination-of-the-electoral-coll

ege-and-voter-turnout/.

Kurtzleben, D. (2016, November 2). How To Win The Presidency With 23 Percent Of The

Popular Vote. NPR.

https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-presidency-with-27-percent-of-the-p

opular-vote.

Voting methods and equipment by state. Ballotpedia. (2020, October 15).

https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state.