Dear Wessex Wire,
The Electoral College is outdated, overused, and overall ineffective. It’s strange that the Electoral College, something established by the Founding Fathers over almost 300 years ago, is still used to run our dramatically different country. The Electoral College was established to balance the influence of states, giving the smaller states a smaller population a voice in presidential elections. Electors assigned to that state can then cast votes for their state. This explains why popular vote ultimately means nothing when the presidency relies solely on the electoral college votes. While this system may have made sense centuries ago, it seems extremely outdated in today’s society. The Electoral College empowers smaller states and swing states, and makes people in larger states feel like their vote means nothing. The “winner-take-all” system means that most votes are disregarded, which can ultimately discourage people from voting. If we change from using the Electoral College to a national popular vote system, it could be a very easy alternative. Every vote would matter and carry equal weight, ensuring that the candidate with the most votes would become president. This would also empower voters to get out and vote across the nation and create a stronger sense of democracy. The election’s voter turnout would be the highest and people would feel more inclined to vote since they directly get a say. Although this may lead candidates to focus on highly populated areas or cities, this is already a problem under the Electoral College because the smaller states with insignificant electoral votes are practically ignored. A popular vote system would encourage candidates to become more mainstream to everyone, not just certain states. As we further progress as a country, we should be focusing on what the people want, not what the “states” want. The Electoral College is no longer useful in current times and needs to be replaced.
