The Electoral College, the process by which we the citizens of the United States elect our president, has been in existence since 1787 and since then has been amended in our Constitution. The Electoral College was created as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The college consists of 538 electors, and a majority of 270 votes is required to elect the president. Each state has the same number of electors as it does members in its Congressional delegation, which is one for each member in the house of representatives plus two senators. I believe that it is time to get rid of the electoral college, and in its place, hold one large popular election.
The Electoral College is an extremely outdated system that has yielded results that contradict popular American opinion. On five different occasions, a candidate has won the popular vote, but lost the presidency, due to losing in the electoral college. Not only is the electoral college not representative of who the people want for president, but it also has extremely racist origins. Back when it was first created, Americans still owned slaves in the south, and the ⅗ compromise allowed for these southern states to have a large advantage over the ones who did not own slaves in the north. At the time of the Constitutional convention, northern and southern states had about equal populations, and the ⅗ compromise counted 3 out of 5 enslaved people to be a part of the states population for the house of representatives.
To abolish the electoral college an amendment would need to be passed, which would be very difficult to do and very unlikely. Another solution to the problem of the electoral college ignoring the popular opinion is to ensure that whoever wins the popular vote, must win in the electoral college as well. This would allow for a more fair and democratic election, as the people would be more directly involved in deciding who is the president of the United States.
