The Electoral College Debate
The voting system should not be the established method of Electoral College, but Proportional. The Electoral College method we use works by the concept of “winner takes all”. If a candidate gets the majority of the vote in New Jersey, for example, then he or she would get all 15 votes, electoral and senate. Yet with proportional voting, there works the concept “You get what you get”. For example, say for NJ, Bush gets 51% of the vote and Kerry gets 49% of the vote. Using the Proportional vote counting math, the votes get split 8 to 7; Bush wins fair and square.
The proportional vote count method more accurately portrays how many votes each president received. The established Electoral College method, making it so that all votes go the majority’s way, implies that no one voted the other way. The other candidate, who may have received almost half the votes of the state, gets nothing; he or she loses all the votes he or she worked for. With the proportional vote count system, each candidate, win or lose, gets credit for votes.
The proportional method makes it so that the voters of the minority are tallied and do count for something. They took advantage of their privileges, which is an integral part of the needs of an effective democracy: participation. Whoever they vote for, they contributed toward American society and government by voting in the candidate they believe is correct. Their vote should count. If not for what they deserve, what about the cold hard truth? The Electoral College method has an amount of truth, as far as numbers go, but it can still be carried too far by technicalities. The proportional vote count method, through the people, selects the candidate, who in reality did get more votes. For example, say Kerry won by a little in California, by the amount of 500,000. Kerry would get all 55 votes, electoral and senate. But then on the other side, say Bush won by a landslide in Florida, by 1,500,000 or so. If those were the only states that had votes put in, Kerry would be elected, the epitome of injustice.
The established Electoral College method was a safeguard against the ignorance of early America and against the election of the wrong president. Yet, with the literacy rate significantly higher, people are smarter and more educated. For the most part, they can make their own decisions and vote on candidates they feel are better for the right reasons. The danger is no longer there. It is now time for a better system.
There has emerged another idea of a new vote count method, and that is the simple Popular vote. This is just the sum of all the votes going one candidate’s way verses the votes going the other way. This smells of direct democracy. We have the technology to make this method of direct democracy practical in relation to time consummation. Yet, there is more room for mistakes. When dealing with votes in the millions, it is easy to switch around numbers or miss a place. So many things can happen. But when you make thing proportional, it still shows accurately what votes were for who, while at the same time, it makes the numbers so much simpler. That would make less chance for a mistake. A mistake that influences the election is troublesome.
Proportional voting is, by far, a more fair and effective. It shows more precisely who has what votes, and in a democratic way, makes the minority vote count. In the future, it will fare well in having the correct president with the most votes sworn in. It will fare well in the selection of America’s great leaders of the future.
The voting system should not be the established method of Electoral College, but Proportional. The Electoral College method we use works by the concept of “winner takes all”. If a candidate gets the majority of the vote in New Jersey, for example, then he or she would get all 15 votes, electoral and senate. Yet with proportional voting, there works the concept “You get what you get”. For example, say for NJ, Bush gets 51% of the vote and Kerry gets 49% of the vote. Using the Proportional vote counting math, the votes get split 8 to 7; Bush wins fair and square.
The proportional vote count method more accurately portrays how many votes each president received. The established Electoral College method, making it so that all votes go the majority’s way, implies that no one voted the other way. The other candidate, who may have received almost half the votes of the state, gets nothing; he or she loses all the votes he or she worked for. With the proportional vote count system, each candidate, win or lose, gets credit for votes.
The proportional method makes it so that the voters of the minority are tallied and do count for something. They took advantage of their privileges, which is an integral part of the needs of an effective democracy: participation. Whoever they vote for, they contributed toward American society and government by voting in the candidate they believe is correct. Their vote should count. If not for what they deserve, what about the cold hard truth? The Electoral College method has an amount of truth, as far as numbers go, but it can still be carried too far by technicalities. The proportional vote count method, through the people, selects the candidate, who in reality did get more votes. For example, say Kerry won by a little in California, by the amount of 500,000. Kerry would get all 55 votes, electoral and senate. But then on the other side, say Bush won by a landslide in Florida, by 1,500,000 or so. If those were the only states that had votes put in, Kerry would be elected, the epitome of injustice.
The established Electoral College method was a safeguard against the ignorance of early America and against the election of the wrong president. Yet, with the literacy rate significantly higher, people are smarter and more educated. For the most part, they can make their own decisions and vote on candidates they feel are better for the right reasons. The danger is no longer there. It is now time for a better system.
There has emerged another idea of a new vote count method, and that is the simple Popular vote. This is just the sum of all the votes going one candidate’s way verses the votes going the other way. This smells of direct democracy. We have the technology to make this method of direct democracy practical in relation to time consummation. Yet, there is more room for mistakes. When dealing with votes in the millions, it is easy to switch around numbers or miss a place. So many things can happen. But when you make thing proportional, it still shows accurately what votes were for who, while at the same time, it makes the numbers so much simpler. That would make less chance for a mistake. A mistake that influences the election is troublesome.
Proportional voting is, by far, a more fair and effective. It shows more precisely who has what votes, and in a democratic way, makes the minority vote count. In the future, it will fare well in having the correct president with the most votes sworn in. It will fare well in the selection of America’s great leaders of the future.