Should the electoral college be abolished?
No, the electoral college ensures representation of the whole country instead of just major cities
The Electoral College ensures that all parts of the country are involved in selecting the President…
First of all, ANY national voting system "ensures that all parts of the country are involved" because any system that involves the entire country fundamentally does that, not just the Electoral College; a popular vote system would also "ensure that all parts of the country are involved", so that argument doesn't even make sense, much less in the Electoral College's favor.
Secondly, the Electoral College already limits campaigning to specific regions: swing states. That's why current campaigners can effectively ignore any states that always vote for the same party, and instead focus on just the states that they have a chance of flipping (which is why they're also called "battleground states", because those are the states where candidates fight over). A voting system without an Electoral College would get rid of candidates focusing on winning over a few specific states and instead make them focus on actually appealing to the most people across the board, not relying on a state-by-state winner-takes-all basis.
Thirdly, our voting system's "winner-take-all" model encouraging a two-party system is actually a BAD thing. Having only two parties dominate our entire national political system is not good for the people or for democracy, and is actually more detrimental than anything. This creates a two-party duopoly in which the two dominating parties just end up putting on a show of fighting with each other, while still ensuring that they maintain each other's national positions of power, which continuing the cycle of mediocrity. Instead, we need an entirely different voting system that actually breaks up and incentivizes the existence of multiple parties with positions of power, such as a proportional representation voting system, as well as something like a ranked choice model instead of our first-passed-the-post one. Nothing about our current voting system is actually ideal, or even good.
Lastly, being a part of "American history and tradition" is not at all a justification for allowing something to exist. If a system is not working, like how our incredibly outdated current voting system is not working, then it should be abolished and/or replaced with a system that does work. There are plenty of things that were originally a part of "American history and tradition" that we got rid of or changed, and there are plenty of things that still need to go, especially our current voting system...
Be the first to reply to this disagreement.
Join in on more popular conversations.