The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

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Electoral College OP-ED

During the last Presidential election, the candidate who won the office had not won a popular vote, with more citizens voting against him than for him. This, in turn, sparked the old debate of whether or not the Electoral College is still the best system or if it had become outdated for our nation. I, like many Americans, see the electoral college in a negative light, as an archaic system that has been corrupted. In order to help fix our quick decline into an oligarchy and protect our Republic, both Congress and the American people need to act quickly on this matter. Without serious reform, or most radically a dissolution of the system, we are in serious danger of losing the Republic that generations of Americans have fought and died to protect.

The electoral college system is a framework of the Founding Fathers. During the Constitutional Convention in the year 1787, the Virginia plan was introduced. The Plan was seen as a compromise between two factions in the Congress, those who wanted the
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Most electors are closely tied with the parties and will not vote against their will. However, since parties control electors in most states the system has helped to keep the two-party dominance in the United States. This is why no major challenger from a third party has risen since the year 1912 with Theodore Roosevelt.

Many within the US see the issues with the current system. 57% of those polled in a recent CBS poll believed that the electoral college should be reformed or done away with. The polls regarding the electoral college have historically proven to show a majority would like to see the system gone. Similarly, The American Bar Association conducted a poll which found that 69% of lawyers agreed to the need to abolish or change the electoral college. The Association also found the system to "archaic" and