Buren 1.
Outdated Process of Electoral College.
It became apparent during our most recent presidential election the need .
to abolish the Electoral College. The idea of an Electoral College has become an .
outdated process that Michael L. Young, the director of the Center for Survey .
Research at Pennsylvania State University, calls an "archaic, anti-democratic and .
confusing system used to elect the president" (Young 35).
The Electoral College was supposed to be a two-step process. First, the .
electors chosen in each state would nominate the presidential candidates; then .
the House would vote to choose the president from these five with each state .
getting one vote. When the Electoral College was proposed in 1787, it was a .
compromise between popular elections, in which large states would dominate, .
and an elite Congressional election, which could produce under-handed political .
deals. However, with the unforeseen emergence of the political parties, and the .
expansion of the people eligible to vote the original idea for the Electoral College .
became altered (Young 36- 37).
Today the way the Electoral College vote works is each state gets to cast a .
number of votes that equals the sum of the states senators and representatives. .
Every state has at least one House representative and two senators, this means .
that even small states have at least 3 votes. In the Electoral process Washington, .
DC is considered a small state and has 3 college votes. A larger state is California .
with 54 votes. By tradition and state law, the process is a winner takes all system .
Buren 2.
in which the vote of the Electoral College is supposed to reflect the winner of the .
popular vote in that particular state, by giving the winner of the popular vote a .
block vote from the Electoral College. However, that does not always happen as .
we experienced during the election of 2000.
(Adams).