In favor of abolishing the Electoral College.
The Electoral College is an obsolete and archaic mode of determining who will hold the highest office in the land and it must be abolished. To put the current system in perspective, it is important to know something about its origins. In the 18th century, travel was limited; there were no airlines, radio, or television broadcasts; news of the day was slow to travel and was not reliable. In this young nation, political parties were not yet a national reality. Taking these things into account, the Electoral College was an elegant and effective solution to a serious concern. The framers of the Constitution did a remarkable job of outlining a system that would not allow regional favorites to divide the vote. "Requiring a candidate to win a majority in the Electoral College was a way of obtaining a national consensus (Sung)." Let there be no doubt, conditions over 200 years ago in no way reflect the current state of the Union, and there are strong reasons to abolish the Electoral College. A careful comparison of conditions two centuries ago with the current situation makes clear the fact that the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness and no longer performs the functions its creators intended it to. We need to address this problem before a national crisis ensues. "By looking at past twists, and future possibilities, we should realize that the time to fix this outdated process is before it malfunctions, not after the inevitable systemic crisis occurs (Field)." One of the arguments frequently cited in defending the Electoral College, is that of the need for a Constitutional Amendment to change our current electoral system. Another popular notion is that the Electoral College contributes to the political stability of the nation. It will become clear that the logic of this stance does not fare well when the gravity of the problems inherent to the Electoral College system are revealed.
