Why the Electoral College needs to be removed
Hello fellow steemit members, this is my first post, so bare with me here.
The necessity of the Electoral College has been quite the topic of debate, especially since Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but President Trump was still elected president. A great deal of people seem to think that without the Electoral College, Mrs. Clinton would've won for sure. People bash the electoral college because it has ties to slavery, it doesn't make people feel as though they can make a difference, and ultimately just frustrates people. However, there is one key change that would happen by removing the Electoral College that I feel gets forgotten about pretty frequently: It would strongly increase voter turnout.
Every four years, the USA becomes one giant shit show of political commercials, campaigns, bogus news coverage, and turns Facebook into a literal war zone. People have such strong opinions, and will argue their point to the death, yet for some reason, they don't vote. Voter turnout in the 2016 election was 54.7%, and black voter turnout has also dipped since 2012. I personally know people who would trade their life's possessions to see their candidate win, however, they didn't vote! Now, why is this?
I believe we can solve the problem of low voter turnout by getting rid of the electoral college. People are abstaining from voting because they feel their vote has no power. If I was a strong Democrat, but lived in Texas, I can understand not seeing the point in voting. Living in one of the most Republican states in the U.S. would be a pretty strong deterrent to cast a democrat ballot. Another example is Wisconsin. In the 7 elections from 1988 to 2012, WI vote blue in all of them. However, WI went to Trump in the 2016 election. Is it possible that enough Hillary supporters didn't feel the need to vote because they were so certain their state would go blue? People are feeling trapped by the state they live in.
The President of the United States doesn't affect only some states; He (of she!) affects the whole country. Every vote cast should carry equal weight in determining the next President. We are ALL Americans, and it's time that our votes started really meaning something.
Well, thanks for reading my first Steemit post everybody! I look forward to reading your comments, I'm sure they will all be very insightful.
~goldengatebridge
Not exactly. The slavery thing had to do with the census and giving more representatives to states with slaves, where slaves would not be allowed to vote. That's why the compromise came about. To prevent slave states from stacking Congress.
How the electoral college works.
First, imagine the States as independent Sovereign States. In fact, that's why it is called the 'State Department', it deals with Sovereign States.
Second, imagine that each of the people living in each of these Sovereign States are citizens of just that State. Easy enough. Most people have a strong attachment to the state they live in or were born in. It is also why you have a State driver's license and not a Federal one.
Third, understand that each State gets representation to vote for the President of the United States. <--- key wording here. Citizens of the individual States do not vote for the President. They vote for the representatives who will vote for the President.
That is the point of the electoral college.
States with larger populations have more electoral votes.
What this prevents is the popular vote of the more populated areas out weighing the votes in the less populated areas.
If you feel like your vote doesn't count because you live in a blue district in a red state, how would you feel if you lived in state that had a smaller population than certain cities?
There are easy examples to show where the popular vote goes wrong. In Michigan, until about a decade ago, the state was run by representatives from the Detroit area. That was the most populated area of the state. The western and northern portions of the state had almost zero voice in state matters. When Detroit imploded due to 60 years of bad Democrat policies, people fled and the power was spread across the state.
In Illinois and New York, there is the same issue. One city sending all the representatives who outweigh the rest of the state.
Thank you for your input, I should have clarified by explaining the whole 3/5th compromise thing to start off. I can definitely see both the pros and cons of the electoral college. I also don't think I clarified that I don't think states as a whole should go to a certain candidate, but rather we look at the country as a whole. But very informative post!
nice.
I will follow you, I hope you follow me too :)
Yes of course! Thank you for the follow