The Present Electoral College Procedures Are Ruining Elections

by … Chuck Pithy

For quite some time now we have witnessed elections for President which are not representative of our country. The present system is a winner take all for the electoral college votes in all but two states The number crunchers have gotten it down to a science as to which states they need to win, it is often referred to as the path to the White House. The proof of this is when you look at the primaries, the candidates sometimes just skip campaigning in states because they might be considered lost causes.

The result of this is no matter how well a congressional district does to elect candidate A, if the total for the state favors candidate B, all the votes for that state go to candidate B.  Because of this I feel it drives down voter participation and I will explain why.

First of all, if you live in a state which consistently goes Democrat it is easy to get disenchanted with elections and say to yourself, “Why Bother”.  The same goes the other way if you’re in a state that goes Republican and you are a democrat you would feel the same way. That disenchantment affects all the other races that are held with the Presidential election.  Furthermore, for the party that rarely wins, they struggle to find good people to work on campaigns.  Once voter apathy sets in, it becomes very difficult to convince voters to go back to participating.

Now a good and fair way to change that is make some changes in how the electoral college functions.  first of all I would have each congressional district vote be cast according to the result of that district.  With the two remaining votes, they could be cast as follows.  One vote for the candidate that wins the most districts and the other for the one who wins the popular vote. This revision would mean candidate would have to work to get votes all across the country and not just cherry pick major cities.  Furthermore it gives incentives for everyone to vote because now their votes would have even more meaning.

I am Chuck Pithy and I tell it like it is!!!