By: Connor M.
I turned 18 in August so I have the privilege to vote in the presidential election that will be held on November 6, 2012. I’ve watched several of the presidential debates and was looking forward to casting my vote for the first time. My mom was going to vote early so she took me with her last Friday. As we were standing in the long line, she asked if I understood the difference between the popular vote and the Electoral College. She also asked if I understood that a candidate could win the popular vote but still lose the election. We don’t pick the President; Electors for each state pick the President. I had to admit, I really wasn’t aware of that.
Initially, that just didn’t seem right. The United States is a democracy. As we’ve all learned in school, a democracy is government by the people. It just seems that each person’s vote should count the same and that the people should pick the President.
To learn more about the Electoral College, I went online and found a YouTube video that explained it really well. A link is attached so you can view it too. In reality, my vote wasn’t directly for the candidate I chose. My vote is actually tied to which candidate will get all of Wisconsin’s Electoral votes, which is 10. Whoever gets the most votes in our state, will get all of Wisconsin’s electoral votes in early December. The President isn’t actually elected on November 6, which I didn’t know either.
Do you know how each state gets their number of electoral votes? My mom told me it is based on Congress. Each state gets 2 votes for their Senators. The remainder is equal to the number of members each state has in the House of Representatives. The total number of electoral votes available is 538. To win the presidency, a candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes. Below you can see a map of the Electoral College for the United States.
As you can see, California and Texas have the most electoral votes. However, if you pay attention to the news, you don’t hear about Governor Romney and President Obama campaigning in those states. That’s because California always goes to the Democrats and Texas always goes to the Republicans. The candidates are focusing on the “swing states” and Wisconsin is one of them. A “swing state” is a state that sometimes gives the electoral votes to the Democratic candidate and sometimes gives the electoral votes to the Republican candidate. The winner of the “swing states” will win the election.
Now that I hope you understand better how the Electoral College works, I have some questions.
(1) Do you think the Electoral College is a fair way to elect a President?
(2) Would you support replacing the Electoral College with the popular vote for electing the President?
(3) How do you feel about a candidate winning the popular vote but losing the election?
(4) Do you think it’s right that the “swing states” get most of the attention from the candidates?
Personally, I feel that our 10 Electoral votes should be split out based on the popular vote in Wisconsin. For example, if President Obama and Governor Romney tie in Wisconsin, Wisconsin should give 5 of their votes to the President and 5 of their votes to Governor Romney. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Connor,
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way you do on this issue. Because it is unfair for example that one candidate will receive all 55 votes from California, although millions and millions of voters still voted for the other party. All of those votes would be able to change the result of the election if they would have been placed, in lets say a "battleground state."
I know it will never happen, but I think it would be much better if we had a electorate/popular vote system. Where each state still has the same number of votes, but that can be split up instead of all going to one candidate.
Since elections have been run using the electoral college since the near beginning of this great country, I do not think that this is going to change anytime soon or even ever. In this system, everybody's vote does not count equally. I feel that the electoral college should be replaced so that instances like the 2000 election, in which Bush lost the popular vote but won the election, do not occur again. If a state is won over by 1%, then that means that 49% of that state's voters don't get their vote counted toward anything because all of the electoral college votes go towards the winner of the state. This is unfair and unjust, but I don't see it changing anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteElections should be decided on the popular vote, our vote really isn't going to matter unless you vote republican in a republican state, the same being true with a democratic vote in a democratic state. A good example of this would be in California who gets the most electoral votes. If I'm a republican in that state, there is a slim chance of it actually giving the electoral votes to republicans.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with the electoral college, I believe that they should be based on the popular vote. For one, the electoral college is very confusing and most people do not agree. Plus, if we don't really get a say in the presidency, then why would we vote? It may be political efficacy, but it is true. I do not think it is going to change anytime soon, but it would be nice to have more of a say in our government. Swing states get the most looks because they are really the people who decide the election. I would not like it if I were not the swing states, but that is the way it happens, it is a competition.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the election should be based off the popular vote and not the electoral vote. In a democracy, the government is based off the people, and if the people's votes don't directly affect the election, that is wrong. California being so democratic, it's basically unfair to be a republican because living in that state is almost guaranteed all votes to the blue party. Thousands of votes don't really even matter because of the winner-take-all motto. There doesn't seem to be a point of the electoral college, and our country should be run by the individuals as each vote goes directly to each party's candidate. Swing states shouldn't determine an election, everyone, everywhere should. Whoever earns the most amount of votes should win the election.
ReplyDeleteConnor,
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you and the others who commented that the popular vote should be the vote that decides who holds power. Like you said, we are considered a democracy so we should directly elect those who make major decision for us. The way things are set up now, it is unfair to the people voting, because essentially if you are a Republican from California your vote is worthless. I can see how both Republicans in California and Democrats in Texas would choose not to vote. My question is if clearly everyone disagrees witht the electoral college, why do we still have it.
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ReplyDeleteThe electoral college system does seem to be an unpopular system for electing. Citizens of the US must get frustrated because their votes won't count for anything if the popular vote is toward the opposition. This defeats the whole purpose of peoples' votes "counting" for the election. Why bother to vote when you know that your state is already heavily favoring the opposition?
ReplyDeletePersonally I think the Electoral College is one of the most anti democracy things in our slowly turning to socialistic society. The Electoral College makes each vote not count because when one side wins the losing side is basically in the gutter. I do not believe we will change to a popular vote; however I believe we should so that we as a nation can be a true democracy.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with splitting up the votes based on the percentage on votes in the state. It would make the popular vote actually represent whom the state wanted, but if we do that, then that would basically replace the Electoral College. Good. The people should be the ones electing a president, which we are, but not in an efficient manner. The Electoral College takes away votes and shouldn't be a part of the system of which we use to vote.
ReplyDeleteI think that the electoral college is unfair and that if a candidate gets the most votes that they should be president. That should not be able to happen because in a big state like California there could be millions of votes that essentially don't really count. I agree with you that states should at least be able to split their electoral votes.
ReplyDeleteI really like this blog Connor, it brings up a topic that most people really like to talk about! Yes it is kinda lame that some states always seem to go the same way no matter what actually happens, it'd be nice to see a president elected by popular vote but that is just not the way things work today. Maybe in the next 50 years we will see a change in the policies along with how much people are allowed to advertise on the television.
ReplyDeleteConnor,
ReplyDeleteI really like how you used this topic because I know a lot of people have been confused with it since the election. I can see people's confusion and how they would be angry that the elctoral vote really takes over the popular vote, but then again, if the person who got elected was who won, they wouldn't be complaining. I agree with the law and the way it goes in which people in a state vote towards the elctoral votes in their specific state, but I do agree with you and for the rest of the country when I think every state should split the electoral votes depending on who one more or less popular votes in that state.
I think it's most frusterating when people complain about a candidate winning because of a electoral vote over the popular vote like Mitt Romney did. That's just the way our country works and that's how its always been. People need to accept what is there and realize that people can complain all they want, but who was elected is who was elected.
I can see the attention and why it is most seeked towards the "swing states" because those are the large electoral votes candidates are trying to win over. I think that any state should get as much attention as the candidates agrees with, as long as the candidates is doing everything they can to win that state.