The Electoral College needs to go. It is a tough call, and I can see both sides of this argument, and I deeply respect and applaud the Founding Fathers for coming up with this ingenious solution to keep the same voting principles that were used for the legislative branch in use with the executive branch…..BUT…..at the end of the day I simply disagree with them.
A vote is a vote, and there should never be a check or a balance on the results of a popular vote by the total citizenry of a nation or any size electoral district. We don’t accept it for any other individual elected to their positions, be they county commissioners, mayors, governors, members of Congress, or Senators, and we should not have one on the popular vote of the President.
I mean really, could you imagine if the Governor of Texas wins the popular vote, but if Texas had an electoral college and that Governor’s votes mostly came from the populated cities of Houston and Dallas and San Antonio and didn’t get enough votes in the rural counties that the electoral college vote would win out instead of the popular vote?? It’s just not right.
I get what our Founding Fathers were trying to accomplish, but just as Republicans complain of judicial overreach and activist judges, I’m going to say our Founding Fathers were too smart for their own good on this one and over-engineered the Constitution.
If you haven’t heard about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, I definitely encourage you to check it out.
One of the best things I like about it beyond making the Electoral College a moot point, is that it will immediately force Congress to deal with campaign finance. Flyover states (states you ignore either because you already feel you can count them in your column or assume will go for the other guy) will immediately become in play. When all states become important to contest, campaigning will automatically become more expensive and Congress will have to do something about taking the money out of politics.
Perry Waag 