Another Stab at the U.S. Constitution

"Moreover, we have learned a lot in the last 225 years about shortcomings in the framers’ design: the person who wins the most votes doesn’t necessarily become president; the adoption of “winner take all” rules (permitted but not mandated by the Constitution) produces election campaigns that ignore most of the country and contribute to low turnout; the legislature of any state can decide to choose electors by itself and decline to hold an election at all; and the complex procedure for dealing with an election in which no candidate wins a clear majority of the electoral vote is fraught with peril. As a nation, we have come to embrace “one person, one vote” as a fundamental democratic principle, yet the allocation of electoral votes to the states violates that principle. It is hardly an accident that no other country in the world has imitated our Electoral College." (Revisiting the Constitution: Do Away With the Electoral College, Alexander Keyssar)

Alexander Keyssar believes that if every vote were to count, elections would result in a larger turnout. If we were to instate the "one person, one vote" rule - or the popular vote - the outcome may be entirely different than we if remain with the electoral votes. During the presidential election of 2000, George W. Bush won the electoral votes, but not the popular votes, the popular votes went to Al Gore. Bush had 50,456,062 votes, meanwhile Gore had 50,996,582 votes. Had the election gone by the popular votes and not by the elector votes, we would have had President Gore instead of President Bush. Having electoral votes in place should be seen as more of an incentive to go out and vote.

I chose this passage because many do not understand how electoral votes work or why they are in place. Many believe that their votes are not as important as they actually are. They may think that voting isn't worth their time so they may not vote when the time comes; they may still believe the "one person, one vote" rule, but that is simply not how it works. You must vote in order to have your political party win. If you stay home you cannot be disappointed if your political party of choice does not make the cut because there were not enough popular votes to win the state - it is all relative, popular and electoral votes. It can be seen as unfair how someones vote may be completely disregarded, but there is a method to the madness.



Sources:

Keyssar, Alexander. "Revisiting the Constitution: Do Away With the Electoral College." The New York Times. N.p., 8 July 2012. Web. 6 Oct. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/07/08/another-stab-at-the-us-constitution/revisiting-the-constitution-do-away-with-the-electoral-college>.

"U. S. Electoral College." National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2015. <http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/2000/popular_vote.html>.