Let's Abolish the Electoral College - Essay Review

Critique Paper

On:

"Let's Abolish the Electoral College"

By: Garrett Epps

And

"Keep the Electoral College"

By: Lawrence Reed

Tracy Portner

POL-103W-FA850

Dr. Robert Moore

The Electoral College has been around for a little over two centuries. It determines who will become our next president. Unfortunately, the Electoral College determining who will be the upcoming president of the United States might be coming to a close. Many people think that the Electoral College should be abolished, and a small amount of people think the Electoral College should stay the way it is. What would our nation be like if we abolished the role of the Electoral College? Would it be better? This is one of the main questions people are asking about the Electoral College. Garrett Epps and Lawrence Reed are two authors who debate and persuade why the Electoral College should be saved or abolished.

In the essay "Let's abolish the Electoral College", Garrett Epps starts off talking about how the Electoral College is just a way for Republicans to cheat their way into office in as in 2008. Epps states that with the Electoral College, "the candidates can overlook the small states, it recognizes the role of state governments, and it maintains a two-party system." Epps believes that if we remove the Electoral College, we would have a national voting system that would allow the president to win with a popular vote. Epps also believes that by using the popular vote to select our president it will not turn this country into a direct democracy, and it would guarantee the legitimacy of the next president.

Epps believes that using a system that our state legislators use to decide on their electors is unfair to the people. Epps defends the third-party candidates when he says that the Electoral College defends the two-party system which blocks the third-party's chance to compete in the election. Garrett disagrees that the Electoral College has ever worked. He firmly believes that the concept of the Electoral College could potentially lead us into disaster. The Electoral College is unjust in making the final decision instead of direct elections, then we would have elected a president that a majority of the country supported. To summarize, Epps feels we should justify what kind of democracy this is by putting the state legislators in the spotlight and eliminating the Electoral College so direct elections would determine our future presidencies.

Alternatively, what are the reasons we should keep the Electoral College instead of voting directly through the people like? In the second reading "Keep the Electoral College", Lawrence Reed discusses the positives to keeping the Electoral College. First off, Reed states that the Framers knew what they were creating when they established this form of voting for our presidents. By using the popular vote to decide the winner will only create mistakes and involve recounts whereas the Electoral College reassures that if there is a close tie between the popular votes, the winner is justified.

Secondly, "The Framers affirmed, in fact, that a democratic election occurring in each state would largely decide each state's vote for president in the Electoral College", stated Reed. Unlike having the state legislatures choosing the electors, and the people's votes having no effect on the states votes, the people's votes actually count toward the overall legislator's decision which a candidate gets all of the states' votes'. This is a complete turn from what was said in the argument by Garrett Epps for abolishing the Electoral College. Reed also says that candidates winning over the Electoral College means that they cannot focus on campaigning to just the large states, but by appealing at a national level