Why we need a new election system, problems with the electoral system.

The Electoral College is an obsolete institution that undermines the citizens' involvement in government. The idea that a candidate can win the popular vote yet lose the election is ridiculous, and only through a system reliant on a popular vote based on a popular vote can the true will of the citizens of the United States directly effect the choice of their leader.

The Electoral College was drafted with the birth of this country partially to balance power, because slaves in the south were not citizens, and therefore, not allowed to vote. That would have given the northern states all the power in a popular vote. For purpose of representation, each slave was counted as three-fifths of a citizen. There haven't been slaves in this country since Abraham Lincoln, this reason to use the Electoral College system is grossly outdated.

The authors of our Constitution suggested this election process in thinking that there would be too many candidates on the ballot for any one of them to get a majority of the electoral votes, sending the decision to the House of Representatives.

Graphic showing how the popular vote winner can lo...

It is unethical to use a system that is unrepresentative just to be able to pinpoint a leader. The government that is supposedly as Lincoln said it, "of the people, by the people, for the people" is not letting the people choose the leader for the people.

The idea of scrapping the Electoral College is not a foreign one prompted only by the current election. There have been 1028 proposals in Congress to revise the system throughout the country's history. In 1950 and 1969, plans to revamp the Electoral College were passed by one chamber of Congress, but not the other.

Advocates for the Electoral College argue that with the current system candidates for presidency spend...