To the State Senate,

Addressing my ultimate opinion, I believe should change the vote of the Electoral College into a popular-based vote. Examining a large number of articles which has fufilled my understanding of the Electoral College including the process and diverse opinions of the Electoral College. This essay will propose the counterclaim the opposing side of why we should not change the process of vote in the United States and address the counterclaim of why the Electoral College should be changed to a popular vote. In order to understand each side, we must first comprehend the process behind the Electoral College. Posner stated, "...it is the electors who elect the president, not the people. When you vote for a presidential candidate you're actually voting for a slate of electors" (3). This is the one of the most important concepts to understand in the process of the Electoral College, for we must know that each vote you compose, you vote for a slate of electors, who will basically vote for their candidate. "The Electoral College is a process, not a place" (Office of the Federal Register, 1). This lets us put down a foundation of the Electoral College as well.

According to Plumer, "Perhaps most worrying is the prospect of a tie in the electoral vote" (2). This indicates how the tie could carry the vote to the House of Representatives, where the federal judgement takes place of voting for the president. Not only this, but Plumer also stated,"Because each state casts only one vote, the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters" (2). This statement from Plumer strongly imposes the knowledge that this tie carried to the House of Representatives would hardly reflect the will of the people due to census of the population. This article highlighted that the vote in 2000 where the system actually seemed to flaw when Gore recieved a higher popular vote than Bush, however, Bush received a higher electoral vote. In this situation, is this truly fair? This example dipicts how the vote is truly determined on a group of people from the population rather than a vote depending upon the entire nation itself. Plumer stated, "...the electoral college is unfair to voters...swing states..." (2). This brings us the idea of the swing states and how the candidates in the winner-take-all system do not bother to go to states they know that they have no chance of winning, which harshly reveals that some votes may be biased from the electors ignoring other states. "It's official: The electoral college is unfair, outdated, and irrational" (Plumer,2). This concludes how biased the Electoral College can be when it comes to ties, representatives, the disaster factor, and a great multitude of concepts and situations where the Electoral College has flawed.

Now, I have also read articles that contained letters that emphasized why the Electoral College should not be changed in any way, due to the "...Certainty of Outcome...Everyone's President...Swing States...Big States... Avoid Run-Off Elections..." (Posner, 3). These subtitles are points that Posner focused on that he believes can persuade why the Electoral College is somewhat efficient. In each of these points, I can counter that the certainty of the vote is false due to the fiasco of Gore and Bush in 2000, as well as the concept of the House of Representatives that I mentioned earlier as well. In the factor that Posner mentioned in his point of everyone's president, I do not find this very accurate due to the reason that our vote relies on a slate of electors, not us entirely, as it would in a popular vote. In swing states, it mentions in the article of Plumer that a winner-takes-all method is unfair to voters because electors ignore states that they do not have confidence in winning the vote. A major point that I disagree with would be the point that Posner pointed out with Big States, where he mentioned that,"The Electoral College restores some of the weight in the political balance that large states (by population) lose by virtue of the mal-apportionment of the Senate decreed in the Constitution..." (3). In this, I would argue that this is unfair, because of the inequality of representatives due to population, which is not the voter's decision. In the statement of Avoid Run-off Elections, Posner states that, "The Electoral College avoids that problem of elections in which no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast" (3). I find this false due to the reason that the Electoral College is based on a different amount of voters and electors in each state, which in turn is viewed unfair because there is a factor of the swing states once again, explains that some electors choose states over another which lets us show how unfair the Electoral College is, generally speaking.

In conclusion, we have established our opinion on why the vote should be changed into a popular vote instead of the Electoral College due to a myriad of concepts, such as the disaster factor in 2000, why swing-states are unfair, the prospect of a tie in the electoral vote, just to reveal the tip of the iceberg in our arguments of understanding why the Electoral College is biased, irrational, and unfair. We have also covered the counterclaims and reasoned them with logic, reality, and true rationality of why the Electoral College shoud be abolished in the vote of the President of the United States of America. So, ask yourself as a state senator, who is truly in the hands of the final say for the President?    