America: land of the free, the brave, and millions of proud citizens who live in a country that prides itself on its preservation of human rights and everything else that makes up a proper society. However, in order to remain a fair republic that truly takes into account the opinions of all citizens, we must make one major change. The flawed Electoral College must be abolished and replaced with election by popular vote in order to ensure the well being of our country.

Proponents of the Electoral College would gasp in horror at this suggestion, arguing that their systematic method is virtually foolproof. Nevertheless, with a voting method as complicated as the Electoral College, the room for error is far too great. Just look at what happened in 1960, when racist legislators tried to replace the democtratic electors  chosen by popular vote in order to sabotage John F. Kennedy's chances. Then yet another electoral disaster occured in 2000. Both of these events could very easily happen again and the consequences of such mistakes are unfathomable. History has been proven to repeat itself, and this is no exeption. Who's to say that electors won't just ignore the wishes of voters or that legislators won't manipulate the system? When it comes to choosing our leade, whose actions will ultimately decide whether or not America will continue to survive and thrive, it would be a huge mistake to leave this resposibility to one group of individuals. After all, nobody is perfect.

Furthermore, advocates of the Electoral College make a major fallacy when they claim that voters in swing states are more informed on election information, therefore it's good that the electoral system causes candidates to only focus on them. Just consider the fact that by completely ignoring all of the other states, campaigners are ignoring millions of individuals who deserve to have a say in who will be in charge. Through this one argument, advocates are essentially assuming anyone who doesn't live in a swing state doesn't care about the election as much and therefore they shouldn't have a say in the matter. This is simply not true. In fact, these advocates fail to acknowledge that if voters in other states are not as educated or interested, it is a consequence of the Electoral College. While politicians are focusing all of their time and effort on the 'thoughtful' voters, other citizens don't get the information they need from seeing campaigns and meeting candidates. They are deprived of the opportunity to make an educated decision like swing voters and that is a fault of the college, not the voters themselves.

The problems with the Electoral College only go on. If a tie were to occur, the election would be determined by members of the House of Representatives, who do an even poorer job of representing the people considering each state casts only one vote. Also, due to the fact that the Electoral College mainly operates with the winner-take-all rule, it is easy for individuals in Democratic or Republican states to feel as if their vote doesn't matter.

It is also important to note that at the end of the day, election by popular vote accomplishes the goal of reflecting the opinion of the public far better than election by Electoral College. The popular vote is a clear statement of voters' opinions and is virtually unable to be tampered with. On the other hand, the Electoral College only complicates the situation by introducing a middle man who is prone to bribery and mistakes. Why should we allow candidates to win because of the electoral vote if they do not recieve the overall approval of the public? Compare the opinions of 538 electors to the opinions of hundreds of millions of voters. Evidently, the opinions of all these voters cannot be properly represented by these 538 electors. It's just impossible both logistically and logically.

For all of these reasons, I urge you to change the system to election by popular vote. It is without a doubt the only way this country can continue to be the great nation that it is for centuries to come.            