With the 2004 presidential election on Nov. 2, one might wonder exactly how we managed to end up with George W. Bush heading into another term in office. This year was by no means as controversial as the previous election held in 2000. However, the point can be made that if the system of election we use were to have been changed, our country may have never had to endure the fate of George W. Bush in the first place.
The issue at hand is the Electoral College system, in its essence. It is a process by which a very simple task, such as voting, becomes a very complicated system of choosing a group of people who happen to like a specific presidential candidate. These people then, in turn, go off and elect the president in a very similar manner that you chose them.
We at The Skyline View believe that this system of electing our commander in chief, while it was once a viable system that had many benefits, is now nothing more than an outdated system that is no longer necessary for the electoral process in this country.
The history books can do well to teach us about the creation of this system. When the country was founded over 200 years ago, there was a concern among our founding fathers that the voters were not informed enough to make proper decisions when voting for the president.
Despite the fact that very few people were given the right to vote in the earliest years (white male landowners being the only ones that were allowed), the founding fathers decided to write the Electoral College system into the Constitution.
The problem with the system is its corruptibility. The winner of the popular vote, the candidate who receives the most votes overall, is ultimately the person the people wish to see in office, but is not necessarily the candidate who will be voted into office.
There are a few examples: Grover Cleveland lost his bid for re-election after his first term, winning the popular vote but losing in the Electoral College, and Benjamin Harrison was officially elected President. In 1876 Samuel Tilden won the popular vote. However, the Electoral College voters from Louisiana switched their votes, giving Rutherford Hayes the election.
The fact of the matter at hand is this: the Electoral College, while it may have been a good idea at its conception, is simply no longer necessary for the election system in this country. When it was written into the Constitution, the small number of voters did not have as broad an access to information as we do today.
With the invention of the television, radio, and national newspapers, information can be broadcast from coast to coast within a matter of seconds. Ultimately, the College was a way for those who understood politics and government to keep control.
In the end, the only way to remove the Electoral College would be to amend the Constitution, and we would like to see that happen, but it doesn’t seem like that’s happening anytime soon. So, for now we shall have to continue to endure a highly corruptible political system.
But what else is new?