The recent election involving Bush and Gore has heated up a fifty year old debate. The debate is about whether the Electoral College is still an effective system considering the circumstances the United States now faces compared to when it was created by the founding fathers. The Electoral College is an outdated system of election that misrepresents the people of the United States today. The college was created in a time where communication was limited. Treason, tyranny, and oppression from foreign countries were still a serious threat. In order to protect the people and the institution of America, the government created an election system that allowed the final vote to rest in the hands of a trusted and respected few. These selected few could disregard the popular vote because there was and still is "no Constitutional provision or federal law requiring electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote in their states (National Archives and Records Administration)." For about one hundred and fifty years the United States has used a system that does not coincide with the most popular opinion, but yet, it has been the prevailing system that has

There are many flaws in the Electoral system that backers of the system refuse to acknowledge. If they do acknowledge the flaws, they answer them by saying that the current system is better than any others out there. But there are better systems out there that could be used. This is where the major flaw in the Electoral College is: the mere fact that the elected are not required to represent the people that they work for. Kimberling's response to this flaw is that "Proponents of the Electoral College point out that it was never intended to reflect the national popular will." In other words, representatives were never intended to represent. An example would be found in the Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland race for the presidency in 1888. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia, states that the "defeated candidate (Grover Cleveland), polled 5,540,050 popular votes to 5,444,337 for Benjamin Harrison; however, Cleveland received only 168 electoral votes to Harrison's 233." The reason given for this upset by Kimberling is that "Democrat Grover Cleveland, ran up huge popular majorities in several of the 18 States which supported him while the Republican challenger, Benjamin Harrison, won only slender majorities in some of the larger of the 20 States which supported him (most notably in Cleveland's home State of New York)." Cleveland's majority of the popular vote throughout the population of the nation did not matter to four hundred and one electors who decided that Harrison should win. Because of cases such as Cleveland vs. Harrison, the country has tried to fix and even abolish the Electoral system.

After considering all of the pro's and con's, I still believe that the Electoral College is an outdated system. All of the backers of the system are still paranoid of presidential take over from extreme parties because they believe the public is not educated enough to make the proper choice. Maybe it is true, many people do not know the first thing about politics. Personally, I believe I am to inexperienced in the field of politics to be voting for candidates that would put them in the most powerful seat in the world, but whether I am experienced or not, I believe the selected few should not decide the future of the whole. Because many people like myself are inexperienced, does not mean the entire United States is inexperienced. There are many politically inspired and educated people besides the elected 538 that should decide the future of this nation. The future should be left to the open mind of the entire population, and not to the limited mind of the few.

"Electoral College," Microsoft Encarta. Online Encyclopedia 2000.

http://encarta.msn.com. Access Date: 9 Nov. 2000.

2 Feb. 2000, Volume. 92 Issue 239, 11. Access Date: 6 Nov. 2000. EBSCOHost.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Electoral College, College Union, John Bolingbroke, Election Administration, Party Bush, Records Administration, Bush Gore, York Cleveland's, Australia Ireland, Grover Cleveland, electoral college, popular vote, nov 2000, access date, national archives records, electoral system, central government, grover cleveland, abolish electoral, archives records administration, archives records, access date 6, date 6, 6 nov 2000, date 6 nov,
Approximate Word count = 2294
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)