Anti-Electoral College Bill

Michael Barnes

American Literature Honors

John Hardison

16 November 2012

America’s Tragic Downfall

                The presidential elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and this past election of 2012 all have one major thing in common. In each of those elections, America was defeated. “What does he mean by that?” some of you ask, I mean the majority of America was overridden by the Electoral College. The popular vote came to one candidate while the electoral vote came to another. This could be because there is an actual possibility due to the set up of the college, in which a combination of just 11 states could get the 270 electoral votes needed to win. This mere possibility stands to show how un-American this is. In all previous cases of the popular vote losing the electoral vote has been moderately close, but in this most recent election the electoral vote was separated by almost 100 votes in favor of Obama whom did not win the popular vote. How is that possible? It is possible under the circumstance that in the states Romney won, he had a heavy majority, but in the states Obama won, it was a close vote. So why in anybody’s right mind should the Electoral College continue to decide the president? It should be the vote of America to decide the president, which is why I am here today to present a bill that would retract the Electoral College and leave the presidential vote as a complete democracy!

For this proposal to be ignored would be un-American! The Electoral College is un-American, letting a few populous states decide is un-American. How can the majority of America want one thing but the country decide another? It is un-American. The Electoral College is useless, out of date, and unnecessary. In fact the only thing about the college that is necessary is that it gets decommissioned from use in the American government. Maybe I am wrong, maybe if it was a direct democracy more people would vote because their vote would actually matter more and the result could be drastically different in favor of Obama. I am not here today to cast my opinion on Obama or Romney, but the popular vote needs to be represented. Even if Obama did win under my proposal, it would be who America voted for. In states that are dominantly republican or democratic, often times people of the other party won’t even vote and therefore the state is already won, but if the Electoral College was removed those people would vote and each side would be fully represented.

If this becomes reality and I am totally confident it will, this will be a very heated debate, I want nobody that claims to be supporting me to be violent during this process. I am here to practice my best imitation of the work of the great Martin Luther King Jr. and his non-violent system of protesting against un-American way of life! “We will reach the goal of freedom…because the goal of America is freedom.”(King, Jr. 180). How do we expect to reach our goal of freedom if our country is not run by what the people want? In the masterful work of the historic transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau, he stated “I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government” and soon after concluded “Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect.” Well I stand before my fellow Americans to ask for a better government, one where at least our leader is decided by the true will of America and its people, one where in party dominated states every vote still matters, and one where our government does demand the respect of every man. 
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Work Cited

King, Martin L., Jr. "Letter From a Birmingham City Jail." Speech. Cn.edu. The Atlantic Monthly. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf>.

"Henry David Thoreau." Henry David Thoreau. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://transcendentalism.tamu.edu/authors/thoreau/>.