Why The Electoral College Needs Reformed!
The Electoral College is not entirely broken but needs reformed in order to make every vote and every Americans voice heard. To best explain the issues with the current system, we need to understand the process in which a candidate was elected President without winning the popular vote. This has only happened four times, with the last time being in the year 2000, in the very tight race between George W. Bush and Al Gore. An article titled, Does my vote count, gives more details into this controversial race. “Democrat Al Gore won a narrow plurality of the popular vote but lost the electoral vote to Republican George W. Bush, 271 to 266. The vote was so close that Gore, thinking he had lost, conceded, then retracted his concession as more votes were counted. Because the vote in Florida, a decisive state, was so close, multiple recounts were held, and the Supreme Court had to settle a lawsuit over whether recounts should continue (Walbert).”
States such as Florida should be the example on how every state voting system should be. Every vote counted and every voice that wanted to be heard was. But the downside of this states election and many others like it is that it gives too much power to a select few states. While this will probably continue being the case, there may be some complications with future elections and the impact a swing state like Florida might have. "Pennsylvania would become the third-largest state, after Texas and Florida, to require voters to produce photo identification. Florida is another large, important swing state. Voting rights have long been a contentious issue in Florida. Many Democrats and civil rights leaders believe that Governor Jeb Bush’s administration allowed George W. Bush to beat Al Gore in Florida in 2000 by ordering a purge of the names of felons from voting rolls. Such purges often ensnare legitimate voters with the same names and prevent them from voting. Thanks to the War on Drugs, felons in Florida are disproportionately black and Latino, as are people with the misfortune to share their names (Adler)."
<http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/lessons/davidwalbert7232004-02/electoralcollege.html>.
<Adler, Ben. Bad News for Voting Rights in Swing States. 8 Mar 2012. <http://www.thenation.com/blog/166689/bad-news-voting-rights-swing-states#>.
<Adler, Ben. Bad News for Voting Rights in Swing States. 8 Mar 2012. <http://www.thenation.com/blog/166689/bad-news-voting-rights-swing-states#>.