Electoral College: time for a change?

While browsing the Internet I came across an article of particular interest to me. The article is titled Time to abolish outdated Electoral College and it about the numerous flaws of the voting system used by the United States. As pointed out in the article, "it disconnects each individual popular vote from the electoral outcome. The winner-take-all method reduces third-party participation and inflates the impact of voter fraud. It often results in a president who is not representative of the majority's will." Also "the Electoral College minimizes the chances of third-party candidates running, or encourages people to not 'waste' their vote for them when they do run. In 1992, Ross Perot received 19 percent of the popular vote, but zero electoral votes." Most importantly the article shows that "the Electoral College does provide unequal representation of states, over representing states with the smallest populations. Indeed, Wyoming has four times as much weight as California, with 165,000 people per electoral vote to California's 628,000. But does such 'extra' representation really protect the rights of the smaller states? No. Regardless of size, "safe" states that historically vote for one party (like New York or Massachusetts) tend to be ignored. Campaigning there becomes pointless. Less policy is aimed at these states and the incentive for residents to vote is reduced." Perhaps the worst flaw of the Electoral College is that the candidate who wins the popular vote in each state, then usually receives all electoral votes from that state, despite the closeness of the popular vote. Not only does this cause candidates to focus their campaigns only on swing states, but it also makes voters in "safe" states feel like that their vote doesn't matter and so they are discouraged to vote. When the Founding Fathers decided on the Electoral College "they publicly illustrated a commitment to democracy, while privately fearing the 'unthinking' masses." But times have changed, people have changed, and its time for how we elect a president to change. A president should be elected by popular vote, even if this means that a few populous areas will elect the president. Every person is important and his or her vote should count equally in deciding who is elected president. Perhaps if each individual vote had an equal weight in deciding the presidency more people would vote. The chance of an individuals vote being decisive is already an extremely low probability, and the Electoral College only alienates voters even more. In addition, as learned in class, the Electoral College does not always satisfy the three criteria used to evaluate the methods used to elect candidates. First the Electoral College could not be Condorcet efficient. In order for it to be Condorcet efficient than the candidate who would defeat all others in pair wise elections would have to always be elected. Second, the Electoral College does not take into account ordering information. Last, the Electoral College does not minimize incentives for strategic behavior, since candidates will focus policy only on swing states instead of acting out their true preferences. However few voting methods satisfy all three criteria and even allowing the popular vote to elect the president may not be the best solution.