Introduction
There have been many attempts to revolutionize the process of voting and eliminate some limitations of electoral systems in different countries, and the introduction of electoral colleges is considered one of them. In general, an electoral college can be defined as a number of electors that can be the representatives of different organizations or movements chosen by other people or having specific privileges due to their position. Together, these electors form a team that actively participates in elections when it is necessary to choose a person to take up a high position.
Main body
As is clear from the term, the only purpose of such teams is to facilitate the process of voting, and they have no responsibilities apart from gathering together to represent the opinions of large groups of people. More precisely, the Electoral College of the United States involves more than five hundred electors that represent other people when Vice-Presidents and Presidents are being elected (U.S. Electoral College, n.d.). In their turn, the members of the Electoral College are elected due to the concerted efforts of political parties and voters in different states: the former comes up with the list of candidates, and the latter vote for some of them on Election Day.
The members of the U.S. Electoral College are expected to represent common people’s opinions related to the ability of different candidates to become successful leaders. In some states, they are supposed to vote according to the popular vote, and their willingness to break this rule is regarded as a serious blow to their political reputation (U.S. Electoral College, n.d.). In my opinion, the idea behind the Electoral College that is to make the election process more balanced and avoid biases is good on its own but is no longer needed in this exact form.
Today, all electors are chosen by their political parties, and this is why they cannot be called disinterested and independent, whereas voters’ independence is critical to success in democratic elections. More than that, the electors often fail to represent common citizens’ opinions, which is clear from the results of the popular and electoral votes in 2016 that was drastically different (Tropp, 2017).
Also, the opponents of the system justly note that the Electoral College was established to reduce the voting power imbalance between the states that were heterogeneous in terms of the status of slavery (Tropp, 2017). These problems do not exist now, and this is why I think that the Electoral College is less useful than it could be in the past.
Despite all these limitations, I do not agree that the Electoral College should be scrapped because getting rid of it would require efforts with unknown effectiveness. The proponents of the existing system claim that it functions properly, whereas the detractors argue that it fails to represent people’s will accurately and complicates the process of voting (Tropp, 2017). However, scrapping it and replacing the existing practices with the system based on the popular vote is also an option that does not guarantee transparency or eliminate the imbalance of power between different states. Instead, introducing minor changes to the system to make common citizens’ will as important as the results of electoral votes could be an appropriate alternative, but such changes would also involve new problems.
Conclusion
To sum up, the need for the Electoral College belongs to a number of highly debatable topics. As is clear from its opponents’ arguments, the system needs to be changed since the Electoral College was initially established to deal with problems that are not present today. However, the proponents of the existing system argue that it ensures equality and protects the rights of voters in small cities.
References
U.S. Electoral College. (n.d.). What is the Electoral College? Web.
Tropp, R. (2017). The case against the Electoral College. Harvard Political Review. Web.