Electoral College- Editorial

We hear certain phrases all the time nowadays. Phrases like "red state" and "blue state" are thrown around casually by pundits and radio commentators all the time. Pretty much everyone knows the meaning of them, too; if your state is branded "red," it is leaning towards the Republicans, and if it's "blue," it's going to the Democrats. Even after all of the states have been categorized individually, the pundits start grouping entire regions together. Who that's reading this hasn't been lead to believe that the South is one single Republican voting entity?

So the question that many people eventually come to is reasonable. If my state or region is already pretty much decided, then why should I bother to vote anyways? People realize that because of the electoral college system in Presidential elections, no matter how many votes a candidate wins by in any particular state, they still win the same number of electoral votes.

Due to this system we use, people in "safe" states feel that their votes don't even matter. There are certain reasons that the electoral college was created in the first place. James Madison argued that the system kept in line with the Federalist nature of our country, giving some electoral power to the people and some to the states, while some at the Constitutional Convention feared elections would become too volatile if left completely to the states, with each delegation always voting for a "hometown" candidate. Both are legitimate arguments, but in my mind both seem outdated.

As we've seen numerous times, the Constitution is a living document. The reason people like Jefferson and Madison included ways to modify it serves as enough example that they knew it wasn't perfect. It was meant to change with the times, to a certain degree, while still retaining the same core principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

There are plenty of arguments against an Electoral College, and many legislators are beginning to listen to the complaints of angry voters. The system we have now makes the national popular vote irrelevant. At face value that might not sound like a bad thing, since nearly ever single winner of the national popular vote has also become President. Yet in the elections of 1876, 1888, and most famously, 2000, the person with the most total votes was not elected.

The irrelevance of the national popular vote is bad, but not as bad as the different situations the electoral college creates amongst the states. If you're a candidate, and you already know that you're going to win a certain state, since it has always voted for people like you in the past, why would you campaign there? Why would you pay special attention to their interests? You would most likely pay the most attention to those "toss up" states that we hear so much about, giving those states much more influence in Presidential elections, thus betraying the federal nature of our constitution.

So if you ever hear your parents saying they aren't voting because "my vote doesn't matter," don't be so quick to assume they are apathetic to the election in general. It is quite possible that they are at least partially correct. The electoral college discourages voter turnout in states like Connecticut. The Supreme Court has held that each American is entitled to one vote, equal in value to any other American. It's a shame it doesn't always seem that way.