The popular votes for this year’s election have already been cast, but the Electoral College has not yet placed its votes. The election races proved to be neck and neck, so every vote mattered. While the direct vote of a citizen does hold some weight, the vote of the Electoral College holds much more.

The Electoral College was designed for a nascent America with very little news mediums and uneducated citizens. In 1787, newspapers existed, but they were not prevalent and much of society lacked the skills necessary to read, much less comprehend what the paper said. Computers and televisions did not exist to provide citizens with a fast, easy update on candidate’s platforms and educational standards were subpar. In addition, there were no organized national political parties yet, no structure by which to choose and limit the number of candidates, and transportation and communication were slow and difficult. With a chaotic political system and so many citizens voting in ignorance, the country needed a way to balance the ill-informed masses with the intellectual elite; thus the Electoral College was born. However, today’s technology allows virtually anyone to see the candidate’s views and form their own intelligent opinion on them if they wish. Today, voters are much less likely to vote blindly with such a multitude of information readily available to them, making the Electoral College fundamentally useless and no longer relevant to America today.

            The Electoral College also depresses voter turnout rate, particularly in states that vote overwhelmingly Democrat or Republican. If a voter votes for a Democrat in Texas, their vote will be swept away by a red sea of Republican votes. Essentially, their vote holds no weight since an overwhelmingly majority of Texas votes red, and voters are much less likely to be seen at poll day if their vote doesn’t matter in the end.

The Electoral College also gives a disproportionate amount of power to swing states. States that are spilt between the two political parties will receive a vast amount of attention from the candidates while on the campaign trail, while states that habitually vote either red or blue will fall by the wayside. The attention that these battleground states receive translates into unprecedented influence over the election. In the election of 2000, swing state Florida basically decided the election.

Many still think that the Electoral College is a necessary institution in order to keep the elections fair. The Electoral College served its purpose in America’s early days, but as society progresses, so should our political instruments. The popular vote is the only representation people need in order to determine who the common people want to elect, because it is no longer a necessity to protect uninformed voters from themselves. The United States should eradicate the Electoral College and use direct vote to determine who wins the election.