I’d like to address something that’s been bugging me. Why exactly do we have the Electoral College? If the US is bothering to take everyone’s votes to make a popular vote, then why not just use that? How it works now is extremely unfair. Take for example, a large state like California. If 51 percent of the people there voted Republican and 49 percent voted Democrat, than the entire state would be counted as a Republican victory, completely negating all of the votes of the democrats in that state. And to top it off, the actual electoral college doesn’t even have to vote for who their state says they are pledged to. “21 states still do not require their members of the Electoral College to vote for their party's designated candidate.” (http://www.fairvote.org/faithless_electors)

We are able to vote for any of the parties (two, sadly) that we want, but our representatives have the free will to do whatever they want, regardless of what we vote. Why is this? What reason is this useless barrier in place? It’s a remainder from the very first election, in which the founding fathers didn’t believe that everyone was informed enough to vote correctly. “The framers of the Constitution didn’t trust direct democracy.” (http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-reason-for-the-electoral-college/) Sure, George Washington turned out to be fine and dandy, but what about now? Right now the popular vote can be different from who actually becomes president, which is absurd. Just because of a bunch of Republicans in Texas are the way they are doesn’t make a Democrat’s vote any less valid. It’s absurd.

The system is extremely dated, and most people seem to be opposed to the system “Gallup polls from 1944 to 2004 indicate that the majority of the public would like to see the Electoral College abolished” (http://news.stanford.edu/2012/08/20/rakove-electoral-college-082012/) It’s only a matter of time until this causes a problem in the election process, and it should be rectified immediately.