Paul Okechukwu Oranika

Today marks the final step in the confirmation process of the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama as the nation’s 44^th president. According to US laws, Vice President Cheney will today be seated side by side with the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi to preside over today’s ceremony at the joint session of U.S Congress to officially count the electoral votes certificates from all the states. The process would include two members each drawn from both the US House, and the Senate. The electoral vote certificates are then counted, vice president Cheney would then read out the results, confirming what we all already know that Obama and Biden would become the next president and vice president of the United States respectively. While this process may sound redundant to everyone, it is constitutionally required without which Obama would not become the president.

This leads us the purpose of this write-up, which would examine the institution of the Electoral College. The central question, which this essay addresses, is whether the Electoral College should be abolished, the essay takes the position that the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness, and should be abolished. The Electoral College was devised by the founding fathers, and enshrined in the US Constitution, by Article II, Section 1.  I will first examine the process, the origin and the controversy surrounding the electoral college, in three occasions in the past, the electoral college changed the outcome of the US election, the last one was in 2000, when Bush was declared the president of the United States by the Supreme Court despite loosing on the popular vote to Al Gore.

At first the State Legislators selected members of the Electoral College in majority of the States, and would often divide the Electoral College representatives among two or more candidates. But the evolution of political parties in 1830's altered such process in some ways. Since the rise of political parties, States began to use an at-large process known as "winner-take-all" system in apportioning its Electoral College representatives. Such system simply means that any candidate winning the majority of the Presidential votes cast in the state will automatically win all the electoral candidates of such state. The party in minority gets none of the states electors, even if such party wins 49% of the popular vote cast in a State's presidential election.

Today in the United States, all States use the "winner-take-all" at large system with the exception of a few states including Maine and Nebraska. Through the party system the electoral candidates have to basically rubber stamp their party's electoral candidates. However, in 29 states electors can still vote against their party without being replaced, but such electors may face fines as punishment. Other states may instigate criminal charges varying from a misdemeanor to a 4th degree felony. Since the founding of the Electoral College, only about 156 members have failed to cast their votes in line with their party affiliation. The Electoral College has been controversial from its founding, such controversies were recently illustrated in the U.S. elections between Bush, (Republican) and Gore {Democrat}, while AL Gore won the majority of the popular vote, George Bush won the majority of the electors. It took the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court to decide who won the election, and as we all know, the decision was in favor of Bush. Based on some of these controversies, many political analysts are now asking more questions about the constitutionality of the U.S. Electoral College some now suggest that the Electoral College should be abolished, because the institution has outlived its usefulness.

Controversy over the Electoral College

For over 200 years, the system of the Electoral College has been used in electing the President of the United States. Through the provision of the US Constitution, each state will have a number of electors equal to the total number of senators and representatives of such state in the Congress. Such process has produced disparities in the ratio of the number of electors to the number of inhabitants represented. For instance, California has 52 Representatives

in the House, and two Senators; giving the state a total of 54 Electoral votes. With a population of about 35,000,000 million residents, California has about 12.20% of the nation's population, but it has only 10.22% of the 538 total electoral votes, Another state Wyoming for instance, has 3 Electoral Votes, (one Representative in the House and two senators), with a total population of 501,242 residents, or 0.17% of the US population. Wyoming has 0.55% of the Electoral College vote. According to such argument, If Wyoming has three Representatives for 501,242 people; California should have approximately 70 Representatives out of 538 based on the same ratio, meaning that California should have an additional 16 more electoral votes than it currently has. There is also the point that the "winner-take-all" system has effectively shut out third party candidates from winning electors, because the system works to guarantee a two- party monopoly on presidential elections. The Electoral College system helps make some states more valuable in presidential elections than others. Most attention is given to states often called battleground states such as Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia Michigan and others. The presidential candidates often spend most of their time and resources in these states, while discounting other states.

Electoral College is an Undemocratic process

Many have argued that the Electoral College is an undemocratic process, which is ripe for reforms. Some argue that the system is an elitist process devised at a time when mostly white males were presumed to be qualified to vote, women and minorities were practically shut out of the political process. The Electoral College system also dilutes the effectiveness of the popular vote. For instance when American voters went to the election booths in 2000, most assumed that their vote would be responsible for the election of the President. The answer to this assumption is yes but not necessarily. Many were shocked to find out that regardless of the majority votes won by Gore in 2000, through the Electoral College process, Gore could not become president because George Bush won the highest number of votes in the Electoral College (270 needed to win).

However according to the US Constitution the actual decision of who becomes the President will not be made prior to December, when the Electors would meet at their various State Capitals to cast their electoral votes for the President and Vice President. After that, the votes would then be certified by State authorities, and would be delivered to Federal authorities in Washington DC. The Senate President will then open and count the votes before all the Senate and House members. It is until after such process that the real winner of the presidential election will be known. The fact remains that under normal circumstance, the winner of the US presidential election is known either on November 3^rd, or on Nov 4th.

Electoral College may depress Voter turnout

Opponents of the Electoral College have also argued that such process may help to suppress voter turnout because each state is entitled to the same number of electors regardless of how many voters participated in the process. Such viewpoint believe that the Electoral College process may work to help discourage minority participation in places like the South, where significant minority participation may deliver the state's Electoral College members to a minority candidate. In 2000 election, the minority votes in Florida could have actually changed the outcome of the election if about 1,000 more minority votes went to Gore, based on these points, this essays concludes that the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness, and should be abolished, and the true power of deciding the outcome of the US presidential election should be reserved for the US voter.

Written by Paul Okechukwu Oranika.

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