RE: The Electoral College

              For blog stage 5, Alia wrote an article on her blog about the Electoral College. She considers the possibility that the popular vote does not aid in determining the President of the United State, and that the Electoral College is solely responsible for that determination. She states her answer of the popular vote vs Electoral College debate is unclear; however, she points out an example of how the Electoral College has an upper hand on citizens through an example of the 2000 presidential campaign thus shifting her stance more towards the side favoring popular votes.

              Personally, I believe that America should move towards a more popular vote dominated system in order to protect the sovereignty of the people.  The Electoral College has a number of issues including the unequal dispersion of votes, the significance of said votes depending on if the state is classified as swing or safe, and the dilution of the peoples’ voices considering electors vote ultimately for who they want. Using a national popular vote to select the President would give each individual equal weight and significance towards the election, and would generally increase voter participation.

              I do agree with Alia in that the Electoral College was created in attempt to compensate for the lack of knowledge citizens have towards politics. Hopefully, with expanding media outlets, and putting out more unbiased information in the duration of each election the public can gain the knowledge needed for an informed election. This increase in public knowledge would need to happen before a national popular vote system can be used to pick the President; however, should this happen, a national popular vote would be the ideal way to not diminish the power of the people, and to have the fairest elections possible.  As of now with the Electoral College, popular votes don’t seem to matter nearly at all, but with the termination of this system, the popular votes would hold all the power.