Electoral College History

The Relevance and Fairness of the Electoral College in the Modern Age

Carlos Sanchez

The Electoral College has been a system in place in the United States since the conception of the Constitution. Despite its long time as an established norm, it is not necessarily as fair or relevant of a system as it could be. The goal of this presentation is to assess the relevance and fairness of the Electoral College in 2020. This presentation gives context as to what the Electoral College is and its history, and also asserts and argues that it is indeed no longer relevant, and that there are many alternatives. The main criticisms of Electoral College in the presentation stem from its elitist history and its treatment of individual voters. Many potentially more “fair” alternatives to the Electoral College are proposed, with an argument for why the popular vote is the most “fair” of the many proposed replacements. The most significant piece of evidence as to why the Electoral College is no longer as relevant is the mass availability of information through technology like smartphones and the many forms of media available to the common person. Overall, the project concludes that the country can indeed come up with a more relevant and fair system for electing the president than the Electoral College and that alternatives like the popular vote should be strongly considered.  

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