Essay Contest Winners
 Nicholas
Rivers
Raytown South
High School
"Should the Electoral College Be Abolished?"
Abraham Lincoln noted “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people,
for the people”. Unfortunately in America, even as we profess principles of
protecting democracy and power of the people, we have been plagued by a faulty
and dated system that is the Electoral College. While the system was necessary
two hundred years ago, it now undermines the sound democracy we promote and
therefore should be abolished.
The objective of any democracy is to allow people to dictate the decisions of
government. Specifically applying the concept of representative democracies, the
people should have absolute control in determining the president, as the
president is our most important representative. Recently though, we have had our
vote contradicted, the primary example being the 2000 election, when Al Gore won
the popular vote but lost the election to George W. Bush. While the likelihood
of this occurring again is slim, the fact that the Electoral College permits
even the slightest opportunity for such an injustice forfeits our democracy.
More importantly, the Electoral College is an unneeded system. The premise of
its creation was to determine the election’s outcome more quickly; had they
counted every vote the process would have taken ages. America, with our
sophistication and progression in technology, has exhausted such a need for the
Electoral College.
Lincoln described democracy as government that the people facilitate to do what
is best. America needs to use this democracy, and change how we select our
president, by first abolishing the imperfect Electoral College.
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