The electoral college happens to be one of the most cyclical arguments to ever be discussed. Every election especially in the last few presidential elections there have been increased arguments against the electoral college from the losing side. This happens within the party that lost because they feel cheated in some way. The voters feel as if their voice doesn’t matter and that they will be perpetually overlooked. This push for change is strong in the months after the elections, but they quickly die as the instant outrage flickers and the voters prepare for the next election. In a system that rarely changes eventually the people’s drive wears out and they move on to issues they may eventually change. I agree that there is something left to be desired with electoral college system, but I do not think it has to be changed; because every system will have its flaws and the benefits of an electoral college outweighs the disadvantages or outliers.

            The main point that makes me agree with the continuation of the electoral college is the point made by Busch and Shafer. The electoral college is one of the silent blockers of major party polarization. Parties are incentivized to choose candidates that will steal votes from across the aisle by allowing some concessions on platforms. By allowing these concessions more moderate candidates are put forth and straying from the party to run their own is incredibly counterintuitive. In a popular vote system straying from the party lines would be encouraged to gain more votes for the party overall especially if there is the potential for run-off elections. This encouragement of multiple candidates allows for more extremes to win elections through bargaining and other below the board tactics.

I can not say either or is the correct one but I can say that I do have a leaning of agreement towards Byron E. Shafer and their stance on the matter. This matter being, should the President be elected directly by the people of the United States. Though Byron E Shafer has a point too on how the Electoral College has a purpose and a need to exist. Burdett Loomis states that it is important for the people to determine the results of an election rather than a group that risks polarization as he deemed. This form of Electoral College we have now does further support and push a two party system but it is through the actions of the people that this remains. When displaying my leanings in support for Byron E Shafer, I believe that the Electoral College does hold a strength as it removes the wild card factor of the people such as ‘in the moment’ mentality and their attraction towards those who are more popular. These factors include the bandwagon mentality that is often on display in America and would prevent a popularity contest from forming! Instead you have the Electoral College who will each look at what a Presidential Candidate, aside from a ‘common struggle’ and determine what is best for their state as per their election. Those who vote for their state are trusted to vote in the favor of their ideals, representing the people. While there can be times where the responsible individual who is meant to make the vote may go against what his elected position was meant to side with, these people know the risks and how unlikely a reelection may be. 

There is also the downside that when you take into account the smaller states, the Electoral College allows them to have more of an impact than they might have before. Dominance through a few key states would be the way to ensure victory by sheer mass of votes but you also have the downside of an already polarized system which would draw people more into conflict. When people vote and express anger over the results, they don’t always view that aggression towards the opposite voters but rather the state itself or the Electoral College. By using the Electoral College, you are almost creating a buffer zone between the people of opposing views and allows for a sort of cushion against political hostility projected towards the common man. I think overall the Electoral College creates more of a safety net and presents more pro’s rather than con’s. While I can see the good in having the people control things more directly, you have such a low voter turnout usually that you would then make it far more impactful when someone doesn’t vote versus allowing a designated official to speak on your collective’s behalf. Depending on what you favor for speaking as a group or having someone speak for the group, either can have more appeal over the other. In the end, I side more with Byron E Shafer and think that the importance of the Electoral College should remain present and continue to act as that voice for the many rather than the many trying to speak at once.

After reading the arguments from both Burdett Loomis and Byron E. Shafer, I would say that the president should be elected directly by the people. Originally, there were several reasons behind why we have an electoral college system. One of the primary reasons was to give states with smaller populations some power when it comes to electing a president. The original framers feared that states like New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia would dominate who picks the president. They also knew that a majority of the population were not educated enough to pick the right candidate for the job of president. They believed that people needed wise men to dictate who would be best for everyone (1). 

Despite this somewhat evening the playing field between states, this did and does not actually seem to be effective. As a resident of Alaska, I know that if I were to vote for a democrat, my vote will not matter because it will be republican anyway. This means that we do not get visits from presidential candidates. They do not care about my state not only because it only has three electoral votes to offer, it is also reliably a red state. I do not get to be an active participant in presidential elections. Other states, where every vote matters because they could swing either way, this is a very different experience. Just look at a state like Wisconcin during a presidential election cycle. This same experience is what propels Loomis to make his main argument. He also states that with his experience in presidential elections, he mentions that a majority of states are not competitive for a presidential election and makes the people in those majority states feel disenfranchised. Like their vote does not matter. 

One other large loophole of the electoral college is that the system allows for something called “faithless electors,” or people who vote for a person that was not chosen by the people in that state. In fact, the Constitution makes it clear that electors are allowed to vote independently. This harkens back to the era of the framers when they believed that the population was not educated enough to make what they thought would be the right decision. Throughout the existence of the electoral college, 157 electors have voted against the state’s chosen winner (1). It is very concerning that there is not accountability in this system. 

With these very worrying downsides of having an electoral college system, it is not wonder why I and others would believe that the electoral college needs to be abolished. Not only do a majority of states end up as little more than witnesses to an election, out ultimate decision as a state can be negated by a random elector. At the very least, it needs to be heavily reformed in order to meet the modern era of politics. As the old saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Well this system is broken and we need to come together across party lines and fix this issue. 

(1) https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Big-Ideas_West_Electoral-College.pdf

Burdett Loomis and Byron E. Shafer bring up good points in their own arguments either for or against the electoral college and for this debate, I agree with Shafer, but not necessarily for the same reasons. While Shafer is concerned with the effects the EC has on partisan polarization, the reason I believe the EC is a crucial part of the American presidency is that the stakes are so high that electors are much better suited to provide better representation for the political beliefs of our country. The reasons I believe this are as follows: state culture plays a role when determining a population’s political beliefs, a direct majority vote method would lead to further polarization, and the electors truly know the importance of the election.  

Regardless of how one might feel about the way citizens vote, state culture plays a massive role in determining political partisanship and ideology (Erikson, 803). With this fact being known, if the EC was thrown in favor of a popular vote, states with massive populations and are already politically determined states, such as California, would have an overwhelming amount of votes directed towards a candidate. Thus, it would create a situation where other states feel robbed of their representation due to their population numbers. This would then create even further division among American citizens.  The electors also understand what is at stake and take proper measures to ensure they are informed about the candidates, the same cannot be said for your average voters. Voter turnout and knowledge are already a crisis and having the EC ensures that each vote is carefully considered. All this being said, the EC is the only way to ensure representation in the United States as this country grows in population.

Works Cited

https://www-jstor-org.uaf.idm.oclc.org/stable/1962677?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contentsErikson, Robert S., John P. McIver, and Gerald C. Wright. “State Political Culture and Public Opinion.” The American Political Science Review 81, no. 3 (1987): 797–813. https://doi.org/10.2307/1962677.

After reviewing the course material, I would hold that Byron E. Schafer has the better position in electing the American President. I think the president should be elected through the electoral college because the American Presidency is not intended to be a popularity contest. The American President serves to execute their duty as designated by Congress. In this arrangement, Congress designates what the laws will be and the Executive executes those laws in a constitutional manner. In this way, it is almost irrelevant whom the people believe will be the best President and more prudent for representatives of the Congressional members, embodied in the Electoral College, to decide who will best lead the country and enforce its laws.

If we leave the decision of choosing the most capable President in the hands of the population with no filter in place between them and the final decision we will only receive popular individuals with polarized perspectives. Moving the masses to the polls does not require intellect or reason but rather emotional instigation. If politicians are instructed to move the masses they will do so with pleas to emotion rather than well-thought-out platforms. This will result in either a politician who is able to rouse the masses with emotional rhetoric or, worse yet, a politician who believes and practices emotional rhetoric. Neither individual would then be suited to working with Congress to operate the country nor effective at selecting responsible members of the Judiciary. We must use the Electoral College, not to override popular opinion, but to temper it with reason.

The Electoral College was an ineffective from its inception, and it’s honestly miraculous that it has functioned as a system for as long as it has, as Burdett Loomis is swift to point out. Schafer attempts to point out the subtler nuances of the college in his essay (none of which are particularly convincing, as many of the “problems” he cites, such as a greater number of candidates and choice, are, polarization aside, exactly what many reform advocates desire. His polarization argument should be even more frustrating to us Alaskans who, with our new Ranked-Choice system designed to decrease polarization, understand how to mitigate his problems with the very reforms he rails against), but utterly sidesteps the issue which is of the most import: that the Electoral College deliberately prioritizes some citizens and their right to vote above others. This disenfranchisement, above all else, is the key reason the Electoral College is unsupportable: it organizes our state-by-state voting into a caste system which disincentivizes engaging the entire US population, leading to a general malaise in the overall citizenry who believe, with good evidence, that their vote is inferior and doesn’t matter.

As Shafer demurred from discussing this aspect, I will examine the chief argument from detractors against my point, that being that in a truly democratic system, the candidates from major parties would appeal only to the states with the largest populations. Not only is this a clear problem under the EC system as well, as the the candidates are incentivized to appeal to a small number of smaller states instead, it is also utterly wrong. A popular vote system would make every vote integral, not just the votes of a singular state. It would increase turnout, incentivize broader campaigning as a counterbalance to the larger cultural-center states, and deliver on the promise that every men (and their rights) are created equal.

Rachel Nelson
Professor Lovecraft
PS F301
September 27, 2022

Debate 1

In the question of whether America’s president should be elected directly by the people (purely popular vote) or by the electoral college, Byron E. Shafer is correct in his vehement stance that the electoral college is a necessary institution of American democracy.

Shafer is correct for many reasons, some of which he discusses such as the polarization of contemporary politics and the need to have the popular vote filtered through the electoral college as a means to funnel it toward an “ideological middle” and how a true popular vote would a.) not actually reflect the desired outcome of the country, and b.) because a true popular vote would actually exacerbate party domination, not alleviate it.

Some other reasons to be in favor of the electoral college not unpacked by Shafer are that the electoral college can act like a sort of gatekeeper, ensuring that a charismatic demagogue who is a threat to democracy is less likely to be elected president, and that the individuals actually casting the vote in the presidential election are educated and invested in the current scene of politics in the nation and hopefully internationally.

In this current political climate in America there is extreme ideological polarization, creating extreme and narrowly-thought views on political issues on either side of the political spectrum. In order to find a more temperate, milder middle ground, filtering the popular vote through the electoral college ensures swing states are able to act as an “antipolarizer.”

The popular vote would also not actually elect the “most popular” presidential candidate as intended. With votes split between candidates, it is probable that someone running for president who garnered only a third of the nation’s vote or even less might be elected president where currently with the electoral college there is more likelihood of near half the country supporting the candidate that is ultimately elected.

Alaska has voted Republican since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. While the majority of the state has voted Republican, there is a Democratic minority whose votes are made meaningless by the winner-take- all approach of the Electoral College. For this reason the US should reform its election process to make equality and transparency the two major values for its election.

The founders set up a specific way for elections to run with the idea that our elections would be for a certain type of person. As Loomis points out, they were concerned about knowledgeable and informed votes being cast. However, with the advent of the internet and the advance of technology, these qualms are no longer an issue. While the Electoral College played an important role for centuries, it is now banning votes from holding the same weight and an active detriment to the ‘free and fairness’ of our elections. While the Electoral College has not worked effectively for many election cycles, it was not actively undermining them, but as the last few elections have shown, this is no longer the case. In order to increase progress towards more equal and transparent elections and to uphold the Founders standard of free and fair elections, the United States should elect the President directly by popular vote. 

I side firmly with the “con” argument against abolishing the electoral college. I believe Busch & Shafer cut to the heart of the argument when they stated that the main detractors of the electoral college object due to its perceived unfair nature and its contribution to partisan politics (Ellis & Nelson, ed., 2021). Busch & Shafer then ask a very simple question; how would any of the changes offered by critics impact these same concerns of the electoral college critics? (Ellis & Nelson, ed. 2021). This very inciteful question is at the center of my argument. It does not require an in-depth investigation to discover the political acrimony present in today’s hyper-partisan climate. If the electoral college was abolished and some form of popular vote emerged, it would greatly exacerbate this problem and could be a precursor to acts of violence. It is well known that the highest population centers are on the West and East coast regions that are dominated by one political ideology, whereas the central states and the South generally are dominated by the rival ideology. If popular vote alone were the determiner of the Presidential election, then one party’s voice would dominate when choosing the President. States with lower populations would feel subjugated to the whims of individuals with whom they have clear ideological differences. The current system certainly is not perfect, but it allows for individuals who come from regions with lower population to feel like they have a voice in the system. Abolishing their “say” in elections would amount to sparking the same rage that fueled the American Revolution, “No taxation without representation.” In the end, in most cases the winner of the popular vote has won the presidency with notable exceptions in recent elections. These exceptions, I believe, are indicative of the heightened polarization of the nation in certain regions. The electoral college tempers most violent flare-ups post-election because the populace feels that, win or lose, their candidate had a fair shot at winning. Remove the appearance of equitable results and mix in the perception that the election was tilted in favor of a political party that has opposing ideology, and anarchy will ensue. In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton lost the election but won the popular vote by 2.8 million votes. The vote count in Los Angeles County alone nearly accounts for the popular vote victory by Clinton (FEC, 2016). Imagine the anger that would be demonstrated if a plurality of the states felt that their President was determined by one county in California! The electoral college gives voice to those who, under any other system, would be drowned out by single counties in large states.

                                                                               Works Cited

Ellis, Richard, and Michael Nelson. Debating the Presidency. London: Sage Publishing, 2021. Pp 63-65.

Walther, Steven (Chair). FEC. “Election Results for the U.S. Presidency, 2016” Federal Election Commission Report, 2016. Free public resource.