Dump the Electoral College?

We talked about this in class today. What do you think about the electoral college?

There was an interesting column written in the Seattle Times Saturday. Here are a few of the quotes from it:

"Why is it that the people of Afghanistan can vote directly for the Afghanistan president, unlike Americans, who cannot vote directly for the American president?

Why is it that Iraqis can vote for their president, but Americans cannot vote for the American president?

...How important can the Electoral College be when America does not export the Electoral College to other new democracies? If the Electoral College is so important in America, then shouldn't Afghanistan have an Electoral College? Shouldn't Iraq have an Electoral College? The answer is that they don't because it's not relevant.

Let the democracy that George Bush is exporting to other countries be imported to America so that Americans can vote for the president directly. "

My point is that the electoral college makes a lot of people feel disenfranchised. This patchwork system that the Framers worked out as a compromise now has morphed into a system that is confusing and less democratic than it could be. I know that if the candidate I am favoring loses, I would be able to deal with that loss a lot better if I knew it was because most Americans really wanted the other candidate to hold that office. This system is too much of a game as I see it. What do you think?

There are organizations dedicated to voting reform. Not all of them call for an abolition of the electoral college, but they do have interesting ideas. Check them out at their websites:
http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/
http://www.reformelections.org/learn/related_links.php
http://www.nvri.org/

Now there are those out there who believe that the Electoral College has served us well. Their views are important to consider as well, but in the end I think the time has come for a change.

William Raspberry published a column calling for reform a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40886-2004Oct17.html

For another viewpoint, David Broder is skeptical of electoral fixes. Check it out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50016-2004Oct20.html