The Electoral College is a group of electors from each state that vote to decide who will run The United States of America. The number of electors from each state varies depending on the population of the state. The two senators for each state, and however many house of representatives there are from a state make up the number of electors from that state. Since there are always two senators and at least one member from the House of Representatives per state, each state will have a minimum of three electors within the Electoral College. For example, California will have much more electors than Kansas because the population in California is much greater causing the state to have much more members in the House of Representatives. Although the District of Columbia is not a state, it is treated like one in this matter. The district was granted three electors under the 23rd amendment to the constitution. (Should the Electoral College be abolished?) There is a total of five hundred and thirty-eight electors in all with a two hundred and seventy majority vote rule. This means that at least two hundred and seventy of the five hundred and thirty-eight electors must agree on one of the presidential candidates for the candidate to be elected. (Should the Electoral College be abolished?) This system was set up as an alternative to allowing the citizens or senate vote on the president. Many citizens in America today believe that their vote should directly count in the Presidential election. Because of this, some citizens have begun proposing to abolish the electoral college while others have been fighting to save it. Some people argue that the electoral college favors Republicans candidates over Democratic ones and vice versa. There are also many other articles that argue that our country needs the electoral college to keep out independent party candidates and keep order. After thoroughly researching the topic, the best solution to the issue would be to keep the Electoral College. The Electoral College should be kept in place because it promotes the two-party system, keeps citizens from directly voting in a president, and it promotes state’s rights and representation.

The Electoral College openly promotes the two-party system by making it very difficult for any third-party candidate to even come close to being elected. The system mainly uses third party candidates to take away votes from either of the two main party candidates. Third party candidates only create political instability and are not prepared nor have enough support to successfully run The United States of America. Politicians often argue that third party candidates should have more of a chance to win presidency because only having two parties leaves unsatisfactory candidates for both parties because of the wide range of needs and interests. Obviously not every person's needs and interests can be resolved because it is impossible to please everyone but third party candidates do not need to win presidency because the main issues that third party candidates promote typically get adopted by one of the two main parties. By the two main political parties adopting various third party candidates issues the main parties can in turn get some of the voters that originally supported a third-party candidate. “the major parties have every incentive to absorb minor party movements in their continual attempt to win popular majorities in the States.” (Kimberling, William C.) This system works well because it allows third party candidates to have a say on some matters but it also allows large parties with lots of support and experience to stay in power and keep the country stable. Without the two-party system, there would be an overload of political parties that would form to take away votes from the main parties. This would create chaos and could potentially put extremist or radical parties into office. These kinds of leaders often lead to drastic downfall within a country and could even lead to a collapse. Knowing that either the Republican or Democratic candidate will win every election allows citizens to feel more comfortable with whatever leader was chosen even if it was not the one that he or she wanted for office. Having an unknown party take office could cause a major panic within the public and a sense of discomfort from not knowing everything about the party and where it came from. This would make the country very weak and could cause more problems such as invasions or attacks. Citizens need a sense of normalcy when it comes to political parties so other parties should not be considered for presidency. Having a two-party system is a tradition that has worked for many years now and will continue to work if the Electoral College is held in place.

If the Electoral College was abolished and popular vote was used to determine presidency, many issues would arise and the government would have much trouble surviving. The first main issue with using popular vote to determine presidency would be that there are many citizens who may be uninformed or misinformed about presidential candidates. Having uninformed or misinformed people vote on who controls the Executive Branch of the United States government would lead to unfit leaders that cannot or do not know how to do the job of president. With the Electoral College in place, we do not have to worry about this issue because citizens are not the ones directly voting on the president, representatives are. Representatives are much more informed and qualified to make decisions on the next president of the country. It is also much more difficult for presidential candidates to get the votes of electors than it is to get the votes of citizens. This is because presidential candidates can easily say anything that sounds good and get citizens votes while it takes much more facts and proof to get electors votes. This is a good thing because it would be a bad idea to have a president that didn’t thoroughly show proof and a plan to backup his claims about what he/she will do for the country. The leader of the United States should be able to do the hard task of gaining electors votes instead of just giving simple speeches to citizens that may not even understand anything or be familiar with any of the topics being discussed. Some citizens believe that since they are not directly deciding who becomes president, they have no say in the United States government. This is untrue because the popular vote helps to determine the representatives. Most often, the popular vote and electoral vote almost always favor the same candidate to be president. Because of this, there is no need to change to a system where the popular vote determines the president and vice president if the candidate electors and citizens favor is typically the same. Having popular vote determine the president and vice president would also make the process of counting votes to determine the president and vice president tremendously slower. First off, there would be much more votes to count considering that there are about three hundred and twenty five million people in our country versus the five hundred and thirty eight total electors that we currently have. Since there would be so many more votes to count it would not only take longer but it would most likely needed to be recounted to check for accuracy. This could take weeks or even months to complete. In a world full of insanity, not knowing who won the election for a period of time would be agonizing and quite annoying to some citizens. Waiting is not one of people’s strong suits, especially in the coming generations. The electoral college should remain as the people that determine presidency because not only are those citizens some of the most informed citizens within our country but it is also a tremendously faster way of election. “the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station” (Lempert, Richard) It is arguable that instead of relying on the people in the electoral college to be knowledgeable about our government that instead all citizens should be better informed and then the citizens in turn would be educated on topics enough to choose the president wisely. While this seems great in theory, it is almost impossible. Media skews facts constantly because of each broadcasting station’s personal interest to get the news out first. This makes it very difficult to keep every citizen well informed. Another reason why trying to better inform all of America’s citizens and then allowing them to directly vote on the president wouldn’t work is because not every citizen is willing to put in the time and effort to stay up to date and be better informed on The United States of America’s politics. Since it would be difficult to well educate each citizen on this country's politics and not every citizen wants to put in the time to be educated, keeping the electoral college in place would allow those who are extremely qualified to determine America’s presidents and would be the most sensible option for the country. 

Lastly, the Electoral College maintains a federal system of government. “Doing away with the Electoral College would breach our fidelity to the spirit of the Constitution” (John Samples) The Electoral College was set up in a way that allows states to vote on whom they want to elect for president and vice president. Without the Electoral College, citizens nationwide would be voting on whom they want for president and vice president. Doing this would completely get rid of the state's involvement in this process and would lead to a more nationalized government. “To abolish the Electoral College in favor of a nationwide popular election for president would strike at the very heart of the federal structure laid out in our Constitution and would lead to the nationalization of our central government - to the detriment of the States.” (Kimberling, William C.) A more nationalized government would have little to no power granted or left to the states and would cause them to eventually disappear altogether. Without states, the national government would gain far too much power and the goal of having power separated throughout the country would completely go out the window. The House of Representatives and Senate both deal with states rights and their representation so if this country were to get rid of the Electoral College it could possibly need to get rid of them all if states were to diminish and disappear. Since both the House of Representatives and Senate are still around today for reasons dealing with the necessity of having states, so should the Electoral College. Our government has been based off of the balance between the national government and state government since the very beginning. The constitution was written to ensure a good balance between the national government and state government. The founding fathers knew that the United states of America would be nowhere without these two governments and a country without them both would be quite unsuccessful. Abolishing the Electoral College would be the first step to abolishing states within this country.

In conclusion, the Electoral College should be kept in place because it promotes the two-party system, keeps citizens from directly voting on presidency, and promotes state’s rights and representation. The two-party system is necessary within this country to ensure that radical leaders do not take charge or monopolize the government of the United States of America. Popular vote should not be used to determine the president and vice president because citizens aren't typically as informed on political issues and matters as electors are and using popular vote to determine presidency is a much more time consuming and tedious than the process of using the Electoral College to determine presidency. Lastly, abolishing the Electoral College would be the first major change in taking away states power that eventually could lead to the abolishment of states altogether. The argument of abolishing or saving the electoral college is very important and needs to be carefully considered because it is very worthy of my time as well as an American citizen's time. The electoral College decides who will oversee The United States of America and it is a civic responsibility of all citizens to stay informed to hopefully put the best leaders in office. The United States was built off the Electoral College and successfully used it to elect presidents for hundreds of years now, there is no reason to change a perfectly working system.
