by Crystal Apilado
Staff Writer
From within the walls of Davenport Dining Hall, students were enlightened as the University of La Verne debate team argued on the motion “That this house would abolish the Electoral College” on Thursday, Nov. 30.
Debate team members that argued to abolish the Electoral College were junior Chastity Archer, seniors Sean Krispinksy and Stefan Chacón and sophomore Jessica Lord. Members that were in favor of the Electoral College were senior Ernie Minner, junior Ryan Knowles and sophomores Andrew Kim and Beverly Samano.
Chacón started off with the argument that the Electoral College should be replaced with the popular vote. He introduced a system of steps that included distributing the same ballot to all states for the presidential elections. He suggested that individual state ballots were confusing and cause problems like the one that happened in Florida.
Another point brought up by Chacón was that the Electoral College system is outdated. In today’s society the United States has the ability to use technology to calculate the popular vote and get a good accurate count.
Archer suggested that the ballot not only be the same, but that it allow voters to list down their first, second and third choice of candidates. With the allowance of the three choices, third party candidates would get a chance at being included in the presidency race since votes for their candidates would count.
“It’s not a 50-50 thing anymore,” said Lord in reference to the position of third parties in the traditionally Republican and Democratic race.
By using the popular vote, every vote would count and not just a set number of electoral votes. With every vote counting, candidates wouldn’t feel intimidated by the electoral votes. With popular vote, each candidate would receive votes instead of having to rely on winning a state. Every vote would count and every voice would be heard.
Since every vote would count and voice heard, candidates would feel freer to campaign to each state and not feel that their campaign was a waste of time. The campaigns of candidate would be evenly distributed among the states.
However, the other side argued that the Electoral College was a necessity to the United States as a nation. According to Minner, the United States is a highly populated nation and the Electoral College helps keep the presidential election votes in order and causes less mistakes.
“The U.S. should not be compared to France, it should be compared to the whole of Europe,” said Minner, giving a visual comparison to prove how the Electoral College is beneficial to the United States’ massive proportions.
Minner also said that the Electoral College system helps put a spotlight on mistakes made, while with a popular vote, mistakes may be harder to find and easier to overlook.
“Just because it’s the majority doesn’t mean it’s right,” said Kim.
Individual states have their own rules and ways of deciding things and making each state use the same ballot takes away from those rights, said Knowles.
Samano added to the argument by pointing out that the electoral votes go toward the popular vote in each individual state. Thus, the popular vote is already being used to decide who will be the next president, she said.
The Electoral College helps give small states a say. According to Kim, the smaller states have a 1 percent say in the national vote and would get an even smaller say with the popular vote system.
Samano brought up that the three-choice system is outdated and that it was the original system used in the early 1800s that caused the development of the Electoral College in the first place.
