How The Internet Can Eliminate The Electoral College And The Reasons To.

Written on October 25, 2020 by: Joseph C Dougherty

(This is not intended to influence any Presidential Candidate in this 2020 election, my goal here is to give a fair review of our election process and governmental system that our Founding Fathers created. I wrote this going by the statistics and factual data to the best of my knowledge and to test if my own understanding of it is correct.) Revised October 27, 2020

  The takeaway from the final Presidential Debate of 2020 is the United States government still functions as a good Democracy. What I have learned is that despite the candidates we had to choose from may not be the best, they are indeed a representation of the people within the United States.  Studying the statistics and communicating to voters over the years I have learned that what we have representing our voters as a choice for the Presidency, is almost preciously what the people want to see in the way of a candidates for Democratic system. And despite our government election system being flawed from the electoral colleges, lacking a ranked primary system, and super delegates the setup shows statistical that voters are getting some representation of what they wish to see in leader of their nation and example is shown from the 2016 Presidential Election. Many voters in 2016 were tired of politicians who gave double-talk to often, in which they gave either an answer which could go either way to the question according to context or vague answers to how they would fix the problems in our nation and hence people tired of the fake representation of the candidates in both the Republican and Democratic parties choose someone who was not a politician. President Donald J. Trump won the support of the delegates in the Primaries and Caucuses then again in the General Election, despite him not winning the popular vote President Donald J. Trump won by securing the amount of Electoral College votes needed to win. This showed that our Democracy which is not perfect but did represent the majority of voters and even non-voters who just were sick and tired of politicians who have seemingly grown out of touch with the people they are chosen to represent. Again this election is showing the same premises in which voters and non-voters are still tired of politicians who do not represent them but at the same time have also grown tired of a President who seems somewhat out of touch with their views equally. Former Vice President Joe Biden won his position now in that the Democratic party and those support it believe that he is has the best chance to win, not per say that he maybe the best choose but that the Democratic voters feel he represents the ideals the party holds overall which many call, “to far to the left”, in which many believe that he is representing the ideals of now independent Bernie Sanders and even that of Joe Biden’s running mate Sen. Kamala Harris of California, in which their ideals are considered Socialistic since they support the government having more control over health care and other sectors of economy, a economy that is currently Capitalist. Unlike, the 2016 President Election the Democratic party is fully supporting Joe Biden this time and not as prior where Bernie Sanders and Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton split the Democratic voters and in conclusion we ended up with many Democratic voters not voting at all. So where does that put this election overall as a representation of how our election system is going and as I said before it simply shows that the current system is doing good but far from perfect but then again what election system in the world is perfect?

Now I will not go into ways of how we can correct our election process that is for another time what I wish to do now is to explain where it places both parties at and who will likely win as President due to the current environment of our election system. Again in 2016 President Donald J. Trump won the primaries and the general election because the delegates listened to the people of both Democratic and Republican parties and selected President Donald J. Trump now because the Republican party agreed with his ideology, in fact Donald J. Trump was mostly Democratic throughout his lifetime and would of ran independent but knew he would not have a chance to win because of the ”winner takes all” position of both parties, so he ran under what closely represented his beliefs and values which was the Republican party. And now again four years later even though most of the Republican party were against him then and now are with him, they are following the lead of voters of both sides. The difference is that this time there are not as many people who support him as in the past and despite the fact that once again the people in America are faced with a politician, in the very sense of the word that caused them to elect Donald J. Trump, this time the chaotic nature of his presidency despite his own causing or that of Covid-19 has made many seek a more stable President and even though in the 2016 election this was exactly what won him the presidency this time around it may cause him to lose. Former Vice President Joe Biden has what was lacking in the 2016 election in that the entire base of the Democratic party are united behind one candidate which in 2016 took away voting Americans from the Democratic party because of in-fighting. Another difference is that this time many republicans within the party have grown tired of President Donald J. Trump chaotic nature and the way he is constantly committing inconsistences in what he says and this has lead many Republican voters to switch the Democratic votes for Biden. This unity gives Biden a better chance of winning the popular vote but it barely is statistically showing it affecting the electoral college since the electoral college was designed to give more political power to smaller states that are less populated because the number of electors from each state is the number of senators (two) plus the number of state Representatives and a total of 538 electors. The base of the electoral college which many argue are more conservative republicans but not completely are statistically showing that while they do not agree with the handling of President Trump and Covid-19 that his other policies are something they agree with and that is where I want to state this is why I believe President Donald J. Trump will remain the President for four more years.

The current President does not only have the complete support of his delegates that represent his party but the voters of both parties once again is not enough to sway the electoral college votes within the key “swing states” throughout this nation to change favor for that of Joe Biden. The electoral college is indeed a key component in Federalism and is meant to give those with a lesser population a louder voice per say, and this is intended so that those who run for Presidency address them equally understanding their vote is just as important. The problem is that unfortunately with an election that is run with a Democratic system as ours that it allows the party to focus on just “swing states” in theory, and this design could help select the President instead of using the overall population by what is intended in true Democracy which is meant to be “one person, one vote” for that of the leader of the United States. This is why many feel the electoral college should be abolished but until a better representative system can be developed for the less populated states or areas this has been the best way to select the President. I want to state that I do believe that the Electoral College is not needed anymore since the invention of the internet and one day I am hoping that the internet can be used to get rid of this system since people can voice their opinion equally despite the population of any region within the United States. And though there is more complexity within the ideology of the electoral college I believe that again the simplistic way to it can be solved is through of a secure internet system that is run only in the United States through this election. The idea of election tampering and mail-in ballots being a problem in our Democracy in taking votes away by them being hacked, thrown away or lost is simply not true and any problems can be remedied in the future election as technology grows. Our system is not perfect and has flaws but our Founding Fathers knew this and created a evolving system of government that was designed to adopt to the people as time and technology evolves to represent the people who can vote in a free United States of America. Whether you are one that believes the Founding Fathers created our government with the hopes of that, or one who subscribes to the idea that the Founding Fathers wrote exactly what was meant and not to be interpreted the electoral college was modified before and it is I believe to modify it again so that true equal representation is given.