New Tally
NewTally.com is a non-partisan campaign to make the public aware of the presidential election process. We are dedicated to fair elections where every vote counts and all votes are represented.
The electoral college is an old and outdated system. When the Founding Fathers enacted the Electoral College, they created a system that made a great deal of sense at the time. But the founding fathers were not experts on voting power. Many wanted an electoral college simply because they distrusted the mob and thought the people as a whole could not be trusted as they could easily be distracted or corrupted. So they put in place a system they had heard of from the days of the Holy Roman Empire where one princes of the various German states within the Holy Roman Empire, had the right to participate in the election of the German king. Each prince would represent a specific region or state. The idea is that the few would represent the many. But is that really the kind of system we need to pick who is going to run our country? The power shouldn’t be in the hands of the few but instead in the hands of the people!
When you place your vote for the President of the United States, it should be counted and that should be what determines who runs out country. Wouldn’t you agree? I have always thought that the person who gets the most votes should win, but that isn’t always the case! Instead of allowing the people’s votes to count, we instead have an antiquated system that princes, kings and emperors used thousands of years ago called the Electoral College. What this means is that a direct nation-wide vote does not determine who will be President of the United states.
The founders of the nation devised the Electoral College system as part of their plan to share power between the States and the national government. Under the Federal system adopted in the U.S. Constitution, the nation-wide popular vote has no legal significance. As a result, it is possible that the electoral votes awarded on the basis of State elections could produce a different result than the nation-wide popular vote. And you know what? That has happened more than you think.
During the U.S. Presidential Election of 1888 incumbent President Grover Cleveland received the greatest number of popular votes, but Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison’s 233 electoral votes topped Cleveland’s 168 to win the election.
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The electoral college robs voters of their power. In the election of 1876 Samuel J. Tilden of New York won the popular vote but lost the election to Rutherford Hayes of Ohio. Tilden won the poplar vote, but in the end, what the people want didn’t seem to matter because Hayes became the next President of the United States, not the person who won the popular vote.
