As a political junkie, I’ve been following the 2012 presidential election with a quasi- religious fervor. Some national polls put the Republican challenger Mitt Romney slightly ahead of President Barack Obama. However, many other polls show that Obama could possibly obtain more Electoral College points than Romney, thus securing the White House for another term.

This odd dilemma got me wondering about the fairness or even the validity of the institution that is the Electoral College. Is it truly fair if more people want Romney to be our next president, and Obama wins anyway because of the way the Electoral College is structured?

I’d like to add a disclaimer before I proceed, to highlight my true intentions. I am writing this to examine the Electoral College, not just its impact on Romney’s campaign. Whether or not I support Romney, I still believe that this situation is wrong. I will argue that the Electoral College is fundamentally unfair, for both Democrats and Republicans.

Now, to the juicy stuff. Let’s look a bit at the history of the College. According to an article by William Kimberling, deputy director of the FEC Office of Election Administration, the Electoral College is a body made up of electors whose primary function is to elect the president. Each state is assigned a number of electors based on the number of senators and Congressional representatives. For Nebraska, that number is five (two senators plus three representatives). In most states, Nebraska and Maine excluded, it’s a “winner-take-all” scenario, where the candidate who wins the popular vote in that state wins all of that state’s points.

I don’t think that I am able to convey on paper how much this system bothers me, and it does so for many reasons. Firstly, the Electoral College seems to discourage voter participation in non-battleground states. In a state like Nebraska, which will almost certainly go for Romney, it really doesn’t matter if I vote or not, nor does it really matter who I vote for. Collectively, yes, it does matter, but on an individual scale, it really does not.

Voter turnout doesn’t matter a great deal in solidly Republican states or solidly Democratic states. To clarify, as a Nebraska voter, if I vote for Romney, my vote will just be added to a majority that he already has in his favor. If I vote for Obama, my vote essentially won’t count because it is highly unlikely that he will win Nebraska.

Secondly, the “winner-take-all” system is also highly unjust. I’m glad that I live in a state that splits votes because I think it’s a more accurate reading of what the people living in that state want, though not as much as a popular vote would. For instance, if you look at the county-by-county numbers, there are many pockets of blue in red states and vice versa. California, for instance, is nearly entirely red in the eastern part of the state, but only blue on the coast. How unfortunate for those living in these pockets to see their community vote a certain way, yet see their state swing another way!

To remedy this, I think that we should abolish this unjust form of voting and let the people vote directly for their president. It seems wrong that a majority of the country could vote for Candidate A and Candidate B wins instead. Furthermore, I think that a popular vote for president will encourage voter participation, giving each vote as much swaying power as the next. No more would there be votes for president that “don’t count.” Also, a popular vote would more accurately reflect the national will, putting in office the candidate that most people would like to see there.

Many other candidates are directly elected by the popular vote, such as members of the Senate and House of Representatives. If we are able to vote for these offices directly, why must we go through such an elaborate system to vote for our president? In a democracy such as ours, one that values the strength of the voice of individual people, it’s high time the Electoral College is done away with. What a presidential election would look like without it, I’m not sure, but I can certainly say that I’d like to see it.