I miss you obama

The Universal Mathematics in the 2012 Presidential Election: The Antidemocratic Principles of Electoral College

Nassau Community College

Sarah Elgohary

Math 101

Jerry Honig

November 13 2012

The presidential election of 2012 was the biggest election United States history.  Not only were President Barack Obama, and his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, elected to a second term. In addition, President Barack Obama was also the first president to win reelection with the country’s unemployment rate at a 7.9 since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  There major challengers were the Republican nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his running mate, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. President Barack Obama beat his challenger Governor Mitt Romney with Two hundred seventy four electoral votes and Governor Mitt Romney only has two hundred and one electoral votes. There are many controversies over the democratic principles of the Electoral College because even if a presidential candidate has more popular votes than electoral votes it does not matter the only, he can win the election is if he gets two hundred seventy electoral votes. The Electoral College is not a democratic way to elect the president of the United States.       

 Although most major media outlets insisted the election was too close to predict a winner in advance, many analysts were using statistical models, bookmakers and betting markets had Obama as a clear favorite to win. On November 6, by around 11:15 PM EST, most major television networks projected the winners would be Obama and Biden. At about 1:00 AM EST (6:00 AM GMT) on November seventh, Romney conceded the election to Obama, just as the polls in Alaska were closing. As of November tenth, the electoral outcomes of all fifty   states and the District of Columbia had been definitively projected, with final vote counts still outstanding in some states Obama carried all the states and districts (among states that allocate electoral votes by district) he had won in the 2008 election except North Carolina, Indiana and Nebraska's 2nd congressional district (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_ 2012). 

The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of two hundred seventy electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators. The founding fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. However, the term “electoral college” does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the twelfths Amendment refer to “electors,” but not to the “electoral college.”Since the Electoral College process is part of the original design of the United States. Constitution it would be necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment to change this system.  that the 12th Amendment, the expansion of voting rights, and the use of the popular vote in the States as the vehicle for selecting electors has substantially changed the process(http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html).  “The constitution Article II Section 1 States” The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows 

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States ( http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html).

The Electoral College is not necessary to vote for a president. In addition, if the United States presidential election process did not have the Electoral College in the Constitution the president would be chosen by the people‘s popular vote then the United States be a true democracy because every individual who votes in the election would have an equal say in voting for the president. In my opinion, the Electoral College is an unfair voting system because all fifty states do not have equal amount of electoral votes.  The electoral votes are unevenly distributed based on each state’s population which some states more electoral votes than others. For example New York State only has twenty nine electoral votes while California has fifty five electoral votes. This means that the state of California has an unfair advantage of electoral votes over New York State votes in an election just because of its size. This is one flaw of the Electoral College votes being based on each state’s population   

The most egregious flaw in the United States voting system is the Electoral College, a relic from over two hundred years ago when the fastest way to send information was by horse. The fact that we now have fiber-optic communication and are using a system that predates the telegraph is just ridiculous. A major factor in the creation of the Electoral College was the fear of a duped electorate. The idea was that the ignorant masses could be saved from a poor choice by a more informed electoral college. Now that we live in the information age, the notion of someone unqualified being elected president by an uninformed backwoods majority is utterly ludicrous.

The other major reason for the Electoral College was protection of the “small states.” Electoral votes are not distributed evenly by population, because each state gets one for each member of congress (and D.C. gets three). Because each state has two senators in addition to its purely population-based congressional representation, states with fewer people have more electoral votes than their population would suggest. This also means that big states get proportionally fewer votes, creating some truly shocking iniquities in the value of a vote. Mathematically, a vote cast in Wyoming is worth more than three times as many electoral votes as the votes in New York. (http://www.policymic.com/articles/15780/obama-vs-romney-electoral-votes-why-i-will-not-vote-in-the-2012-presidential-election).

Of course, that's assuming that the vote cast in New York is worth anything at all, which it is not thanks to the Electoral College. Only Maine and Nebraska do not give all of their electoral votes to the most popular candidate in their state, which means that for states with a clear political majority, voting is essentially irrelevant for an individual. I could vote for Mitt Romney a thousand times, and still guarantee you that Barack Obama will carry New York (not that I'd ever want to vote for Romney even once). But my would-be vote for Obama is just as meaningless, since he'll be fine without it. (http://www.policymic.com/articles/15780/obama-vs-romney-electoral-votes-why-i-will-not-vote-in-the-2012-presidential-election)/

Not only does the “winner-take-all” system essentially disenfranchise voters from partisan states, it also completely subverts the notion of protecting the interests of small states. The reasoning behind making small states proportionally more valuable is that candidates would have to campaign in these areas and appeal to their people in order to get all the electoral votes they needed. However, the current system shifts the focus of each campaign onto the high population states that will be a close race. Even though a Wyomingite's vote is worth three times as much as a Floridian's, the election in Wyoming was decided decades ago, so candidates will spend no time campaigning there in the next couple of months.

By far the most terrifying aspect of “winner-take-all” is that you would theoretically need just twenty two percent of the popular votes to get elected. Simply by collecting a minimal majority in all of the smaller, overvalued states, a candidate could reach two hundred seventy electoral votes despite almost four/ fifths people having preferred someone else. That is obviously extremely unlikely, but the fact that it is even possible sheds light on how preposterous the Electoral College system truly is. (http://www.policymic.com/articles/15780/obama-vs-romney-electoral-votes-why-i-will-not-vote-in-the-2012-presidential-election).

The Electoral College system fails on every possible front, but the topper to the whole disaster is that it would take a constitutional amendment to get rid of it. That will almost certainly never happen, and here's why: An amendment must be passed by three/four states to become law. In the 2012 election, thirteen states will get either three or four electoral votes. As long as the thirteen states that get either three or four electoral votes (also known as the most vastly overrepresented) vote against amending the Electoral College, there won't be a three fourths majority. Something radical has to be done to abolish this antiquated system that not only allows for minority rule, but also largely disenfranchises the vast majority of the country who live in predominantly red or blue states. The number of “wasted votes” resulting from the Electoral College is way too high, and there is simply no benefit to having it around anymore now that the public is so much more readily informed. (http://www.policymic.com/articles/15780/obama-vs-romney-electoral-votes-why-i-will-not-vote-in-the-2012-presidential-election).

Even if the Electoral College was dismantled today and the 2012 presidential election was to be run like any other in America, Many Americans would not vote. This is because elections in the U.S. use a “First Past the Post” system to declare a winner, which is inferior in every regard to a multitude of other options .Many different proposals to alter the Presidential election process have been offered over the years, such as direct nation-wide election by the People, but none have been passed by Congress and sent to the States for ratification as a Constitutional amendment. Under the most common method for amending the Constitution, an amendment must be proposed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the States. (http://www.policymic.com/articles/15780/obama-vs-romney-electoral-votes-why-i-will-not-vote-in-the-2012-presidential-election).

Over the past two hundred years, over seven hundred   proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject. The American Bar Association has criticized the Electoral College as “archaic” and “ambiguous” and its polling showed sixthly nine percent of lawyers favored abolishing it in 1987. But surveys of political scientists have supported continuation of the Electoral College. Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing it by majorities of fifty eight percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981. (http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html).

There are many controversies over the democratic principles of the Electoral College because even if a presidential candidate has more popular votes than electoral votes it does not matter the only, he can win the election is if he gets two hundred seventy electoral votes. The Electoral College is not a democratic way to elect the president of the United States.  I think The Electoral College could Proportional by the number of people who actual vote in the election the number of actual electoral votes a state get based on the state’s population. not every person or state get an equal amount of vote in the election that is why the Electoral College is not a fair system to vote for a president in my opinion.

Works Cited

Lee, David. Nara ready access to essential evidence U.S Electoral College. Ed. Rachel Godowsky. National Arthives, 25 Nov. 2012. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. 

United States presidential election, 2012From United States presidential election, 2012From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia, 7 Nov. 2012. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election, _2012>. 

Zweibel, Jasper. Obama vs. Romney Electoral Votes: Why I Will Not Vote in the 2012 Presidential Election. Poilcymic, 7 Nov. 2012. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. <http://www.policymic.com/articles/15780/obama-vs-romney-electoral-votes-why-i-will-not-vote-in-the-2012-presidential-election>.