Most Americans Want To Elect The President By A Direct Popular Vote

The United States has a presidential election system that unique among nations. Instead of electing the nation's leader by a popular vote, the president is elected by an electoral college. This electoral college gives each state a certain number of votes -- equal to the number of senators and representatives the state has. The current distribution of electoral votes, which will be used in the 2012 election, is shown in the chart above.

There are many, including myself, who believe the system is unfair to the nation's voters, since it can, and has, resulted in a situation where a candidate has the most votes overall but loses because his opponent has the most electoral votes (and this happened in 1876, 1888, and 2000). When this happens, it thwarts the will of the nation's majority of voters. It also makes the voters in a state's minority (however large that minority) worthless -- for example, if a state votes 51% for one candidate and 49% for the other, the votes of the 49% are disregarded and the candidate with 51% gets all of the state's electoral votes.

This is an archaic system which no longer makes sense in this modern world where votes are quickly tabulated. The candidate preferred by the most voters should be elected. And most Americans agree with that. The Gallup Poll has once again done its yearly survey on American opinions of the electoral college, and once again the majority would like to elect their president by a direct popular vote. That has been the opinion of the American public since Gallup started asking the question in 1967 (when 58% said that). Here's how it came out this year:

Popular vote...............62%
Electoral college...............35%

Generally Republicans have favored the electoral college system. After all, it allowed them to capture the presidency in 2000 even though their candidate (George Bush) did not get as many votes as his opponent (Al Gore). But even that has now changed. This year a majority of Republicans joined Democrats and Independents in favoring the election of a president by a direct popular vote. Here are the numbers:

Democrats...............71%
Independents...............61%
Republicans...............53%

It is time to listen to the will of the people and change the way we elect our presidents. The electoral college may have made some sense in the distant past, but it no longer does. It just makes this country a laughing-stock on the world stage when we inaugurate a president who did not get the most votes.