The topic was: The electoral college does more harm than good.
( I was on opposition side( con 1 ) )
Hello judge my name is Ashley Ding debating on the opposition side of the topic:” Electoral colleges do more harm than good. This debate should be framed on the fact that electoral colleges give states more proportional votes. I will first refute then list my contentions.
My opponent stated that people were boycotting against trump, and that means that the election wasn’t fair because so many people don’t like him, but there is always some people who don’t like the president.But this doesn’t affect trump becoming president.
Contention 1:
It protects minority interests.
The Electoral College preserves the voice of states with lower populations and more rural areas, Occupy Theory noted. Especially in contemporary times, urban areas tend to be more populated, but the Electoral College saves the interests of farmers and those found in less bustling locations. “Proponents also point out that, far from diminishing minority interests by depressing voter participation, the Electoral College actually enhances the status of minority groups. This is so because the voters of even small minorities in a State may make the difference between winning all of that State’s electoral votes or none of that State’s electoral votes. And since ethnic minority groups in the United States happen to concentrate in those State with the most electoral votes, they assume an importance to presidential candidates well out of proportion to their number. The same principle applies to other special interest groups such as labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, and so forth.
It is because of this “leverage effect” that the presidency, as an institution, tends to be more sensitive to ethnic minority and other special interest groups than does the Congress as an institution. Changing to a direct election of the president would therefore actually damage minority interests since their votes would be overwhelmed by a national popular majority. ” according to the uselectionatlas.org
Contention 2:
It directs more power and say to the smaller states.
With the electoral college the smaller states have more say, and also has presidents campaigning more in smaller states too.For example, It makes presidential candidates more likely to campaign in Iowa, rather than the bigger states with more population.
But without the Electoral College, candidates likely would just fish for votes in more populous states, such as California, New York, Texas, and Illinois. Rather than visit smaller states such as Colorado, the candidates might be tempted to just run up the score in the more populous states if they’re simply aiming for a popular vote win.It also provides more opportunities for people who vote in states with the fewer population like Iowa or Wyoming for example.Or with the popular votes, A candidate would only have to campaign in the 10 most populated states and they’d have won the election. That would be very unfair towards the voters in some more rural areas.The electoral college is a system designed by our founders so that the smaller states have a chance against the larger states, and would have a bigger say in the election.
Contention 3:
It contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a two-party system and discouraging the proliferation of splinter parties such as those that have plagued many European democracies. The winner-take-all system means that minor parties get few electoral votes, so a president who is the choice of the nation as a whole emerges.Proponents further argue that the Electoral College contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a two party system. There can be no doubt that the Electoral College has encouraged and helps to maintain a two party system in the United States. This is true simply because it is extremely difficult for a new or minor party to win enough popular votes in enough States to have a chance of winning the presidency. Even if they won enough electoral votes to force the decision into the U.S. House of Representatives, they would still have to have a majority of over half the State delegations in order to elect their candidate – and in that case, they would hardly be considered a minor party.
“In addition to protecting the presidency from impassioned but transitory third party movements, the practical effect of the Electoral College (along with the single-member district system of representation in the Congress) is to virtually force third party movements into one of the two major political parties. Conversely, the major parties have every incentive to absorb minor party movements in their continual attempt to win popular majorities in the States. In this process of assimilation, third party movements are obliged to compromise their more radical views if they hope to attain any of their more generally acceptable objectives. Thus we end up with two large, pragmatic political parties which tend to the center of public opinion rather than dozens of smaller political parties catering to divergent and sometimes extremist views. In other words, such a system forces political coalitions to occur within the political parties rather than within the government.”
My World 