The electoral college is a very interesting system of voting that has several pros and cons. I think it has some good and bad points, and I think it has some room for improvement.

Pros and Cons of the Electoral College

1. Pro: It allows small states and small town America to have a say in the the election.  The candidates go to every corner of the battleground states and many people get the opportunity to meet and question them.  I am originally from a small town and I think that this is one of the major benefits of the electoral college.

2. Con: Many states are seemingly completely left out of the process.  A solid blue state like California never gets to see either candidate.  Neither does a solid red state like Texas.  These are the 2 biggest states in the union and they don’t get any attention from the candidates.

3. Pro: It gives the winning candidate the majority of the vote. In the 1992 election Bill Clinton only received around 42% of the vote. However, due to the influence of Ross Perot he still won a convincing majority in the electoral college. There is definitely some benefit to winning a majority.  You don’t want the perception of 2/3 of the country not wanting you as soon as you take office.

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I’ve been spending some time recently looking at the polls and the electoral college. I am interested in seeing what each candidate has to do to reach the needed 270 electoral votes. Looking at the map I see an awful lot of blue and gray. Its really easy for Obama. His path to victory mostly includes not doing anything really stupid in the next week.  He doesn’t even have to win any of the toss-up states. All he has to do is win the states that are leaning towards him. Of course this is assuming that the polls are accurate.  On the other hand we have McCain. His path to victory is much more difficult, again, assuming you trust the current polls.  First, he has to win all the toss-up states. As it currently stands, that would give him 227 to Obama’s 311.  Still not even close. So what does McCain have to do to make the election telecast matter past 7pm on election night?

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