Governor Andy Beshear said the electoral college should be replaced by a popular vote. Beshear made the proposal to Democrats in Lexington last week and followed up during his Team Kentucky Update. Stephen Voss, a specialist in elections and voting behavior at the University of Kentucky, doesn’t agree with Beshear’s conclusion that abolishing the electoral college would result in better politics and government.
“Mathematically, the Electoral College increases the influence of citizens in very small states. But in practice, that is not the math. In practice, the states that get the most influence are the ones that are similar to the United States as a whole, in other words, closely divided politically.”
Voss says voters in non-swing states who wish for more influence in a presidential election should remember that politics can shift and theirs might be a swing state in the future.
Carolyn Dupont feels differently. She’s an American history professor at Eastern Kentucky University and the author of the recently-released book, “Distorting Democracy - The Forgotten History of the Electoral College and Why It Matters Today.” “What it would do would be to put into practice the notion of democratic accountability, because when one party believes they have a path to victory without the support of the majority of Americans, they're not really forced to adjust.” Dupont said the primary systems most states use, in which voters can only cast ballots for members of their own party, should also be reformed.
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