There Is a Point to All of This

Commentary on 'Seriously, What's the Point?'

It is easy to fall victim to the idea that your vote amongst the millions of other votes in the country does not account for much, but this idea is exactly what our election process is designed to prevent. What if a large portion of the population felt the same way you did and decided that their vote wasn’t worth casting. The opinion of that group would then be left unheard.

The voting process has even changed over the centuries to make it more convenient and accessible to the American public. It is even less of a burden today than it was years ago, giving you less reason to not participate on election day.

In this argument, the author supported the use of manual counting of the popular votes, however, is this idea really plausible? The time and efficiency of hand counting the votes offers more room for error than using voting machines. Though susceptible to error as well, the voting machines are unbiased and contain the ability to count more efficiently and accurately. With such great numbers of votes to count, a machine has the resistance of getting tired as people would. If the situation arises, a machine would also have the ability to recount votes and in a timely manner.

In response to the critique of the Electoral College, a valid point in questioning its existence can be seen. The fear that the Framers had in originally implementing the Electoral College has since almost completely diminished. Those fears, including nomination of unqualified candidates, have been eliminated by the increase in travel and public communication. So why keep the system around? Our election process has worked for centuries, electing the president with the most popular vote count. With only three elections otherwise, I would say the Framers’ system is valid. Though it may seem your vote doesn’t matter, it does. The electoral votes your state contributes are decided upon the people’s vote.

The purpose of the election process is to ensure that the leader of our nation is elected by the people and is an accurate representation of the voices of the whole population. Each election year when people decide it’s not worth their time to vote, they are letting only a fraction of the nation choose the next leader. Those people that believe their vote counts are more correct than they can imagine, because since they are the only ones voting, their opinion is the deciding factor.