Time to Replace the Electoral College In 1787, the framers of the Constitution met and decided how the new nation would elect its president. It took the authors just under a month to complete this task. During that month, various methods ranging from direct election of the president, to selection by legislators, to selection by voters, were considered. Finally, selection by voters, more commonly known as the electoral college, was opted for. There were various reasons why the Electoral College ultimately won. We will explore some of the reasons later in this essay. I believe that the then legitimate reasons are no longer valid and the time has come to replace the electoral college with a system of electing the president by direct vote. Why did the framers choose the electoral college as the method of electing the president and not one of the other methods? The authors feared that the method of selection by legislators would allow a small group of people to select the president and could lead to corruption of the process. Alexander Hamilton believed that selection by legislators “might lead the president to bribe the legislators to stay in office” and other delegates feared that “the president would depend too much on the legislators and would not eliminate independent judgment” (Edwards III 80 ). The authors also believed that “an average citizen of the time would not be able to make an informed decision as the new country lacked adequate communication and instead would only support local candidates and this would give even the larger states a decided advantage” (Edwards III 81). . Another reason had to do with slavery. The delegates representing the South did not want to use methamphetamine... middle of paper... when we amend the constitution to move from the Electoral College to the direct voting system. Until the constitutional amendment comes, I support the national popular vote method. Works cited. Edward III, George C. Why the Electoral College is Bad for America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Print.Dwyer, Devin, Emily Friedman, and Christina NG. "Elections 2012: campaigns by the numbers". abcnews.go.com. “NP” 6 November 2012. Web. 1 May. 2014.Center for Responsive Politics. “2012 Presidential Race.” opensecrets.org. “NP” March 25, 2013 web. May 1st. 2014.Bycoffe, Aaron. and Andrei Scheinkman. “What the 2012 Election Would Look Like Under Republicans' Voter Fraud Plan” huffingtonpost.com. “NP” January 24, 2013.Web. May 3, 2014. Koyzis, David T. “Voter Turnout and Competitive Politics” cpjustice.org. “NP” third quarter 2000. Web. 3 May 2014.