I was going to wait for a winner before writing this column, but that might mean waiting until after Thanksgiving. Besides, I've got a thesis that makes sense no matter who wins, one that would have made sense even if Ralph Nader had won with a landslide 400 electoral votes. We need to get rid of the electoral college system.

The electoral colleges exists for a few reasons (depending on your point of view, of course). One is that it keeps states with smaller in the game, and another is that, with independent electors (they're only required to vote the will of the people in 25 states) there's a check against the power of the people to elect a president. Now, back in the old days this actually made a certain amount of sense as it was difficult for a candidate to get a national reputation in the years before the Civil War. But since then, the electoral college has been nothing but an anachronism which serves no useful purpose and, this year, has actually seemed a bit nefarious. As I write this, Gore has a 90,000 vote advantage in the popular tally, but will lose the electoral race if he loses Florida. That would be travesty.

Now, I understand but don't give a lot of weight to the following argument that says the popular vote is irrelevant: Gore and Bush campaigned for electoral votes, not the popular vote. Had they been going for the popular vote, they would have run different campaigns and the popular vote tally would be different than it is as I write. The reason I dismiss this argument is that people rarely cast their votes with the electoral college in mind (I did think about the E.C. when I voted, as I wrote last week, I voted for Nader in exchange for getting a green to vote for Gore in Florida). Most voters go into the booth and say to themselves "who do I want." Given that, I think the popular tally is legitimate and that it can be safely said that more people prefer Gore and that the electoral college is thwarting the will of the majority.

But it's not enough to hold up the thwarted will of the majority as reason for abolishing the electoral college and electing the president through a more direct popular vote. After all, the majority can be wrong (hypothetically: it isn't right for the white majority to oppress ethnic minorities, for example, even if all the white were agree that such behavior is acceptable). We have to look at the deeper social effects of the electoral college.

It discourages third parties form forming. Without the electoral college a strong majority in all the states could elect a candidate with winning in any state. The electoral college, with it's state by state structure discourages national political movements. Think about how ridiculous this really is ñ why should the states matter in a national election? Since most states are winner take all, Bush could win by 10 votes in Florida and get 25 electoral votes. The strong majority behind Gore becomes an irrelevant part in the election. A strong majority for a third party becomes even more irrelevant because those voters can't pool their power with voters from other states.

Back in the days of the founding fathers, geography was more important than it is today because geography (whether you lived in the industrial north or the agrarian south) tended to form ideology. Now, with our instant communication systems and easy travel to all points in the states and beyond, geography is trumped by ideology. The electoral college creates alliance within the states, but a strong alternative movement could only happen nationally.

In this sense, the electoral college is a violation of the first amendment to the constitution because it interferes with people's rights to organize across state lines. So, we don't have to amend the constitution to get rid of the electoral college, we just have to realize that the first amendment takes precedence.

Michael Maiello keeps twelve electoral votes in his pocket, just in case.