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 * 12th Amendment Repeal**

Section 1: The twelfth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2: The citizens of the United States shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for the President and Vice President. Whomever President and Vice President the citizen voted for shall be named in their ballot. The votes shall then be counted; out of the candidates running for President whomever has the greatest number of votes shall become president, and out of the candidates running for Vice President, whomever has the greatest number of votes shall become Vice President.

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 * Position Paper**

From the birth of this great nation, the founding fathers of this country had their idea passed down from the time that pen started moving to today’s generation. The Electoral College was that idea. The Electoral College has held up for years with ongoing elections through time, but now, it’s time for this idea to retire. The people of America have now lost faith in the electoral system and the election. There is, but one more thing in mind. Popular vote. In history, there have been three recorded elections where a president lost in the electoral count, but won in the popular count. The election between Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland is a good example. In Cleveland’s earlier year, before the defeat to Harrison, Cleveland had done well on track with the country by vetoing the pensions on Civil War veterans and disabilities and the veto of the Texas Seed Bill. Tariffs were also a big issue as well, but the bill to reduce the heavy burden did not make it past the Democratic House. When Harrison went into office, things began to turn over. Harrison, in 1889 and in 1891, had to face two crises in which one dealt with fishing waters with Canada that almost went into war by seizing ships, but later made a compromise. The other incident was a war with Chile sending an offensive that turned out to be about an American murdering a Chilean sailor. Harrison had also tried to reduce tariffs, but failed in doing so. When Cleveland got back into office in 1893, he soon faced the Panic of 1893, which had to do with the free coinage of silver. It later was overturned and ended the use of silver in American currency, which caused strikes from laborers that were controlled under Grover’s troops. Cleveland also tried to reform tariffs that ended in defeat, but had a good outcome of a new sugar company. This shows how a popular vote could have kept things under raps and how it could have gone far worse. Individually, popular vote is needed now in today’s society more then in any historical election. Records show that less and less of the American population is voting because of the Electoral College. American citizens are beginning to think that now their vote does not even count in an election because the fewer amounts of votes for a representative, the more the opposing representative will get. The self-reliance of the people is diminishing and this will cause later problems in the future. As more and more people decide not to vote, the higher the probability of something unpleasant happens. The people lost courage in their vote. If no one votes, or if people don’t vote at all, anything could happen. This makes the election unfair to both parties, which in turn could result in a corrupt election. At this point in time, the economy, human rights and so much more are question now. Popular vote is more reliable and dishes out an easier way of electing a president.


 * Rebuttal Paper**

The 12th amendment is one of the amendments that the electoral college has followed and used for the last 200 years; there are several reasons why people would want to keep the 12th amendment. People think that the current electoral system “enhances the status of minority interests, contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a two-party system, and maintains a federal system of government and representation.” The quote “enhances that status of minority interests” means that if we keep the 12th amendment it would allow the less popular ideas to get attention in the presidential campaigns. This is because the voters of small minorities in a State may make the difference between winning all of that State's electoral votes or none of that State's electoral votes. And since the subgroups of minority in the United States happen to deal with it in those states with the most electoral votes, they take on a value to presidential candidates will out of a part to their member. And there some groups that effect are such as labor unions, farmers, and environmentalists. The next part of the quote, “contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging two-party system” means that with the electoral system, there is going to be only one winner per state, which encourages having only two political parties. It is possible that there can be more than two political parties running. However, the majority of the voting population in the United States are registered either Democrat, or Republican. This means that other smaller, lesser-known parties rarely win a state’s electoral votes. Having two or more parties gives the American people choices. Giving them choices means giving more ideas. More ideas means that more people’s interests will be covered. Which means new voters, which means more votes from the American people, and a higher percentage of American people who vote.