The founders built certain protections for individual rights into this country's founding documents. The United States Constitution was one such document. In particular, such protections protect Americans who hold minority views from those who side with the majority. For example, the First Amendment protects the right to free speech to ensure that people with unpopular opinions have as much freedom to express those opinions as people who tend to agree with the majority. The United States Constitution, therefore, was intended to protect the individual rights of Americans against a tyrannical government and majority. However, today the Electoral College does not represent the vibrant democracy that the United States has become. Americans do not vote for their presidential or vice-presidential candidate. Instead, they indicate their candidate preference. Whichever candidate gets the majority of votes in a state gets all the voters in that state. Each state's number of electors is based on the number of representatives and senators it has in Congress. Once a candidate obtains a majority, voters vote in the “Electoral College” (a type of caucus in their state six weeks after the election) for that candidate. So a candidate who gets just one more vote than the other in a given state wins all the votes in that state. Notably, although it is called the College, the Electoral College is a process administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It's not a special place (NARA 1). The Electoral College should be abolished because the United States today is much more populous and very different than when its founders wrote the Constitution more than two centuries ago (Raasch 1).... . middle of paper ......vote lity (Shugart 632). Every state would be important in such a system because candidates would be forced to appeal to as many voters as possible, not just "voting blocs" that could swing a plurality in the state and, therefore, , across the state. More people would participate in elections because they would know that every vote actually counts. Works Cited Kimberling, William. “The Electoral College.” FEC Office of Election Administration. . [November 13, 2004].(NARA) National Archives and Archives Administration. “The Electoral College.” . [November 13, 2004]. Raasch, Chuck. “The Electoral College Debate Intensifies.” The United States Today. September 24, 2004. . [November 13, 2004]. Shugart, Matthew. “Elections: The American Process of Selecting a President: A Comparative Perspective.” Presidential Studies, 34, 3 (September 2004): 632-656.