The presidential election on Nov. 6 is coming up and many Americans will go out and vote for their favorite candidate But are they really voting for their candidate? Yes and no.

They are actually voting to decide who their electoral votes will go to. This out-dated process is called the Electoral College and was established by the founding fathers in the Constitution to level the playing field between states with larger populations and states with smaller populations. It was also put into place to keep ill-informed voters from dominating the election and casting blind votes.

However, this is less of an issue today because there are so many different outlets to get information from about the candidates.

The majority of the time, the electoral votes align with the popular vote, but if it doesn’t, it doesn’t seem right for a president to be elected when the majority of the Americans that vote don’t support him or her.

One of the main problems I have with this system is that it’s almost pointless for some voters to even vote.

Most states use a system in which the winner of the majority of the votes in that state receives all of the electoral votes. This system also isn’t quite right for essentially the same reason.

At the very least, the electoral votes should be proportional to the number of votes each candidate receives at state level or electoral votes should be cast by district.

The “winner-takes-all” system could cause some Americans to undervalue voting. Those who don’t agree with the majority of their state could see voting as pointless.

“There are way too many voters in states that are predominately liberal or conservative that cast votes that are meaningless,” social studies teacher Mike Murphy said. “If you’re a democrat and you live in Kansas, and you cast a vote for a democratic president, you’ve almost wasted your vote, because you’re not going to win.”

There have been more than 700 proposed amendments concerning the Electoral College, ranging from a simple reform such as replacing it with proportional representation to abolishing it completely. The reason none of these amendments have been passed is because the process to amend the Constitution is very difficult; according to the Senate’s website, only 27 of the total 11,447 proposed amendments have been ratified.

If none of these 700 proposals have worked, what should be done about this problem?

One option which would solve the problem nationally would be to tweak the Electoral College in Congress, that way the difficulty of fixing this process is minimized. But, if that doesn’t work, the issue could be solved on a state level with proportional representation, so that everyone is being represented.

The current process by which a president is elected is out-dated and needs to be replaced to ensure a fair election.