Spring Break
Election Day, BCS share similarities
Dan Kukla
Issue date: 11/7/08 Section: Sports
The election of Sen. Barack Obama reminds me of everything I hate about college football.
Supposedly, America voted Obama into the presidency Tuesday, but in reality this is not true. The Electoral College did.
Luckily for this country, the popular vote matched up with the Electoral College. The fact that this is not always the case, however, highlights a serious problem with our election system.
A similar scenario exists in college football. Here, we see an election system run by a select group of "experts." Here, we see a system with the potential to take the most deserving candidate out of contention.
For those of you who have not caught my drift yet, I'm referring to the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The fact that a team can finish a season undefeated and not even have a chance to be crowned national champion highlights a serious problem with our post-season system.
Both the Electoral College and BCS are eerily similar in form and function. The scary part, however, are the hauntingly similar results produced by each system.
America's popular vote has been countered by the Electoral College three times, most notably in 2000 when President Bush made his way to the oval office despite losing the election to Al Gore.
The BCS has left three undefeated teams out of the national championship. Auburn University and the University of Utah both finished their 2004 seasons without a loss and without a national title, as did Boise State University in 2006.
How can either of these systems be justified when they decidedly fail to do what they were originally created for?
To me, the Electoral College seems quite pointless. The votes are more or less dictated by the public and each state's total number of votes is rationed according to population. These
measures were instilled to reflect public opinion, so why not just use the actual popular vote?
Supporters of the Electoral College argue that it prevents an urban-centric victory, maintains the federal character of the nation and neutralizes turnout disparities between states. These points are all valid but give too much weight to states and not enough to the individual. Every American's vote should count the same, regardless of where it is cast.
Supposedly, America voted Obama into the presidency Tuesday, but in reality this is not true. The Electoral College did.
Luckily for this country, the popular vote matched up with the Electoral College. The fact that this is not always the case, however, highlights a serious problem with our election system.
A similar scenario exists in college football. Here, we see an election system run by a select group of "experts." Here, we see a system with the potential to take the most deserving candidate out of contention.
For those of you who have not caught my drift yet, I'm referring to the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The fact that a team can finish a season undefeated and not even have a chance to be crowned national champion highlights a serious problem with our post-season system.
Both the Electoral College and BCS are eerily similar in form and function. The scary part, however, are the hauntingly similar results produced by each system.
America's popular vote has been countered by the Electoral College three times, most notably in 2000 when President Bush made his way to the oval office despite losing the election to Al Gore.
The BCS has left three undefeated teams out of the national championship. Auburn University and the University of Utah both finished their 2004 seasons without a loss and without a national title, as did Boise State University in 2006.
How can either of these systems be justified when they decidedly fail to do what they were originally created for?
To me, the Electoral College seems quite pointless. The votes are more or less dictated by the public and each state's total number of votes is rationed according to population. These
measures were instilled to reflect public opinion, so why not just use the actual popular vote?
Supporters of the Electoral College argue that it prevents an urban-centric victory, maintains the federal character of the nation and neutralizes turnout disparities between states. These points are all valid but give too much weight to states and not enough to the individual. Every American's vote should count the same, regardless of where it is cast.
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