The Electoral College -- a group of electors who choose the president and vice president -- is a significant piece of the American voting system.

During the early phases of the college, the electors were commonly selected by the state legislatures, but with the growth of the Democratic Party, popular election became the common rule.

Now, voters cast their ballots for their states electors. The number of electors a state is alloted is based off of the state’s population.

In order for a candidate to win the presidency, he or she must have the majority vote (270) of the Electoral College.

The Electoral College has been challenged since 1970. Sen. Birch Bayh from Illinois attempted to abolish the college, but could not get the two-thirds required.

In the controversial 2000 election, Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush won the Electoral College, which overall won him the presidency.

Just this year, on March 7, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida presented his election-reform package.

“As I have engaged in this quest, for me it’s fairly simple, it’s a case of fundamental rights versus party rules,” Nelson said.

On June 9 he proceeded to introduce his election-reform package that would have the Electoral College abolished, along with establishing rotating interregional primaries, nationwide early voting, absentee ballots on demand, funding for pilot vote-by-mail and Internet voting and standards for voter registration lists.

Nelson’s underlying goal in his election-reform package is to give the American people more of a say in the selection of the presidential candidates.

Still, Nelson’s plan has not been perfected.

“There has to be some way to guarantee that small states like Delaware wouldn’t be left out,” said Zaan Gast, who teaches Theory of Knowledge. However, Gast said that he “would be interested to see [the election] made more equitable.”

For the moment, though, the Electoral College still exists and only time will tell if this system will still be around another 100 years from now.

“You can’t really know [if the voting system will become better] because it needs a good replacement and it is far outdated,” said Kris Munkel, a senior. “But there are worse systems that could be used.”

“This country cannot afford to wait another 93 years before we fix the flaws we still see in our election system, because the blessings of liberty cannot wait,” Nelson said. “I believe the time for reform is now.”