My two favorite recurring debates are "Did D.B. Cooper Survive?" and "Should We Shut Down The Electoral College?" The answer is no to both.

The debate about abolishing the Electoral College is interesting and fun (so is the D.B. Cooper mystery), but there is too much at stake to seriously consider scuttling the system.The Electoral College is a significant and major component of our federal process of electing a president.

Without the Electoral College, there would be no parity among the states. The idea that it gives disproportionate weight to small states is misguided. By allocating votes by state, small states can compete just like the big states.

Presidential campaigns can plan and develop a strategy to win the election with all the states, not just the hugely populated states that would give them high numbers. And the fact is that with the Electoral College those monster states are important in the mix because of the higher number of electoral votes.

In developing a winning strategy, presidential campaigns determine where to allocate financial resources and boots on the ground. If the election were determined by popular vote, their decision-making efforts would be easy.

They could write off virtually all the small states, because it would take too much time, money and effort to win a national election based on the popular vote.

A quick look at the numbers says that if all Californians voted for one candidate, it would take almost 20 other states to all vote for the other candidate to balance out the big state's popular vote.

With the Electoral College system, candidates can do more person-to-person cam-

paigning and maximize the time spent in each state to pull together a winning coalition.

What's wrong with having presidential candidates appeal to people all across the country?

Presidential candidates target states in which they can and need to win. But they also engage in contested states to force their opponent to commit resources and divert attention from other states.

This has happened in Wisconsin in the last two presidential elections and will most likely happen again this year. In fact, this strategy has been employed successfully in every election.

The close election in 2000 between George Bush and Al Gore called the system into question as the popular vote gave a very small edge to Gore, while Bush collected enough electoral votes to win.

Had that election been a national election based on the popular vote, it is more than likely that recount challenges would have been issued in every state in the country.

Try to imagine the national nightmare that would have ensued with a 50-state recount.

That point alone is enough to convince me to leave the system alone. Fortunately, this was only the second time in history this occurred (the first was in 1888 race between Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland race). That rarity suggests the Electoral College does mirror the popular vote.

Overall, this system forces candidates to appeal to a broad and diverse group of people across the country while at the same time maintaining parity among the states and helping to ensure the election is fair.

Election day problems of voter fraud and voter turnout violations are dealt with on a state level, not nationally. Deep-sixing the Electoral College won't assure those problems would be eliminated.

To paraphrase the summation of a New York Times editorial supporting the Electoral College, it is a wise move on the part of voters and legislators to make sure the Electoral College survives another round of debates about abolishing this system in our federal presidential election process.

Abraham Taylor wrote in Accuracy in Media in 2004, that, "The moderation and stability it promotes protects and preserves our freedom. It is one of the crowning achievements of our Founders and should be revered as such."

I agree. Until someone comes up with a set of substantial reasons to abolish the system and undo what our Founders created, we might better spend our time looking for D.B. Cooper.

Scholz is president and CEO of the Wisconsin Grocers Association and a partner in The Capital Group, LLC.