In the “The Electoral College Is Important Because It Reflects the Will of the States,” Charles Fried, a law professor at Harvard Law School and was solicitor general of the United States, argues that the Electoral College should continue. Due to the U.S.A being a direct democracy, the representatives and members of the electoral college are chosen by the citizens; however, they do not elect their presidents directly. He expresses that the states have their own political culture, personalities, and traditions, and they are not the administrative elements of the the federal government; therefore, they can only elect their governors by popular vote. Ultimately he concludes that it is not always the popular vote which determine the winner; sometimes …show more content…
I will use this source to show that the states successfully use the popular vote to elect their governors with focusing more on democracy; thus, the national government can elect the president by popular vote. I will also use this source to show that people should be the primary elements of the governments not the subsidiary. In “States Don't Use Electoral College to Choose Their Leader, Neither Should the Nation,” Akhil R. Amar, a law professor at Yale University and the author of the many of the books one of which is "The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era,” argues that the Electoral College should be abolished because states choose their own governors directly; therefore, the federal government should use the same model when choosing its president. He proves that the direct technique that the states use is smart and working. He also claims that unlikely to the current election system, in a direct election system, states would have incentive to encourage people to vote. Ultimately, he believes that with an agreement of the two major political parties’ candidates, the future national elections could happen without a constitutional
Many people have questioned why the founding fathers implemented the use of the electoral college process and a good assumption would be that the they were quite intentional in rejecting a direct election process mindset and we also have to take into account that as they were crafting our entire constitution. They established the Electoral College in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. They were not trying to create a pure democracy, but had the difficult issue of having to incorporate
The Electoral College is an excuse of the electoral process, proving itself to be undemocratic, false in representation, and harmful to third-parties. Therefore, the Electoral College should be abolished, and the process should rely on the popular vote to have the leading judgement in the election procedure for a new president. The Electoral College has proven that a candidate may not need to win the popular vote of the people of the nation in order to win the presidential election. But first, beforehand, let me introduce the system in which the Electoral Process is based upon. The Electoral Process is the government’s created system of indirect voting in order to elect the nation’s president.
The Electoral College: a system that the U.S. has used over the years to choose representatives and is a compromise between election by a vote. The Electoral College should not be abolished for three reasons. These reasons are: The system helps candidates who struggle with winning the Popular Vote; with Electoral Votes, it gives the little states enough power and votes, and if we abolish The Electoral College, we weaken the Political Two-Party-System. And if not weakened, then destroyed. These reasons will show that the Electoral College should not be abolished, and should be kept.
Some people may believe that having the electoral college takes away the rights and needs of the states, but it does the complete opposite; it allows the president to meet the state’s needs and give them the power that is promised “The Electoral College makes sure that the states count in the presidential elections. As such, it is an important part of our federalist system...”(Document C). Document C shows us that the states are represented and have been represented for centuries due the to system in which certain powers are given to the states in order to keep the federal government in check. Consequently our states rely on the Electoral College to
The Electoral College is a system that creates a compromise between the election of the president by a vote in congress and a popular vote from the citizens of the U.S. This results in a total of 538 electors from congress and to win the presidential election you must have over 270 Electoral votes. There is people who do not like the electoral college because the system is old fashioned and not democratic according to the two articles In Defense of the Electoral College by Richard A. Posner and Time to End the Electoral College by The New York Times. There is people who do agree with the Electoral College process. The Electoral College should not be abolished because the system gives an opportunity to political parties to express themselves in the American government, gives small states a chance in the elections, and the system is determined by the constitution. If presidential candidate does not get over 270 votes then the House of Representatives decides with votes from the top three other presidential candidates with the most electoral votes and same goes for vice presidential election except Senate decides with only top two.
The outcome of the 2016 election left many Americans feeling confused, angry, cheated, and terrified of the future. Somehow, the sexist, racist, homophobic candidate Donald Trump had become the nation’s president, though Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received the majority of popular vote. This raised many questions over the constitutionality of the Electoral College system, and whether it was unfair to the people of the United States. In the electoral system, created by the Founding Fathers due to their lack of trust in the people, the constituents of each state vote for their preferred candidate, and all of the state’s electoral votes go to the candidate with a majority. Clearly, the Electoral
Not all systems are perfect, nor is the Electoral College. As we seen in the 2016 presidential election, the popular vote may not necessarily get the majority in the Electoral College resulting in what is criticized not to be as democratic when the popular vote winner, Hillary Clinton in this case, was the loser of the election. The outcome of the election can be dictated by the electors and in some cases not reflect the will of the people. Also, the winner-take-all clause creates a possibility that the popular vote gets nothing even in a situation when is it very close to half the votes. All states except for
Every time there is an election in the United States, the debate of Electoral College always heats up, and suddenly everybody seems to know about or at least they are interested in learning about it. The Electoral College is firmly established under the United States Constitution to elect the president and the vice president of the United States indirectly. A slate of “electors” are chosen from each state, and they are the ones responsible for voting for president in the general elections depending on which party the candidate is vying with. From this statement, what it means is that one does not choose his or her preferred leader directly and this has made many suggestions that the Electoral College is not a true representation of democracy. This paper will look at the strongest arguments for and against the Electoral College, analyze whether the current Electoral College should be re-engineered or scrapped in favor of direct vote and finally determine if the Electoral College is consistent or contrary to democratic principle.
In the “Point: Abolishing the Electoral College,” Benjamin Bolinger, a licensed lawyer who can practice law in Colorado and Pennsylvania, argues that the Electoral College needs to be abolished for the American democracy. Bolinger examines that some states with a little population have large number of electoral college compare to those states with larger populations. He believes that the Electoral College damages the value of democratic government by leaving
In the United States, the Electoral College determines the victor of a national election. Each state has its own number of electoral votes, which is determined by state population. This system is a “winner takes all” system. Which means the candidate with 50 percent or more of the votes in an individual state gets all of that states electoral votes. The 2016 presidential election will have 538 electoral votes, this means that the election will be decided who is the first candidate to 270 votes. Some people have seen this system as outdated and unjust. Many are looking at a way to change the system and others would like to do away with the system
There are so many parts about the electoral college that are very wishy-washy among Americans. The emotions and thoughts that we have towards political topics go back and forth, either way, no matter who you ask. The electoral college is one of the stickiest topics brought up. That is because there are positives and negatives about every part of it. Where do those ups and downs come from, however, and what are they?
The Electoral College is an institution that has existed for since the early 1800s, but the purpose of the Electoral College remains a mystery to many people. In a country where the president is supposed to be elected by and for the people, why is there an institution that controls where all the votes from a state go? The Electoral College should be abandoned because its system of voting does not represent the people, the electors could easily vote for whomever they want, and because the Electoral College gives more power to some states than other. When a citizen votes, he wants his vote to count; this is a right guaranteed to him and all other citizens by the constitution. However, if he votes for a candidate who receives only 49% of the vote while another candidate receives 51% of the vote, all of his state’s electoral votes will go to the other candidate, with the exception of two states.
shouldn’t either. Each state elects their equivalence of President by using a popular vote. Each qualified voter in a state votes for the candidate they wish to see as their Governor and the candidate that receives the most votes is elected. Our President should be elected using a popular vote just the same as literally every other political office in this country. Akhil Reed Professor of Law at Yale University has the following to add; “the fact that no state uses an Electoral College for its governor suggest that many standard arguments for the Electoral College…make weight. If these arguments were truly sound, then states would be stupid and states are not stupid” (para. 2). There is truly no other way to look at this, the Electoral College is completely unnecessary when it comes to electing our President. Every other political office in this country is filled by either using a popular vote or by direct appointment. There is no reason that the Electoral College continue to be our method of electing the most powerful person in our country if not the
There’s a saying that is thrown around from time to time stating that “if something is not broke don’t fix it.” It seems to be thrown around all the time after a president has been chosen in America usually by the winning side, meanwhile, the opposing side always complains how unfair the presidential election is. Some people say this is the way our founding fathers chose our country to always work and there is no reason to go back to tweak the process. To better understand what certain electoral college supporters, mean by not changing what the founding fathers wanted and what they drew up one has to go back in history.
The Constitution of the United States of America created a system called the Electoral College where it outlines the rules in which we elect the President of the United States of America. As stated in Article 2, Section 1 of the U. S. Constitution created the Electoral College. Each state receives as many electoral votes as it has senators and representatives. Therefore, each state, including the District of Columbia, will have at least three electors. This is the vision of the Constitution. Now the problem arises when all the Electoral votes from one state are given to the popular winner for that state. This causes a with people’s right to chose their leader as votes of the people that voted for the losing candidate are tossed in the trash. All this while giving the state the ultimate power to elect the president.