Controversy Over The Electoral College

The Electoral College is the way the United States chooses a president and it has a rich and interesting history. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, who are selected by the political parties in each state and voted for in the general election. “When the voters in each state cast votes for the Presidential candidate of their choice,

Though our founding fathers created the Electoral College over 200 years ago, it has been changed with time to accommodate modern needs and is still an important and necessary part of our electoral system. The Electoral College ensures political stability in our nation by encouraging the two-party system and also protects the interests of minorities. Furthermore, the Electoral College helps maintain a united country by requiring widespread popular support of a candidate in order for him or her to become president.

Most states are always republican or democratic in the way they vote. So the amount of votes is already in favor of one candidate or another before voting actually arrives.(Document 7). Since the candidates are always insured a certain number of votes, the candidates only have to worry about “swing states” or states that change their decisions every election. Since the non-swing states never decide in favor of one candidate or the other by themselves the power to elect a new president resides with whom the citizens of swing states vote for. Without an electoral college, each citizen's vote would be worth more and everyone could help determine a new president instead of the select few who are living in “swing states.” All of these reasons help to make it clear that the electoral college is a corrupt

The electoral college is a system that was put in place by the framers of the constitution for many reasons. The main reason the electoral college is that the framers did not fully trust democracy for they believed that people were not educated enough to vote. After reading an article from Business Insider called The Electoral College Is Brilliant, And We Would Be Insane To Abolish It by Walter Hickey, I agree that the electoral college is necessary for our presidential elections. According to the article the electoral college is good because it keeps errors local, is a testament to a candidate's desire to win, and most importantly, forces majority. In the article opposing the Electoral College I found many of the arguments to be invalid or full of what ifs or buts, and that is why I do not have any reason to believe the electoral college is good.

One of the greatest accomplishments in the history of the United States was the creation of the Constitution. It was created by the Framers who included many important and specific rules to make sure that the government would be able to sustain itself. The Idea of the Electoral College was first introduced in this constitution as a way to make sure that there was a buffer between the population and the selection of a President. They did not want a dictatorship to arise due to a manipulative candidate. In recent history, the Electoral College has been a very controversial topic. Many people do not agree with it and believe that it should be abolished due to varying factors such as the unequal distribution of votes per state. When the Framers first created the Electoral College, I believe that there hopes of what it would become have not been met and that they would not be pleased with it in today's government.

Established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Electoral College is a system utilized in The United States of America to select the President and Vice President. This process was established by the Founding Fathers in 1787, when the Constitution was written. The original purpose of the electoral system was to ensure that those who select the leaders of this nation were the most knowledgeable and informed people that America had to offer. The electors - the elected officials that make up the Electoral College - are elected to office through a general election wherein the entire national population has the right to vote. The President of the United States, however, is actually elected to office by the Electoral College only, regardless of the popular vote of the citizens in general. Thus, the Presidential election is the only federal election in our nation where the vote of the citizenry does not directly determine the victor. Despite the fact that this electoral system has been in place and operational for over two hundred years, the Electoral College is looked upon by some as an honorable system, whereas others view it as faulty. The Electoral College is not fair and equitable because it is based on population, it is not trusted by the people, and it is unjust to the wishes of the citizens.

The Electoral College is a group of people who are “appointed by a larger group” of people to represent each state in the U.S. who then vote for the presidential elections (Dictionary.com 2015). The founding fathers created the Electoral College so that qualified citizens could vote for the president. They believed that the average American is uniformed, so they decided that a few educated people would make the correct choice for the entire population. The founding fathers also thought the Electoral College would be effective because at that time the only way of communication was through word of mouth and through letters. With the Electoral College, it was a more simple way to get the votes to one place and count them. A major criticism of the Electoral College is the popular candidate may lose to the electoral vote. This means that if majority of the population voted for candidate A, but majority of the electoral votes were for candidate B, the president of the nation would become candidate B. This situation has occurred four out of the fifty-six presidential elections that have been held in the United States. I believe that the Electoral College should be abolished so that the popular candidate would win the election, people would feel that they are making a difference in the society they live in, and we should replace the Electoral College with popular choice or allow our house of representatives to vote for the presidents instead.

The Electoral College has been around since 1787 and is how the United States elects the president and vice president. Many people support the Electoral College because the Founding Fathers thought it was the only way to have a democracy without completely trusting the people to elect the president. The Electoral College process is stated in the Constitution so many people think it is the only way to elect the president. Many critics of the Electoral College call it out on the fact that a candidate can win a popular vote but not the presidency. This actually contradicts the fact that the United States is supposed to be a democracy. Many people, including myself, think that the downfalls of the Electoral College vastly outweigh the benefits, so the Electoral College should be abolished. Instead the United States should elect the president based solely on the national popular vote.

When the Founding Father first wrote the Constitution the only way news got around were the newspaper and written works or word of mouth. In the 1700s most Americans were illiterate and only learned about candidates for president by word of mouth which isn’t the most reliable source of information. So they created the Electoral college to “protect” the American public from their own ignorance. This is an outdated notion for the modern American citizen and the Electoral College should be removed from the constitution in favor of the popular vote because the Electoral College is not the Democracy the framers worked so hard to create, it creates disparency in representation, and voter decisions ultimately don’t matter.

“The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors who cast votes to decide the President and Vice-President of the United States” (What is the Electoral College, 2012). In order for a candidate to win they must get the majority of the electoral votes which is 270. How does the Electoral College work? Every four years when people go to the polls to vote for the new president and the vice president of the United States, in all but two states (Nebraska, and

The Founding Fathers worked to create an equal nation without the chance of an oppressive ruler, such as King George the Third. They hoped to balance the power and make sure that the nation was never in the hands of a leader like him. To accomplish this goal of equal representation they created the Electoral College. This created a system where Americans when voting for the President, weren’t voting directly for the candidates and were voting for electors that would cast votes to represent their state. Although this system worked in the time that it was created, when there were fewer states and people, now there are problems within this system leading to an election that isn’t as representative of the nation as the Founding Fathers would have probably wanted. Although it provides many benefits and is better than other systems of electing presidents, there are too many ambiguities for the system to not be labeled as wrong and unequal. The Electoral College is an inept and disadvantageous system due to its influence on the citizen’s efficacy, misrepresentation of the people, the chance of electing a president that the majority don’t want, and the ability of

However, it has withstood over 200 years with minimal issues. The Electoral College produces a president who appeals across regions of the nation while also remembering the importance of listening to the voices of minorities and individual states. The Electoral College was created to protect the liberties laid out in the Constitution and secure our nation’s form of government—a democratic republic (i.e. representative democracy). Although several alterations have been proposed and some opponents wish to abolish it, the Electoral College still stands, able to fulfill its imperative task of selecting the nation’s

The government should not get rid of this process because it gives power to the states and not just two states with the biggest population. It is important that we keep this electoral college because this keeps the government and the states with a checks and balance system. In the electoral college a person cannot be a member of congress and be on the electoral committee of your state. Once on the electoral committee the members are responsible for casting a vote for the candidate that the state voted for.

The Electoral College has been prominent since the beginning of our country and is still continuing to this day deciding who will become president. However, in the presidential election of 2000 it would go against the results of the popular vote. It was this year in which the battle in the popular vote would be one of the closest in U.S history. It was this year when the president elect would lose the popular vote, and upset the majority of America. It was this year the Electoral College would be the deciding factor in selecting our next president between the two candidates, George Bush and Al Gore. Which begs the question why is the Electoral College so important. The Electoral College was created with the purpose of balancing the power of

Finally, the Electoral College plays an important role in the democratic process and should remain as the method used to elect the president. It provides a higher level of certainty in the presidential election results, ensures that the president is elected by a wide range of citizens and the president is decided by informed voters. The Electoral College is a part of American History and to remove this important process would be disrespectful to the Founding Fathers and the