Electoral College Dbq

This strategy includes spending a lot of time and money on only a certain amount of important states. Candidates will often win the election by winning over states, not people. A video source states, “you can become president with only twenty-two percent of the popular vote” (Doc H). This evidence supports the fact that the electoral college causes elections to be based on a fewer amount of electors, rather than the large population. Many candidates have used this strategy to win the election but it has not been stopped. “And so for the second time in 16 years, the candidate who lost the popular vote has won the presidency. Unlike 2000, it wasn’t even close” (Doc L). This shows how candidates have done this more than once to win unfairly, and have still been elected president. This system of presidential elections is causing many citizens to doubt the

1787 saw the creation of the Electoral College due to he public lacking enough knowledge to make an enlightened decision on whom to vote for. However, now things are much different in the 21st Century than they were in the 1700’s. Due to new technological innovations, we are able to actually look into our candidate and truly decide if he/she is the one we want to vote for. It for this, and many other reasons that the Electoral College is outdated and unfair, and the Government should shift to the more direct popular vote.

Finally, the electoral college has a purpose for electing our President; it allows smaller states to be well represented, minorities to be heard, aversion from tyranny, and helps us get to know our future leaders. Without it there would not only be chaos but also could result in a tyrannical government. There would also be problems between the

Even though the Electoral college worked in the past it isn’t working for the present. The Electoral College was created to help elect a president. How that works is the 50 states are assigned so many voting representatives depending on population in that state. This worked in the past due to most states population was equal but in present times its not so some states have more of a say so in electing the president of The United States. Even though the Electoral College worked in the past, it needs to be change for the present and these reasons are; it gives bigger states more votes and is unfair to smaller states (Clayton)

Certain philosophies of the Electoral College infringe on the democracy that the United States of America stands for; however, the Electoral College was put in place by the Founding Fathers for a reason, and under the Constitution that reason should be respected. American Democracy suffers under the overbearing nature of this voting system, but it is a fact that a pure democracy would never work. Under this system, there would always be an inferior minority. Reforming the system is a solution to this problem of whether or not the Electoral College should continue or cease to exist. There should still be a system of electors, but instead of the warped winner-take-all system, the votes should be given proportionally to the popular vote. This

"The Electoral College is widely regarded as an anachronism, method of selecting a president that ought to be [overruled] by declaring the candidate who receives the most popular votes the winner" (Posner Richard 15). The electoral college is not fair for the people of our fine country. The residents of the United States of America live in a democratic country where they have the right to elect their leader, the electoral college prevents that. I believe that the electoral college should be disbanded because it goes against the people's democracy.

Whichever candidate gets the majority of votes within that state, then that is who the state in whole votes for. The problem I found with that is it could possibly mean the loser of the election ultimately wins. In our recent election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, it was proven that Clinton had more votes than Trump. Approximately 2,864,974 more votes. If she is more popular with the people than Donald Trump, how come she is not our 45th president? It is because of the Electoral College that the people’s vote was lost and ultimately won Trump. In the aftermath, I believe Trump has caused many problems. According to Eric Levitz of NY Magazine, “President Trump’s proposed budget would increase defense spending by $54 billion- while slashing funding for medical research, climate science, public housing, and education, aid to the indigent, developing grants for poor and rural areas, infrastructure, and many, many other things.” Also, hate crime rose. According to the Sothern Poverty Law Centre, it has been reported that there have been 900 incidents of hate crimes in the last 10 days that Trump was inaugurated. Also at a Michigan Civils Right Commission meeting, it was reported that there had been 65 incidents of hate crimes in Michigan alone. The solution to the Electoral College is direct voting. To prevent unqualified candidates from winning the presidency without having the majority of the nation’s support, a bill should be passed to where presidency is chosen by popular votes instead of electoral. This bill would ensure that each vote in every state is counted for and not just that state’s

The final fundamental problem with the Electoral College is its’ violations of political equality. In his article “Why the Electoral College Is Bad For America” for the Yale University Press (YUP), George C. Edwards goes on to illustrate how fundamentally non-neutral a counting device the electoral college is. For example, if one were to win 12 states, and the District of Columbia, with the fewest electoral votes, you would be handed 44 votes. On the other hand, if you were to win the state of Illinois, a state endowed with 20 electoral votes, and a population as of 2004 of 12,830,632, you would still not have as much as you would’ve if you had won those twelve state. The major problem in this system is that combined those areas have 329,910 less people then Illinois, illustrating that in the convoluted and complex system that is the college, size of population is by no means a guarantee of a state's significance in the Electoral

Since the beginning of U.S. presidential elections, the Electoral College has held the responsibility of choosing the nation’s next president. With 538 electors in the Electoral College, presidential candidates must win a majority of 270 votes from states across the U.S. to have victory in the general election. Forty-eight out of fifty states hold winner-take-all elections, which means that the candidate that wins the majority in each individual state wins the entirety of that state’s electoral votes. Unfortunately, this system is not precise; there has not been one presidential election when the political minority had a fair impact on determining whom won. In addition, candidates tend to ignore states that are not directly beneficial to their campaign. However, the worst consequence of this system is that U.S. voters do not always receive the president of their choice. In fact, four historical presidential elections, including the election of 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000, have resulted in the popular vote’s choice losing. Contrary to the Electoral College, proportional representation (PR) systems allocate electoral votes proportionately, based off of percentages voters cast, and, therefore, do not include the winner-take-all strategy. Thus, Congress should enact a proportional allocation of the electoral vote system in replacement of the Electoral College to ensure that political minorities have a fair voice in elections, candidate bias for swing states is not present, and

At first, when the founding fathers created the Electoral College, it was meant to be an effective method of choosing the president, but now, this system only does harm to the nation. Back when most citizens in the US were not educated, this group of representatives was to cast votes for the president in a professional, knowledged way. Theoretically, the delegates were supposed to represent their state and its people while expressing their own thoughts; however, in reality, it only contradicts the idea that people are the source of the government’s powers. To make matters worse, it does not work in our society today or like it was intended. Not only is this system outdated, it has created many errors and political inequality in recent years.

First and foremost, the Electoral College is anachronistic. The framers established it in order to ensure that only those educated enough to make a well informed choice and vote for a president who would be best suited for the job. At the time, not very many people were educated enough, but now this is not the case. The majority of the population has the capacity to make a well informed decision, especially since American Government is a required course for high school students. More importantly though, the Electoral College further promotes partisanship. Because most states identify as either Democratic or Republican, a Presidential Candidate can count on a state that is affiliated to their party to vote for them. This further solidifies the identity associated with party affiliation, therefore strengthening partisanship.

The electoral college is an outdated system used to elect the President of The United States of America. This outdated system, created in 1787 during the constitutional convention, not only makes it almost impossible for the average American's vote to count, it is no longer favored by a majority of Americans; it also suppresses the vote of already marginalized groups of American citizens, therefore this oppressive voting system should be replaced by the much more favored popular voting system.

Politics can be difficult to understand but everything has a purpose and the purpose of the Electoral College is to, “The first purpose was to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President. The second as part of the structure of the government that gave extra power to the smaller states.” There is a variety of elements that play a huge role in our government. Voting is one of them. Majority of society believes that it is the people who elects executive positions. However, that is not the ultimate case. The Electoral College is super important. This is because “It Reflects the will of

As I said above the Electoral College has been how we elected presidents since the beginning of our country, this means it doesn’t come without merits. It gives little states more representation, states like Iowa and Wyoming, not small in stature but rather in population. This means Wyoming, which has a population of roughly 586,107, has three votes, two from its two Senators and one from its representative in the House of Representatives. This still gives Wyoming some power, while states like California have 38,558,711 more people, but only 52 more votes. Without a system giving Wyoming some votes, highly populated states would have even more power. This means people running for president would only visit the states with the most people, which translates to the most votes. Another aspect of the Electoral College not often explored is it’s consistency. What I mean by this is we always get a president, not matter

The abolishment of the electoral college has been a highly debated political topic since it was first established by our founding fathers. The Electoral College is a voting system that was put in place by the founding fathers back in 1787. When voters casts their ballots, they are actually voting for the presidential electors. Each state is guaranteed at least 3 electoral votes. The number of electors a state has is equivalent to the number of representatives they have plus the 2 seats in Senate.In total there are 538 electoral votes; including the 3 from D.C. electors. However the Presidential candidates need at least 270 votes to win the election. However, this electoral system has created quite an uproar among people since the last election. The electoral college has limited democracy to people in three major ways: by having the ability to alter results of the election over the popular vote, discriminating candidates to campaign in certain states, and subsidize the decline in voter turnout.