Electoral College Dbq

First off, what is the Electoral College? The Electoral College is the process put in place by our Founding Fathers in which America votes for its President and Vice President every four years. The Electoral College was put in place to help prevent abuse of power and corruption by having a separation of government. The Electoral College is made up of representatives from each state based on how many Senate and House of Representative delegates that state has. These numbers range from 3 to 54 with the total number of electors being 538. This system has taken much scrutiny over time. According to Lenz and Holman, “The Electoral College may be the least-known and most misunderstood government institution in the American political system.”

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.

Beginning in America in 1787, the Electoral College was originally created during the Constitutional Convention to help make a fair way for the president to be elected without giving too much power to either the national government or individual states. Over the years, the Electoral College has undergone a few changes in attempt to make it more fair, but there is still much debate about whether or not the Electoral College is the most effective way to elect a president. Some people believe that the Electoral College does an excellent job of creating an equal distribution of votes across all ethnicities and social classes of America. In contrast, others think that the Electoral College does not give an accurate portrayal of the popular

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

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.

certain number of electors based on population size. The results in a state determine which

In June of 1804 the states had ratified the Twelfth Amendment which enacted the Electoral College in time for the 1804 election. When election time comes, Americans vote for the President and Vice President who are chosen by Presidential electors, who as a whole are known as the Electoral College. As a decision was needed for a method of choosing candidates, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 contemplated many different ways of electing the President, but toward the end of the proposals and ideas the matter had to be taken to the Committee of Eleven on Postponed Matters which is the committee who conceived the original Electoral College. In recent years, much debate has been stirring regarding whether or not the Electoral College has a place within this country's elections. For many states this method of tallying and casting votes is great because every state receives a minimum of three electoral votes considering each state has two senators and at least one representative (Lewis). However, these minimum electoral votes make the distribution of electoral college votes uneven throughout the fifty states, making each American citizen's vote count less or much more which is cause for change. If the information on these weighted votes is analyzed it can be concluded that states with a population similar to Wyoming has one “elector” for every 177, 556 persons while Texas has one “elector” for every 715,499 persons. While the Electoral College has worked for generations, there are some negative factors that give cause to abolish this practice, such that are; faithless electors, the winner take all system, and finally, safe and swing states.

The Electoral College should stay the same because if neither of the candidates win the electoral votes the House of Representatives are able to select the new President. Therefore each state is allowed to choose who they want for President although if the candidate does not get 270 electoral votes the House of Representatives decide who the next President will be. Although the question is if the Electoral College should stay the same, be abolished, or be changed. However, keeping the Electoral College the same would be more simple because most people understand it and it has been working ever since the government started it.

The continuation of the Electoral College is constantly debated. Some want to discontinue the system while others want keep it. There are several arguments used by those who want to continue the system. One argument by Electoral College Advocates is the Electoral College balances the power of the large and small states in elections. These advocates state that doing away with the Electoral College would give the states with larger populations too much power in the outcome of elections. The advocates feel that presidential candidates will spend their resources on the states with the largest amount of voters. These advocates also believe that the Electoral College protects minorities’ interests. Some believe that without the Electoral College candidates would spend their time and resources on the majority of nation because that is where most of the votes will come from. Some advocates also argue that the Electoral College helps maintain the federal character of the United States. They argue that the system gives both the people and the states an important role in the electing of a president.

The main arguments for proponents of the United States Electoral College are based on four ideals. The Electoral College is a beneficial way in which the United States elects the President because it contributes to the unification of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support in order to be elected, enhances the status of the interests for the minority, contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging the two-party majority system, and the Electoral College maintains a federal system of government and representation.

The office of the President of the United States is designed differently than many other nations “rulers”, however, it is quite similar to the government in Mexico. In the United States, the President has to go through a selection process to become the candidate of their chosen party. The registered voters in America select a party to vote for and vote for that party’s nominee. The nominee then campaigns for the general election, where the registered voters vote for Electoral College votes to elect the next president. The winner is the President with the most Electoral College votes (even if they do not win the popular vote) (Ellis 25-71). Similarly, to electing the President of the United States, the process to elect the president of Mexico

The United States, where everyone is protected under the awe-inspiring constitution. Every American has the right to bear arms, the right to speak out for what they believe in, and the right to vote for their chief executive. However, are Americans actually responsible for voting for the face of the United States? The same document that granted Americans the right to vote, takes away that very right by implementing the electoral college. The creation of the electoral college, thought to be a brilliant new way to elect the president, stripped every American of the opportunity to vote for who they truly desire to be the next president. Instead of voting for who they want, citizens vote and put their trust in representatives who could very easily

An Electoral College is a body of people representing the states who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president. There is a great controversy on the issue pertaining to if the electoral college. Eric Black, the author of “10 Reasons Why the Electoral College is a Problem”, doesn’t believe we should have an Electoral College because of the fact that there is a discrepancy between the number of voters and the number of electoral votes making it possible to lose popular votes and win the Electoral College, it skews significance on small populated states, and it distorts the presidential campaign. Richard A. Posner on the other hand wrote an article called “In defense for the electoral college” where he argues that

In terms of allocating electors to states, "each state is allocated a number of electors equal to the number of its US Senators (always 2) plus the number of its US Representatives (which may change each decade according to the size of each state's population as determined in the Census)" (Kimberling 1992:10). However, the Electoral College is controversial and widely regarded as outdated by many. Firstly, it seems to give unfair sway to states with large amounts of electors, based upon population. It is unfair that the vote of a resident of Wyoming should have less weight than that of a vote in New York, simply because New York is more densely-populated than Wyoming.

It is important to note that the winner of a Presidential Election is not based entirely on who gets the most votes, rather it relies on the electoral college. Each state has a certain number of electoral college votes based on the number of state representatives and senators of the state. In every state, except Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who obtains the most popular votes receives all the electoral college votes for that particular state. There is a total of 538 electoral college votes and to win the Presidency a candidate must win 270. The US Census assigns the number of electoral college votes for each state. According to Wilson and Dilulio, an electoral college serves as a way for candidates to worry not only about winning states