Electoral College Rules : Politics

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.”

If the electoral college was abolished, then America would have a more pure vote. The electoral college delegates how much say a state has in government and limits some states while promoting the powers of others. The electoral college also has many deformities, including the winner take all system, a less pure vote, and a more concentrated support for a candidate from certain states that make it perfectly reasonable to abolish it.

So what is the electoral college as defined in the constitution? The electoral college is a slate of electors who will cast the real votes for the president and vice president. These electors are appointed by the state in proportional amount to the number of senators that each state are entitled by congress as well as entitled representatives.. The actions of these electors and the manner of how they will be chosen is outlined by the Constitution, “The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall

In presidential elections, citizens do not actually vote for the candidate of their choosing, instead citizens are voting for electors known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College chooses a President, and Vice President. The Constitution gives each state a number of electors that equals the number of House of Representatives and Senate, which totals five hundred and thirty eight and also includes three electors for the District of Columbia. Each state receives a certain number of electors based on population size. The results in a state determine which electors are chosen. All electoral votes in a state go to the candidate that gets the most votes, and after state elections appointed officials certify the popular vote of each state. Two hundred and seventy votes are needed to elect a President; the candidate with the majority of the votes becomes the president.

In 1787, the framers of the constitution assembled and decided how the new nation would elect its president. It took the framers little less than a month to accomplish this task. During that month they considered various methods ranging from direct election of the president, to selection by legislators, to selection by electors. Finally, they settled on selection by electors, most commonly known as Electoral College. There were various reasons why Electoral College ultimately won out. We will explore some of the reason later in this essay. I believe that the reasons which were legitimate at the time are no longer valid and the time has come for us to replace the Electoral College with a system

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 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.

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.

The Electoral College is a system of electing our President. Each state gets a specific number of electoral votes which are cast by that states electoral slate or group of electors. In 1787, the government extended the Connecticut Compromise to the Electoral College, meaning that the state is allocated their votes based on how many people they have in the Senate (two) and then how many Representative’s they have (Estes 256). This system requires a slate of electors from each of the states that can be selected by the state legislature as stated in the Constitution, “qualified men,” in the early 1790s, meaning male, white, and land

`Every four years our country elects a new president. Many people believe that when we cast our votes on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the way we cast our votes will determine who the next president of the United States will be. That belief, however, is not the case. The truth is that we are only voting for “presidential electors, known collectively as the Electoral College” (history.com). It is this group of people that actually elect to president. Each state is given a number of electors based on how many representatives they have in Congress, for a total number of 538 members of the Electoral College as of the time this paper was written. It is imperative that we maintain our Electoral College, so as to minimize

The Electoral College is the United States' archaic process of electing presidents. It was established in the Constitution as a compromise between election by Congress and election by popular vote. Each state is given a specific number of electors based on the number of its U.S. Representatives and Senators (NARA). This allows for over-representation of small states and under-representation of large states, while the winner-takes-all format followed by most states could result in a candidate winning the popular vote but losing the election (NARA). This has actually happened on four separate occasions, leaving four black marks on the nation's history (NARA). Despite these mishaps and constant calls for reform, the faulty system remains in

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

One proposed change from Electoral College is the National Popular Vote. According to Gregg (2011),

Electoral College is a block, or weighed, voting system that is designed to give more power to the states with more votes, but allows for small states to swing an election, as happened in 1876. Under this system, each state is assigned a specific number of votes that is proportional to its population, so that each state's power is representative of its population. So, while winning the popular vote may not ensure a candidate's victory, a candidate must gain popular support of a particular state to win the votes in that state. The goal of any candidate is to put together the right combination of states that will give him or her 270 electoral votes.