Gary Gregg of the University of Louisville wrote in 2012 that eliminating the Electoral College would lead to “dire consequences.” Specifically, he feared that elections would “strongly tilt” in favor of “candidates who can win huge electoral margins in the country’s major metropolitan areas.” He continued: As messed up as the Electoral College is, then, we’re likely stuck with it for some time. Your safe state vote might be wasted, or it might even be subverted by rogue electors.
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.
What would you do if you didn't have a say in who runs America and how it is ran. What if you were promised freedom, and told that you had a government ran by the people but you didn’t get any input in the decisions? The direct popular vote doesn’t give the smaller parties a chance, but the electoral college does. Some people believe that the electoral college should be abolished; however, it gives people in rural communities a stronger voice, it allows the President a mandate to meet people’s needs in every state, and it reflects the political opinions of more Americans. Therefore, America should keep the electoral college.
There are several people within the states that have the power to chose the President. There is a system to help it is called Electoral College. People would vote as normal and then all the votes for the state would determine the states candidate. This can help or hurt the the people for the opposing candidate. There need to be changes to the Electoral College and how many electoral votes are determined.
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
How would you react if you learned that the Presidential candidate you had cast your vote for, had actually received more of the popular vote than his competition, but was not elected the next President of the United States? Every four years in November over 90 million Americans vote for the presidential candidates, then in the middle of December the president and vice president of the United States are actually elected by the votes of only 538 citizens. Wouldn't you think there was an obvious flaw in the system? I would be willing to bet that the majority of you would, but in the case of the Electoral College apparently the majority doesn't count.
The electoral vote allotment is based on the population of each state, collected from the census. This method of division leads to severe imbalances between the decisions of small states and the decisions of the larger states. In 2010, Alaska, Delaware, DC, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming had a total amount of 44 electoral votes. Illinois, a single state, had 20. This means that one sole state had as many electoral votes as six states put together. While the electoral system is usually unfair to smaller states, in the case of ties, the larger states suffer the most. When the electoral vote is tied, each state can only cast one vote for the final decision, meaning that a “representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters,” according to Bradford Plumer, author of the article “The Indefensible Electoral College.” No matter what happens during the election, one group is always being cheated out of their rightful votes. The choice of our country’s leader should not be based on a system that is unfair to a specific group of voters simply due to their state
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.
The electoral college system is unnecessary at this point in time. When the electoral college system was thought up in the 1700s by the framers of the constitution, they believed that electors to represent the peoples’ vote would be more efficient since it was extremely difficult to get information to and from places quickly, meaning that citizens would be late on news. To to combat that, the framers created the electoral college system, a system where electors elected by a political party would represent the peoples’ vote, gather in Washington, and vote on their behalf. Because of the lack of technology, this method wasn’t a bad way to vote for presidents efficiently. But technology improved, negating the problem of Americans not knowing the news in Washington and concerning their candidates. Today, Americans have access to current and reliable news regarding their candidates and are generally up-to-date with politics. So with the technological advances present today, why do we still employ an electoral college to vote for our next president? There isn’t a pressing reason to keep it.
Your vote should mainly matter! Yes, the electoral college should be abolished. The delegates did not believe the president should be chosen by a direct population vote (of the people). They didn’t trust voters would have enough information to make a good choice. The Electoral College is where the president and vice president are chosen indirectly. This system is where all states and the District of Columbia get one electoral vote for each of their US senators and representatives. Also, each state has a slate of electors for each presidential candidate. Another way this system works is by winner-take all method. The winner-take all method is where whichever candidate wins the most votes in the state, wins the state electoral votes. Lastly a candidate must receive a majority (one more than a half) of the electoral votes to be declared president. That is how everything goes in the electoral college. The electoral college should be abolished because 12 states and D.C. total have double the amount of electoral votes but less people than Illinois. Also, the winner of the 1876 presidential election isn’t what people wanted, it was based on the number of electoral votes. Another reason the electoral college should be abolished is that the states with the same representatives dont have the same number of voters. All these issues that continue to happen, need to be resolved by getting rid of this system.
Arthur Schlesinger comments, that if the Electoral College were to be abolished,"It would encourage single-issue ideologues." The understanding of ideologues is people who blindly support a specific idea or multiple ideas (Doc E). Schlesinger also states, "The abolition of state-by-state, winner-take-all electoral votes would speed the disintegration of the already weakened two-party system." (Doc E). The explanation and problem is that the destruction for the Electoral College would make the Two-Party-System fall apart. Without this Two-Party-System, there is no winner-take-all electoral votes. If the Electoral College is abolished, the system will fall apart and leave extra political
A debate has been brewing in recent years about the way we elect our president. The first system is the Electoral College which is very complicated. Americans are not knowledgeable about it and worry that one candidate can win the popular vote and not the Electoral College. The opponents of the Electoral College propose a new plan called the National Popular Vote (NPV). The pro-Electoral College party think the bill’s risks and costs are not worth the possibility of some gains for certain states.
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.
The U.S. should also abolish the Electoral College because it depresses voter turnout. For example, during the recent presidential campaign the candidates focused most of their time on what so-called "battleground states," states in which there
First, The Electoral College prevents majority rule and should not be abolished. ”The Electoral College gives states with small populations a measure of protection against domination by states with large populations. It levels the political playing field a bit” (Williams, Walter E.). It is said that Hillary Clinton won popular vote majority. Therefore, if the nation were not encumbered with outdated electoral college. Clinton, instead of our present one, would be the next president of the United States. In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote just as Clinton supposedly did. Such outcomes have led to calls to desert the Constitution's Article two provisions for the state electors to select presidents. Before the U.S. deserts the Electoral College, let's consider the purpose it performs. According to 2013 Census Data, Nine states- California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, and Michigan have populations
Another problem surrounding the Electoral College system is that it allows one-party states, states that almost always go to one party. In this context, a Democrat who casts a vote in a mostly Republican state feels that his vote is wasted because of no way that state will be won by a Democrat. Besides, the system is based on two-party elections, the Democrat and the Republican leaving Americans with two candidates to choose (Belenky, 364). The voters end up picking the candidate with fewer issues rather than the one they support. In my opinion, people feel that Electoral College has single-handedly defeated