The 2016 President of the United States was decided by 538 people. Should such an important, life changing, event be made by such a low number of people? The Electoral College, as defined in our textbook “A group of persons, called electors, who are selected by the voters in each state. This group officially elects the president and the vice president of the United States.”(p.247) The electoral college holds all the power for who the president of the United States will be, a group that currently has 538 member of which 270 are all that have to agree on who will lead us. The Electoral College needs to be modified because that is far more power than such a small group of people should have. When the Constitution of the United States was written the formers didn’t want any one person to hold absolute power. They wanted to eliminate monarchy and create a democracy. As a way of keeping Congress from choosing the President the Electoral College was formed. The formation of the Electoral College was the way to prevent the ordinary voters or “excitable masses” (p276) from choosing the president. Meaning that the average person didn’t have any voice in the decision of the presidency, only the people that have political connections or a bias for the less educated. The Electoral College isn’t my ideal of a democracy but a collaboration to contain power. People think that when they go to the polls to cast their vote for president, they are actually getting to choose who the
Many people have questioned why the founding fathers implemented the use of the electoral college process and a good assumption would be that the they were quite intentional in rejecting a direct election process mindset and we also have to take into account that as they were crafting our entire constitution. They established the Electoral College in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. They were not trying to create a pure democracy, but had the difficult issue of having to incorporate
Despite the Electoral College system being founded by the founding fathers in America and being there as long as the Constitution exists, many people still do not have sufficient knowledge on how it works. The Electoral College does not provide honest presidential elections rather it has the potential to undo the will of people at any point from the selection of electors to the vote tallying in Congress (Shaw, 3). Electoral College in the United States has played a major role in depressing the voter's turnout. Every State is given an equal number of electoral votes despite the population and in turn, the system has put in place no measure to encourage the voters to take part in the elections. Besides, the system distorts
The Electoral College was created in 1787 to protect this country’s voting system. It is a group of 538 members that directly cast the votes to determine who the next president will be. (Green) However, the issues of the present day can’t help but wonder, is the Electoral College’s system outdated and corrupt? My dialogue’s purpose is to defend the Electoral College and show how it still protects us to this day by using evidence from the most recent 2016 election, and prove that it gave us the best candidate suited for the role of the President of the United States.
Most Americans would be surprised to find out that when they go vote for the President of the United States that they are not voting directly for the President, they are instead voting for the people that in turn vote for President. A recent survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute found that only 65.88% of people knew anything about the way the commander and chief is elected. Even more staggering though is that only 57.31% of elected officials within the United States government knew the way the President is elected (Additional). America elects its President is through a complex process of state electors that vote on behalf of their constituents. This process is called the Electoral College, and it is written directly into the United States Constitution. The Electoral College is a system unique to America, so most reform options won’t be accepted by the American people or won't represent the the opinions of the majority of Americans if this system is changed.
Our Founding Fathers had great concern over the topic of the government obtaining too much power over the people and with that in mind they constructed a system of indirect election where citizens would choose an elector. That system would distant the citizens from directly electing the president, avoiding any possibility to create tyranny. Their fears were about whether citizens could exercise the best judgement and their capability to fully understand and make good choices in voting. They did not want a group to go off in the wrong direction and take control over others. They thought that a chosen group of more educated and elite individuals elected by the people would be able to better interpret the situation and exercise better judgement. In a way, they were trying to safeguard democracy by instituting the Electoral College as the method to elect our presidents.
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 entire point of modeling the Electoral College as it came to be was not to take power away from the people, but to rather ensure that Congress didn't ever have absolute or strong power over election results. As stated so eloquently by Martin Diamond in his 1977 book on the Electoral College, "(The Electoral College was) simply the most practical means by which to secure a free, democratic choice of an independent and effective chief executive," (Solomon).
As citizens of the United State of America, one of our most important rights is that of which to vote. By voting, the general population has a say in who its leaders are. Votes for local, state, and even federal representatives directly reflect who the constituents want in office. However, America’s highest office is not elected by a vote of the people. Instead we use a confusing and outdated system called the Electoral College. Our president is not elected by the people, but by 538 electors who can legally vote for whomever they choose. Several times in our nations history an elector has voted against the people’s will. Three presidents have been elected into office by the electoral college and
Citizens might vote for the president however they don’t truly get to choose who wins. The system thinks that people cannot choose the president so they need a group of elite specialist to choose one for them. This clearly proves that we don’t even have to opportunity to be in the process in choosing our own president. Before hearing about this during the discussions in class, I did not know about how the Electoral College worked and it was very disappointing to see how it actually worked. It’s not true democracy without letting your citizens know how the system actually works and it’s astonishing to see the reality of it. For example, Plato’s tale on “The Allegory of the Cave”, the shadow of the cave symbolizes how people can have a sense of what is happening but they can’t truly see what is happening behind the doors. We think that we are looking at reality and when we finally see what is happening, it will
The Constitution of the United States of America created a system called the Electoral College where it outlines the rules in which we elect the President of the United States of America. As stated in Article 2, Section 1 of the U. S. Constitution created the Electoral College. Each state receives as many electoral votes as it has senators and representatives. Therefore, each state, including the District of Columbia, will have at least three electors. This is the vision of the Constitution. Now the problem arises when all the Electoral votes from one state are given to the popular winner for that state. This causes a with people’s right to chose their leader as votes of the people that voted for the losing candidate are tossed in the trash. All this while giving the state the ultimate power to elect the president.
Does a United States citizen think that electoral college is democracy's safety net? The people of the U.S. have their own opinions about Electoral College. Some disagree on the topics that Electoral College discusses, and some agree. Most U.S. citizens should support the electoral college because it prevents majority rule, the US needs the electoral college more than ever before, and the intentions of the founding fathers held the abhorrence in the US.
America is very different than the rest of the world. Most people would think that U.S citizens vote for the president directly, but It's actually a small group of people that a vote goes to. It is a complicated process of how the system works, but basically instead of voting for the president directly it is actually voting for electors who are supposed to vote for who you want. So basically you are not actually voting for president. Through the electoral college your vote actually counts 1.5x greater than if would in a direct election.
The process of voting today involves voting for an Elector from the electoral college to vote for the president. So in a simpler way you're voting for someone who is going to vote for you. Although legally they do not have to vote for who you want but it rarely happens but is still possible. In an article by Fiarvote.org it stated “Since the founding of the Electoral College,
When the Electoral College was put in place as part of the voting process it seemed a good idea. “Our framers distrusted democracy and saw the Electoral College as a deliberative body able to correct bad choices made by the people.” (Anderson 519). Times have changed and today’s society is a lot different that it was when George Washington was President. It’s about time that the U.S eliminates the Electoral College and makes America more of a democracy by making the popular vote the deciding factor in electing the president.
Two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, our founding fathers had debated on which route to take when electing our President. In 1787, the “Committee of Eleven” had come to a compromise, and created the Electoral College, which is a group of individuals elected by the people to cast votes for the presidency. The Electoral College is described as “a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote” (Price). The reason behind the Electoral College was to preserve “the sense of the people,” while ensuring that our president is chosen “by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under