Persuasive Essay: The Electoral College Debate

In the UK, the 2010 election cost $75m, far less than America’s numbers which the two candidates combined can easily reach the billions. President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent a combined $30.33every second the election cycle in 2012, as a binge of campaign spending deluged voters with rallies, banners, and of course, TV ads.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Founding Fathers could not decide if the president should be elected by Congress or elected by a popular vote, so they decided to create the Electoral College (“US Electoral College”). The Founding Fathers did not trust the people to vote on the right presidential candidate, so they decided that an indirect election was the best method (Becker). The Electoral College is a group of individuals who elect the president and vice president in the United States of America (TED-Ed). The number of electors that are given to each state is stated in Article II,

The electoral College was developed at the first constitutional convention in 1787 by James Wilson. The idea of the electoral college was influenced by how Rome would elect the Pope around the same time. During the Constitutional Convention they bounced around several ideas on which way would be most effective to elect a president. The number of electors was dependent upon the number of people in that states senate, (will always be 2) and the number of the people that state had in the House, (which fluctuates every decade depending on that states census.) Choosing the electors was left up to the state, but to avoid the college choosing a “favorite” they had to cast two votes, one of which had to be for someone out of their home state. The electoral college was originally designed for use without political parties and without national campaigns,both of which we have today. While the electoral college was a good system for the original thirteen states it was developed for, there needs to be a better or more direct way to elect a president of the united states.

he Electoral College does not work the way that its founders had planned. First, it was meant to be one vote per state, which it’s not. We have made it that bigger states get a stronger vote that smaller states which made bigger stater more appealing to candidates. Also, this plan makes the popular vote not matter, a candidate only needs 21.8% of the popularity vote to win. Like in the Bush and Gore election, Gore got a lot more of the popular vote than Bush, but Bush won because he acquired more electoral votes than Gore.

The method that the United States uses to elect its President and Vice President is known as the Electoral College. Contrary to popular belief, the citizens of the United States do not vote directly for the President. Rather, they vote for designated “electors” who have (usually) pledged to vote for a specific candidate. There are 538 electors because this is the number of seats in the U.S Senate plus the seats in the U.S House of Representatives. Each state receives a number of votes equal to the number of seats it holds in Congress. This leads to a great deal of unnecessary problems. When the Founding Fathers designed the Electoral College, they did so because it was the most efficient system at that time for electing the President. Because

Every year Americans are given the right to vote for the people they feel will best support the government and help America. Voting is very important in the United States and without it, we wouldn’t be considered a representative republic. Americans vote by using a system named the electoral college. The Electoral College is a system where the people vote for the person they feel should win. The state tallies all of the votes made by the people living in the state and finds which candidate got the majority of votes. Then the state as a whole will vote for the candidate with the majority. Even if one candidate gets 51% of votes and the other gets 49% the candidate with 51% of the votes gets 100% of the state’s votes. The Electoral College is

Our founding fathers wanted to devise a plan to elect the executive branch of the government without it being affected by partisan politics. In the beginning, they instituted and stated in Article 2, Section 1, of the Constitution, the method of selecting electors is delegated to the separate state legislatures, and the voting procedure to be followed by the electors is carefully defined (Encarta, History). Originally in the Constitution, the electors were to vote for the two most qualified persons without specification of presidential or vice-presidential candidates. The candidate with the most votes would be the president and the candidate with the least votes would be the vice-president. After the election of 1800 there was a tie

The process of how we elect a President hasn’t always been the same. The structure of the Electoral College evolved over time with the growth of political parties. In the first design, each state was given a number of electors equal to the number of its US Senators, which was two, plus the number of its US Representatives, which was based on population. State legislatures had the power to choose electors, so that the federal government wouldn’t have too much power. Members of Congress

You walk into the voting booth on the first Tuesday of November to cast your vote for who you think should be President. You take your ballot into the box believing, as most people do, that your vote will be counted along with the rest of the population. You do this because you believe it could be the deciding vote for the presidential race. Well, you are horribly mistaken. What you may not realize is that the Electoral College actually elects the President, not the individual voters. The Electoral College is an outdated, flawed institution that does not reflect the majority of the country’s opinion, and, therefore, it should be abolished and replaced by a direct election, or at the very

In 1787 the Framers established a new voting system known as the Electoral College. (Brown) It is a group of electors chosen by the voters in every state to select the President and Vice President of the United States. The reason for its creation was because the founding father were terrified of direct election to the Presidency. They also had the interests of the small states and rural areas in mind and wanted to make sure they were protected. This is how the Electoral College works in five steps:

A campaign is an effort by political candidates and their supporters to win the backing of donors, political activists, and voters in their quest for political offi ce. Campaigns precede every primary and general election. Because of the complexity of the campaign process, and because of the amount of money that candidates must raise, presidential campaigns usually begin almost two years before the November presidential elections. The campaign for any offi ce consists of a number of steps. Candidates must fi rst organize an exploratory committee consisting of supporters who will help them raise funds and bring their names to the attention of the media and potential donors. This step is relatively easy for a candidate currently in the offi ce. The current offi ceholder is called an incumbent.

Since 1787 to this day, the Electoral College is the process we’ve used to elect our Presidents and Vice-Presidents. On every election day when U.S. citizens cast their votes for a candidate, they’re actually voting for which candidate will get all of the Electoral Votes from their state. In all states besides Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who earns the popular vote will get all of the electoral votes that state has to offer, just like ‘winner takes all.’ These votes aren’t distributed equally regarding population or the size of the state though, which makes it possible for the running candidates to only pay attention to to the states with the most electoral votes, and still end up winning.

So, considering that, at this stage several things must take place and be successful. The Candidates must raise money, secure favorable media coverage, build a campaign organization and hone their appeal to the voters. Then this must translate to swaying the Party leaders who also have an interest in the best candidate moving forward to the General election. The Party’s then steps in and scrutinizes and winnows down the field of candidates to a manageable few before voters get involved. They must ensure that the best candidate is put forth for nomination and this candidate must be one that they believe that the voters can coalesce behind. (M.Cohen, 2008) At this level a candidate could spend less but yet get the nomination because in the end

Political donors tend to more heavily support the incumbent candidate and the incumbent candidate has greater resources at his/her disposal to almost ensure reelection.

The Electoral College was created in the late eighteenth century with its complex process outlined in the United States Constitution; more specifically, the Twelfth Amendment. 538 electors comprise the system, and to win the presidency, a candidate must obtain 270 votes. In the event no candidate receives the required votes, the election redirects to the House of Representatives where they vote on the three candidates who received the largest sum of votes (Parker, 2016). Consequently, the popular vote does not influence the election’s outcome; previous presidents have not won the popular vote.