Persuasive Speech : The Electoral College

The Electoral College has been instituted since 1787 and is a group of people that elect the United State President and Vice President. The United States citizens do not directly vote for the president, but their vote is considered by electors that have pledged to vote for the winning candidate. There are 538 electors which corresponds with the 100 senators and the 435 representatives plus 3 electors for the District of Columbia. An elector is nominated or appointed by their state’s party and are usually well connected. Congressmen and high ranking U.S. officials are prohibited from being electors. In most states they follow a “Winner takes all” format, where the elector votes for the candidate who wins the popular vote. The Electoral College systems is outdated and illogical for the present and should be abolished.

A presidential candidate must win a total of 270 electoral votes to win the election. It is possible to win the electoral vote, lose the popular vote, and still win the presidency. This is because the electoral votes have supremacy over the popular votes. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however, because you can never have a tie with the electoral vote. With the popular vote, however, you can have a tie, because you can’t predict America’s population growth without the U.S. Census taken every 10 years.

If the majority of Americans are voting for one president to take the power in the presidential office, than it does not make sense that the other candidate would win the election. However, the Bush versus Gore election was not the only time that a candidate with the minority of the votes to win. A similar election occurred in 1876 between Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes. The Gale Encyclopedia of American Law states that “when the election returns came in on November 7, 1876, Tilden had clearly received the majority of the popular votes. However… with fewer than 48 hours before Tilden’s scheduled inauguration, the commission announced that Hayes had won the necessary electoral votes” (Gale Encyclopedia of American Law). The fact that Hayes won the presidential election with a minority of the popular votes is purely illogical and preposterous, because it does not accurately portray the opinions of the people. Because of the ability of a candidate to obtain the presidential office without the majority of the votes, the Electoral College should be abolished in America.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, yet Donald Trump is president because he won the Electoral College. The Electoral College is the system that the United States of America uses to elect the president and vice president. A couple of groups have a problem with how the Electoral College currently operates with people like Barbara Boxer, a California Senator, stating that “94% of campaigning by the presidential candidates in 2016 took place in 12 states. That was it. Two-thirds of these general election campaign events took place in 6 states.” (Congressional Digest, page 21). The idea that the Electoral College and presidential elections is ignoring the majority of the states has spurred different groups to attempt to reform the Electoral

The 2000 President Election isn’t considered to be the typical election that occurs every four years in our society. I am opening up the discussion of this important topic in American presidential history by first sharing a fact that not many people may know: there have been three previous presidential elections in which one candidate won the popular vote but not the electoral vote and lost the election. The 2000 Presidential Election was considered to be one of the most highly contested elections in presidential election history (Summary). The election was between Governor George W. Bush (R-TX) and Vice President Al Gore (D-TN). On Election Day night, news stations across the country were all giving an early win of Florida to Gore and

However, the electoral vote was won by Bush-Cheney by 5 votes. The last time the president won the electoral vote without winning the popular vote was in 1888. Because of the controversy over the recount in Florida, the Gore campaign sued to have a manual recount.

The electoral college is the system we use today to pick a president for our nation. It is a process that was first created to give everyone a right to equal votes. In 1787 when it was first created, it was a convenient way to elect a president selected by knowledgeable people, when society was not suitable for electing a president. But that was many years ago and society has changed. The electoral college no longer functions well in America today. The people have changed, and we are now qualified to have the power in our hands, and not the government.

A good historical reference for this would be the outcome of the 200 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush (Source A). The election transparently showed Al Gore receiving a greater popular vote than

The population of the U.S. was four million and nine hundred thousand when Adams was elected president. The election was the first contested one in the country! Ironically, when the final tabulation of ballots arrived at the senate it was Adams (having been President of the Senate at the time) that opened the envelope. John won with seventy-one votes, however, Thomas Jefferson was only five behind him; thus becoming Vice President. Adams obtained every single Electoral College vote from New England while Jefferson ruled the South. Thomas succeeded John’s single term in the office.

In most of the presidential election, the candidate that wins the popular vote will win the electoral votes but as you seen in the election that doesn’t always happen. The electoral college creates a possibility for the loser of the popular vote to win the electoral vote. The candidate who receives the majority of the electoral votes which is two hundred seventy wins the election. Also, if the candidates get a tie on the electoral votes the election will be thrown in the hands of the House Of Representatives. This has happened five times out of the fifty-seven presidential elections. In 1824, the sixth president John Quincy Adams won the election against Jackson without winning the electoral or popular vote. In 1876, the nineteenth president Rutherford B. Hayes won the election even though he lost the popular vote by 250,000 against Samuel J. Tilden. In 1888, the twenty third president Benjamin Harrison won the presidency with two hundred thirty-three to one hundred sixty-eight electoral votes and he lost the popular vote ninety thousand against Grover Cleveland. In 2000, the forty third president George W. Bush won the presidency with two hundred seventy-one electoral votes while he lost the popular vote by five hundred forty thousand against Al Gore. Now president Donald Trump has become the president with two hundred ninety electoral votes while losing the

Background: The issue of the Electoral College as the entity responsible for appointing the President of the United States of America has been among the most controversial aspects of the legal framework set forth by the American Founding Fathers. Throughout different times in history, modifications to it, have been proposed in the form of more than 700 Congressional Bills, some of which have even received the endorsement of incumbent Presidents or the approval of one of the legislative chambers. [1] This is the matter that has drawn the most proposals for Constitutional Amendments, displaying the discontent that certain sectors of the population have expressed about the status quo. [2]

The US Presidential Election of 2000 featured George W. Bush and Al Gore. It will go down in history as one of the most closest elections¡¦ in US history. It also goes down as one of the most controversial. The final decision was based on just a few hundred votes in Florida. The controversy began when the media prematurely declared the winner twice based solely on exit polls. They finally conceded that the Florida count was just too close to predict. It would take a month before the election was ultimately certified after numerous court challenges and vote recounts. Republican candidate George W. Bush was declared the winner of the Florida¡¦s 25 electoral votes. This was a victory by a razor thin margin of popular

The 2016 presidential election was an example of the discrepancy between the Electoral College votes and the national popular votes. If the last presidential election had been decided by a national popular vote, then Hillary Clinton would have won the presidency because she had the majority of votes. However, due to the design of the Electoral College, Donald Trump won the election for president in 2016; although, he lost the national popular vote. Just as some people questioned the effectiveness of the Electoral College during some of the previous elections, several people questioned the effectiveness of the Electoral College again in 2016. The debate about whether the Electoral College should be kept or

What is the Electoral College? The Electoral College is a system that our Founding Fathers established in the Constitution in which representatives from the 50 states elect the President of the United States. The system begins with the people electing representatives to represent them, and then the representatives meet so they can vote for the next President and Vice President. The votes from each representative are then counted by Congress and are able to elect the candidate that has the most votes. According to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (2013), “The Electoral College consists of 538 electors…270 electoral votes is required to elect the President.” Every state has an

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.