Popular Vote Should Be Abolished

The validity and necessity of the Electoral College has been questioned approximately since it was formed in the Constitution. Many different events in history, such as the president having a vice president from the opposite party, and the electoral college electing a president that didn’t win the popular vote has caused this to be an area of controversy. After looking into the origin of this system, how it works, and societal and technological changes that have occurred in the past 200 years, one can see why the Electoral College isn’t needed in this day and age.

    One reason the Electoral College should be abolished is that if someone was to win the popular vote but, the other candidate won the Electoral vote then, they would most likely win the election.

Second of all, the Electoral College system makes candidates focus on swing states/states with large populations, rather than “safe states”/states with a small population. For example, a candidate would want to focus his/her attention on Florida, rather than North Dakota. Florida is a swing state and it has 29 electoral votes; nevertheless, North Dakota is a solidly Republican state with only 3 electoral votes. Scholastic stated that no candidate would spend too much time and effort campaigning in those states, resulting in too few voters voting in those states. This would be counterproductive, as more people should be showing up at the polls to perform their civic responsibility.

The electoral college consist of members called electors who together decide who the next president should be. Many people believe that the electoral college should be abolished and voting should strictly be on the popular vote, which is the vote casted by the citizens. This contradicts Article II Section 1 of the constitution which states why the electoral college was originally formed. The electoral college should be kept and should not be abolished because it is positive for the the United States. There are two main reasons why the electoral college should be kept, people do not always have the correct information for their votes and the electoral college is also represented by the people.

The Electoral College should be abolished because it overpowers the people’s vote. As stated in the Document G in the presidential election in 1876, 1888, and 2000 the winner of the election didn’t actually win the popular vote. For example, in the presidential election in 1888, Hayes got 5,443,892 popular votes and 233 electoral votes. Tilden got 5, 534,488 electoral votes and 168 electoral votes. Given this evidence, the popular vote (the people’s votes) doesn’t actually count towards the actual election. The Electoral College is what actually decides the election. Therefore, if the majority of the people vote for a president, the president might not be chosen all because only the Electoral College votes count not the people’s. Furthermore, the population of Illinois was more than the population of the 12 states and the District of Columbia combined, yet Illinios only had 20 Electoral votes while those 12 states and the District of Columbia had 44 electoral votes, according to Document D. This proves that the Electoral College doesn’t make everyone’s vote equal. The votes of the people who live in the 12 states and

Electoral votes are distributed fairly among the states and should continue to be determined by population. When no candidate wins the majority of electoral votes, the winner should be the nominee with the most votes, not by the House of Representatives. The winner take all system should also be abolished in favor of a district vote system. If the Electoral College were abolished, elections would become chaotic, with people committing voter fraud and political machines controlling the outcome. The Electoral College protects the idea of popular sovereignty that the United States was founded

The most recent case of an unfair election was the Bush vs. Al Gore Election. Robert Hall from the Sun Sentinel says that Al Gore should have won because he had 544,000 more votes than Bush, meaning that Al Gore had the majority vote. Al Gore still lost though because of electoral votes. According to Tom Landform, there have been 4 other cases like Al Gore’s where the candidate lost because of the Electoral College. This is completely unfair to the candidate because these people won their election with the majority votes that are needed but the Electoral College took their victory away from them. The public is a victim of this ongoing problem too. The public does not realize this but people’s votes are being “wasted” or thrown away. Tara Ross says that the winner take all system are “wasting” people’s votes. This happens because in an election the majority vote wins and all the electoral votes go to that party. This means that if a party wins with 50.1 percent it is equivalent to winning with 100 percent. This occurred in the Bush vs. Al Gore election also. According to Tara Ross from Democracy, Al Gore had 2.5 million people who voted for him in Texas but were wasted because of the winner take all system. The Electoral College is ruining the people’s say in who they want and what they want to happen. This system that America has is not working and needs to

A very controversial topic is whether the electoral college of the United States of America should be dissolved. The recent 2016 presidential election has intensified the debate. The electoral college is an old system that was created out of a fear of the country being subject to mob rule. The founding fathers were wrong. America is not a true democracy if the electoral college still exists. It should be removed because it makes the voices of citizens meaningless.

It’s November 8th, and you are finally old enough to vote. You head to the nearest voting station and check the name of the person you think is most fit to be President of the United States. Heart filled with excitement, you put on your ‘I voted’ sticker and head home to watch the election unravel. Your state’s votes were finally counted, and the presidential candidate you voted for lost by 1%. Your heart sinks as you realize all electoral votes for your state will go to the opposing candidate, and 48% of your population’s votes will be silenced. The Electoral College should no longer be used to elect the President of the United States, because it is an outdated method that makes the votes of the people diluted and unequally distributed across the country.

Certain philosophies of the Electoral College infringe on the democracy that the United States of America stands for; however, the Electoral College was put in place by the Founding Fathers for a reason, and under the Constitution that reason should be respected. American Democracy suffers under the overbearing nature of this voting system, but it is a fact that a pure democracy would never work. Under this system, there would always be an inferior minority. Reforming the system is a solution to this problem of whether or not the Electoral College should continue or cease to exist. There should still be a system of electors, but instead of the warped winner-take-all system, the votes should be given proportionally to the popular vote. This

“The Electoral College system further distorts the one-person, one-vote principle of democracy because electoral votes are not distributed according to population. Every state gets one electoral vote for each member of its delegation to the House of Representatives and each state also gets two “bonus” electors representing its two senators” (10 reasons why the Electoral College is a problem).Whether they have a high echelon or low one in this country they should be able to have their votes matter. The popular vote allows parties to not have to campaign in lesser known states. “It distorts the presidential campaign, as alluded to yesterday, by incentivizing the parties to write off the more than 40 states (plus the District of Columbia) that they know they either can’t win or can’t lose. Among the states that, in recent history, don’t get campaign visits or TV ads” (10 reasons why the Electoral College is a problem).

Finally, the Electoral College plays an important role in the democratic process and should remain as the method used to elect the president. It provides a higher level of certainty in the presidential election results, ensures that the president is elected by a wide range of citizens and the president is decided by informed voters. The Electoral College is a part of American History and to remove this important process would be disrespectful to the Founding Fathers and the

The world of politics has changed since the framers created the electoral college and we need to eliminate this old system and bring it up to date. In a comprehensive study the Pew Research center found that in the 2016 election 80 percent of people thought a lot about the election and 85 percent are following news about the presidential candidates. People today are becoming more and more socially aware of politics and the vote of the people is what should be considered. The electoral college creates a chance that the loser can win the electoral vote and this creates problems like we seen in the 2016 election and even the 2000 election. This resulted in having many Americans questioning the purpose of the electoral college, having a “divided nation, and creating problems with candidates. Secondly, the system isn’t base on population. We have some big states and we have some really small states but those little states aren’t getting all the representation its deserves and even some of the bigger states because each state begins with three electors. For example, the states of Ohio has a population of 11.59 million (2014) so it should get about 20-22 electoral votes but it only has 18 because each state still has to have 3 votes so the votes go to other states. The electoral college can either underestimate or overestimate and this simply isn’t fair. To better support my stance on eliminating the electoral college some

The electoral college being abolished is very difficult and this has failed each time someone tired. Keeping the electoral college is also difficult because it has not served its purpose and is outdated. I believe the best answer to this controversial issue is to reform this system, but reforming with the National Popular Vote is not very likely. The National Popular Vote seems impossible because you need small states and you must get votes from every vote. If the national popular vote ever works to will take years and the road elections have taken we need this reform as soon as possible. The main factors needed for the reform is that all states will have a say in how to pick the electoral votes and the size of state shouldn’t matter. States should not be forced to choose a method and no state will feel as if they do not have a say in who represents them. We must ensure voters feel as if their vote matter, they are heard, and considered within the government. A reform will also help with the candidates with the most votes within the popular vote wins the presidential election because we are a country for the people. What the people want is what they should have. A reform will allow for less controversy surrounding the presidential

YES! I do believe that the electoral college should be eliminated. I think that this should happen because it makes some peoples voes greater impacting than others which aren't fair. the electoral college is in a nutshell 538 votes that determine who wins the presidency. split evenly across the population about 309,000,000. Every 574,000 people would be represented by 1 electoral vote but the electoral college does give votes to people only states. which is unfair in many ways such as, Ohio with the population of 11.5 million it should get 20 votes but no the electoral college only gives them 18 the other 2 votes go to other states that should only deserve 1 or 2 but get 4. and several other states are missing votes that they should get.