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Power Of The Electoral College

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The Electoral College has been prominent since the beginning of our country and is still continuing to this day deciding who will become president. However, in the presidential election of 2000 it would go against the results of the popular vote. It was this year in which the battle in the popular vote would be one of the closest in U.S history. It was this year when the president elect would lose the popular vote, and upset the majority of America. It was this year the Electoral College would be the deciding factor in selecting our next president between the two candidates, George Bush and Al Gore. Which begs the question why is the Electoral College so important. The Electoral College was created with the purpose of balancing the power of …show more content…

Created then consolidated by our founding fathers, its purpose served to balance the power between the populous states and less populated states. However, there is another reason and that reason is the founding fathers did not want a direct democracy. While the Founding Fathers wanted the people to have a say, there was one concern with this. This concern was that a charismatic tyrant could rise in power and gain the popularity of the public through manipulation. It would be Alexander Hamilton, who would address this concern and many more in “The Federalist Papers”(Williams C. Kimberling). The idea behind the Electoral College was that the group of electors could be trusted in choosing a qualified person who would then become president. This could all be seen within the constitution. The constitution itself is an ingenious set of rules created by the founding fathers, which has led our country to this day, more specifically a different era. The founding fathers wanted the constitution to be America’s fundamental laws and inside these laws, existed a fair way in selecting the president of America, known to this day as the Electoral College. Originally, the way the Electoral College was set up had made it so the runner-up would usually become the vice-president. This was a huge problem as opposing candidates usually have differing viewpoints on running the country and would not work together …show more content…

The answer is simple while the founding fathers were able to make the rules in advance for the future there has already been several amendments to our constitution in fact and one involving the Electoral College itself as mentioned in the third paragraph above, the 12th amendment. So what exactly changed well, originally the way the first Electoral College was set up made it so the runner-up would always become vice president, but a problem could easily be seen in this system. The two candidates would almost never have the same agenda, this in turn would have disagreements occur between the them and not allow the country to be ran properly so an amendment was made in 1804. This amendment allowed there to be two separate ballots for both president and vice president. The way this process would be carried out was the electors would meet in their states and decide who the president and vice president will be. The electors could not be a senator, republican, person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States. They’re supposed to be neutral but sometimes, there would be a few electors who will already be leaning toward one presidential

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