Pros And Cons Of Electoral College

First of all, the Electoral College ignores what most citizens want and undervalues their votes. Because people in each state are voting for electors that are assigned to each party rather than the actual candidates, the decision for president is really up to 538 electors instead of the population of more than 300 million Americans (The Electoral College: Top 3 Pros and Cons). 48 states use a winner-take-all system, where the dominant candidate in each state gains control of all the electors. The only states that don’t use this system are Maine and Nebraska ( ). This system the election about winning states in order to gain electors, and not about each citizen's individual vote. It’s so focused on winning overall states that it completely neglects the popular vote. It is mathematically possible under the Electoral College system that a candidate can win only 21.8% of the popular vote and still win the presidency.. This is due to the fact that the 39 smaller states have too many electoral votes for their population, and because of the winner-take-all system in every state except Nebraska and Maine, all a candidate needs to do is win 50.01% of the popular votes in those states, and he/she can clinch the election (Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College). Events similar to this have happened in history where the candidate who received more popular votes didn’t win the election. For example, in 1876

Not all systems are perfect, nor is the Electoral College. As we seen in the 2016 presidential election, the popular vote may not necessarily get the majority in the Electoral College resulting in what is criticized not to be as democratic when the popular vote winner, Hillary Clinton in this case, was the loser of the election. The outcome of the election can be dictated by the electors and in some cases not reflect the will of the people. Also, the winner-take-all clause creates a possibility that the popular vote gets nothing even in a situation when is it very close to half the votes. All states except for

Established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Electoral College is a system utilized in The United States of America to select the President and Vice President. This process was established by the Founding Fathers in 1787, when the Constitution was written. The original purpose of the electoral system was to ensure that those who select the leaders of this nation were the most knowledgeable and informed people that America had to offer. The electors - the elected officials that make up the Electoral College - are elected to office through a general election wherein the entire national population has the right to vote. The President of the United States, however, is actually elected to office by the Electoral College only, regardless of the popular vote of the citizens in general. Thus, the Presidential election is the only federal election in our nation where the vote of the citizenry does not directly determine the victor. Despite the fact that this electoral system has been in place and operational for over two hundred years, the Electoral College is looked upon by some as an honorable system, whereas others view it as faulty. The Electoral College is not fair and equitable because it is based on population, it is not trusted by the people, and it is unjust to the wishes of the citizens.

The Electoral College makes it possible for citizens’ votes in certain states to essentially not matter at all. Since all of the electoral votes go toward the candidate that wins the popular vote in a state, if a state has a majority of people who vote for a certain party and a voter votes for the other party, his vote does not have any effect on the election outcome. The Electoral College system is leaving hundreds of thousands of vote’s discounted and irrelevant. The Electoral College twists each vote’s worth per state, causing the nation’s desires to be misrepresented. The Electoral College does not always show a distribution of support. A candidate could win the electoral votes

The Electoral College has been around since 1787 and is how the United States elects the president and vice president. Many people support the Electoral College because the Founding Fathers thought it was the only way to have a democracy without completely trusting the people to elect the president. The Electoral College process is stated in the Constitution so many people think it is the only way to elect the president. Many critics of the Electoral College call it out on the fact that a candidate can win a popular vote but not the presidency. This actually contradicts the fact that the United States is supposed to be a democracy. Many people, including myself, think that the downfalls of the Electoral College vastly outweigh the benefits, so the Electoral College should be abolished. Instead the United States should elect the president based solely on the national popular vote.

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 Electoral College system was created in the constitution by the Founding Fathers. This system forms the beginning of the United States' national elections and is therefore, considered to be important to this country's history. It is made up of 538 members and a candidate must receive a majority of 270 electoral votes to win the election. Electors usually get selected to one of the presidential candidates running. When people go to the ballot on voting day and pick their favorite candidate, they are really choosing the electors for their state and then the electors are the ones that vote for the president. The Electoral College should be revised or abolished because it is both undemocratic, is not beneficial to the nation, and may weaken the validity of elections and the elected President.

The Electoral College has the job of officially electing the United States President. After the popular vote is counted, the electors will cast their votes. The number of electors in each state is equal to the number of members of Congress to which the state is entitled. The biggest problem over this is that it does not represent us as it should. There have been elections in which the U.S popular vote did not win because of the Electoral College. Although this electoral college is better in some ways, it has become unfair in many ways like a president being able to win without many popular votes and states with a large number of electors.

In the United States, the Electoral College determines the victor of a national election. Each state has its own number of electoral votes, which is determined by state population. This system is a “winner takes all” system. Which means the candidate with 50 percent or more of the votes in an individual state gets all of that states electoral votes. The 2016 presidential election will have 538 electoral votes, this means that the election will be decided who is the first candidate to 270 votes. Some people have seen this system as outdated and unjust. Many are looking at a way to change the system and others would like to do away with the system

Only five presidents have won without the popular vote, now that could be for many reasons. Such as the representatives decided to vote opposite of the popular vote or it would mean that one party leads more of the country than the other. Then the country could be able to pass bills or agree with each other. I think that the Electoral College is needed. It helps the U.S. determine who the next president is.

The Electoral College should not be abolished because most voters actually still are not informed today. How would you feel if a crazy president was decided because of all those uninformed voters who vote for the wrong person? Just imagine what could happen to yourself and the rest of America! The Electoral College also should not be abolished because it helps preserve our federalist government. It is proven that the Electoral College helps preserve our federalist government because it lets some of the smaller states count in elections too. The states can now actually make a difference in the outcome of the election. People do say that Electoral

Furthermore, The winner-take all system is another reason why we should nullify the electoral college. When candidates are going around having debates in different states some people would like to see the candidate that they will choose. But they will

Second, there are the critics who want to abolish the Electoral College for various reasons. One of the top arguments mentioned is that it is undemocratic. As Alex. K. Rich and Heather Newton explain in their book “Point: The Electoral College has Destroyed Democracy,” the “one-person, one vote” does not exist within the Electoral College. People vote for an elector without knowing who he/she is, who then casts a vote on their behalf. Due to the “winner-takes-all” (in 48 of the 50 states) process, the winner of the plurality of the votes in a state receives all of the electoral votes. Therefore, not all of the votes originally cast count (2).

Democratic theorist, Robert Dahl once said, “…every member must have an equal and effective opportunity to vote, and all votes must be counted as equal.” This quote greatly summarizes what the Electoral College system means; every person in the United States is guaranteed one vote. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to elect who serves in the government, and we are given that opportunity through this system. This is what the Founding Fathers came up with in order to solve the problems they faced over 200 years ago. However, some have opposed this system is not fit for this democracy, and argue that other systems would work more fairly. On the contrary, I strongly believe that the Electoral College system should be kept because it is the fairest way to elect the President.

This system was Initially set as the forefathers were afraid of the “mob” meaning that they feared that a national popular vote would create a tyranny of the majority. However, this system is extremely outdated and no longer represents the people when electing their president. The electoral college can mean that the winner of the popular vote does not then win the presidency. An example of this is the latest presidential election where Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a total of approximately 2.9 million votes whilst trump won the presidency. This example goes part of the way to show how outdated and irrelevant the system has become.