Are Americans really in control of their democracy? People all around the world associate America with the ideals of democracy, or power being held by the people. However, in order to choose the supreme leader of the country, Americans do not directly have a voice to elect their best candidate. Instead, they use a system called the Electoral College, to give more power to the state, rather than the individual citizen. Although, Americans have proven this system to be flawed, as ever since the turn of the twenty-first century, multiple elections between 2000 and 2019 have elected candidates against the overall nation’s opinion. The Electoral College blurs the general American view of their preferred presidential candidate. The presidential election can be more accurate and democratic by ordinary voters or members of Congress convincing lawmakers to agree to combine the popular vote with electoral votes, creating a proportional system which would best represent the nation’s views on the election. The national views on the election are based on the current Electoral College System. Currently, the Electoral College is the system in place in which Americans indirectly elect the President, along with their respective Vice President. American citizens vote, based on a majority-rule system within each state for an allotted amount of electors: one elector per Senator and an additional elector per Representative; for example, North Carolina has thirteen Representatives and two
The number of electoral votes decided for each state are based on the number of electors each state is entitled to represent a state in the Senate and House of Representatives known as Congress. The state of North Carolina has fifteen electoral votes and those electoral votes were won by presidential candidate Mitt Romney (winning 50.39%) in the 2012 election. It is understood that the Electoral College has some positive attributes to include maintaining divisions of power between the three branches of government, it promotes a two-party system and allows minority and interest groups to be represented. Unfortunately on the negative side this voting system does not reflect the popular vote of the people, it discourages third parties and then
One of the arguments in this article is that the Electoral College is outdated and should be removed. Then, it states that the Electoral College symbolizes "America's original sin," slavery. When slavery was common in the U.S, a direct popular vote would have the south at a disadvantage because at the time the Constitution gave no voting rights to the black population. Therefore, the North would have an advantage because of their large white population which did have the right to vote. The three-fifths compromise counted the slave population for voting purposes only, each slave being three-fifths of a white person, which gave the south more electoral votes. Another argument is that the Electoral College gives smaller states an advantage. Apparently,
The Electoral College was created in the year 1787. Before it was established, the men who drafted the Constitution also known as the Framers debated several formats for electing the president and vice president for the United States. One of the formats they were debating was to have the Congress choose the president however some felt that there may be corruption, inappropriate political issues and possible interference from foreign powers (Kimberling, W.C. 2008). The other format the Framers were debating were to have the State legislatures select president but it was also rejected because of fear that the president that is obligated to the State legislature have a possibility to wear down federal authority and underestimate the idea of the federation (Kimberling, W.C.
Our Founding Fathers had great concern over the topic of the government obtaining too much power over the people and with that in mind they constructed a system of indirect election where citizens would choose an elector. That system would distant the citizens from directly electing the president, avoiding any possibility to create tyranny. Their fears were about whether citizens could exercise the best judgement and their capability to fully understand and make good choices in voting. They did not want a group to go off in the wrong direction and take control over others. They thought that a chosen group of more educated and elite individuals elected by the people would be able to better interpret the situation and exercise better judgement. In a way, they were trying to safeguard democracy by instituting the Electoral College as the method to elect our presidents.
The Electoral College was first established in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 by the founding fathers as a compromise between the election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens and a vote in Congress. The Electoral College was established because the founding fathers did not trust he people in making the right choice. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors who cast their votes in order to elect the President and Vice-President of the United States, however a majority of 270 votes is required to win. As of today, each state currently has members ranging from 3 to 55 members per state. When ordinary people vote for a president, they are not voting for their president, but rather for the presidential electors.
In 1787, the forebears conjured up the Constitution because they did not want to allow citizens to vote for their president undeviatingly . Afraid that society was not well equipped with information to select a president and that formidable common people would choose candidates from their own state, the forebearers considered that the president should be chosen through a selected group of electors, which they thought should be avowed as they contented. In this, political parties because very tenacious than they were before. These political group selected candidates and electors for the presidential and vice presidential positions. Electors were sworn to vote for their respected candidate. What is this Electoral College? The Electoral College
Last November, Donald Trump became the forty-fifth President of the United States even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.7 Million votes. Donald Trump won because of the Electoral College. The Electoral College gives each state a number of electors that can range from three to fifty-five depending on the size of the state. The number of electors is decided by combining the number of senators and representatives that state has. To win the presidential election, a candidate would have to get 270 electoral votes, if neither candidate gets 270 electoral votes then the senate and the House of Representatives get to choose the president or vice president. This system completely ignores the popular vote and the will of the people.
America has been acknowledged as being one of the world’s leading democracies, but to continue implementing the use of the Electoral College creates some distortion to that title. The out of date system does not accurately portray democracy. Theoretically, a democracy is government system that is ruled by the people. In reality, an individual’s vote may not matter depending on the state they reside in. Robert Dahl, a Democratic Theorist stated, “every member must have an equal and effective opportunity to vote, and all votes must be counted as equal.” Political equality is important to the distribution of power. Even if a person is wealthy and of power their vote should be counted the same as someone in poverty.
The outcome of the 2016 election left many Americans feeling confused, angry, cheated, and terrified of the future. Somehow, the sexist, racist, homophobic candidate Donald Trump had become the nation’s president, though Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received the majority of popular vote. This raised many questions over the constitutionality of the Electoral College system, and whether it was unfair to the people of the United States. In the electoral system, created by the Founding Fathers due to their lack of trust in the people, the constituents of each state vote for their preferred candidate, and all of the state’s electoral votes go to the candidate with a majority. Clearly, the Electoral
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
The Electoral College what can I say to be honest, I know nothing about the Electoral College, but I will do my best to explain it to people who might know and to help them know so when they 're seventeen they know like I should. So the Google definition of the Electoral College is a body of people representing the states of the US, who cast votes in the election of the President and Vice President. I would have not given that explanation, it would have told you it is a College. So helping you and myself, I will first explain how it works, then how Electors are selected, and the qualifications to be one and their restriction on who the Electors can vote for. Then the Election 1800 and the 12th Amendment. Then I will explain times where
The electoral college is an institution that every four years is in charge of electing our President, and Vice President. In school we are always taught that its the right and fair way to elect our president, but why? When the Founding Fathers created the process in 1787 along with the constitution certain founders such as James Madison thought the process would hurt the south and under a prior agreement set by southern slave states allowed states to count slaves as votes. This gave Southern States the majority of the electoral votes. In the first distribution of electoral votes Virginia(a heavy slave state) came out the big winner with over a quarter of the US votes where a state like Pennsylvania(a free state) had far less. The pro-Southern
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
Every time there is an election in the United States, the debate of Electoral College always heats up, and suddenly everybody seems to know about or at least they are interested in learning about it. The Electoral College is firmly established under the United States Constitution to elect the president and the vice president of the United States indirectly. A slate of “electors” are chosen from each state, and they are the ones responsible for voting for president in the general elections depending on which party the candidate is vying with. From this statement, what it means is that one does not choose his or her preferred leader directly and this has made many suggestions that the Electoral College is not a true representation of democracy. This paper will look at the strongest arguments for and against the Electoral College, analyze whether the current Electoral College should be re-engineered or scrapped in favor of direct vote and finally determine if the Electoral College is consistent or contrary to democratic principle.
Electing government officials is a major part of being an American. The citizens of the United States have the privilege of voting for their officials , representing America’s democracy. Although a big misconception on this is that the people actually do not vote directly for who becomes elected president but rather who gets to elect the next president. The Electoral College has been in place since 1804 and continues to be the system the United States uses to elect the president. The Electoral College is filled with history, a lengthy process , and questionable arguments on its validity.