Reasons For The Electoral College

Many people have questioned why the founding fathers implemented the use of the electoral college process and a good assumption would be that the they were quite intentional in rejecting a direct election process mindset and we also have to take into account that as they were crafting our entire constitution. They established the Electoral College in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and the election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. They were not trying to create a pure democracy, but had the difficult issue of having to incorporate

Research suggests that the Electoral College system should be amended because it poorly illustrates democracy, is outdated and

One might question why the country didn't just begin to elect their presidents with a direct election system. Was the idea never suggested? On the contrary, it was suggested before that of the Electoral College. The main reason the thought wasn't taken seriously is because, "…the worry was that, in a vast country with fitful communications, ordinary citizens were likely to know next to nothing about would-be Presidents from afar. Someone in, say, Georgia 'would be unable to assess the qualifications' of an aspiring President from Massachusetts, and thus couldn't vote intelligently," (Solomon). "The prospect of a direct popular vote also upset the small states, which spent the entire Constitutional Convention trying to stop the populous, powerful states (such as Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts) from taking over. When Gouverneur Morris suggested that the President "ought to be elected by the people at large," Roger Sherman of Connecticut offered a Bronx cheer. "The people at large," he

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.

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.

When the Framers began working on the Constitution, they wanted to create a government which could survive centuries with minimal changes. One of the most important ideas the Framers included in the Constitution was the Electoral College. They believed it to be very important because it would prevent the direct election of a president. As Hamilton explained, “the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station”(Federalist 68). This means that the Framers did not trust the people of the U.S. to make smart decisions on their own and wanted a way to control the voting. This was because the Framers feared that a charismatic leader could persuade a population of his views and end up creating a dictatorship. By using the Electoral College, the Framers believed that it would insure that a qualified person would take office. Another reason that the Framers created the Electoral College was to give smaller states more power. The Framers made it so that each state would have the same number of electoral votes as members in congress. This satisfied the smaller states. It meant that each person's’ vote in smaller states counted for more than those who lived in larger states. Overall, the Electoral college was put into place as a safety net for

The Electoral College has changed dramatically since its institution in the 18th century, thus creating a disruption to modern elections. Therefore, the electoral college must be eliminated.

In my honest opinion, I think the electoral college should be done away with. People may disagree, but here’s my argument. When voting for a president, someone who is going to have a majority of the power in his/her hands, yes some people may think irrationally. But the founding fathers weren’t thinking about the future per say. They were only trying to make sure that for the next couple of years voting would be fair. Were they really thinking 100 years ahead? If we were to do away with the electoral college, we would’ve had a different president today. Instead of making our nation happy, we try to mask the fact that we’re being unfair, while trying to be fair. When a majority of people vote for one candidate, and the other candidate wins, people get upset. We didn’t want to give power to high-populated states, The two main political parties can count on winning the electoral

Another major fault of the Electoral College is the fact that it allows for a tie during the official Presidential race while on the other hand a popular vote would almost never result in a tie. In order to win the Presidency a candidate must receive a minimum of 269 electoral votes during the official election. There are exactly 538 electoral votes available for each candidate to win, one for each member of the Senate and the House of Representatives combined. The math shows that 538 divided by two is exactly 269 votes, one vote shy of the needed majority to become President. If each candidate was voted for 269 times during the official elections, no candidate would become President right away. Founding Fathers also did the math when the Electoral

There’s a saying that is thrown around from time to time stating that “if something is not broke don’t fix it.” It seems to be thrown around all the time after a president has been chosen in America usually by the winning side, meanwhile, the opposing side always complains how unfair the presidential election is. Some people say this is the way our founding fathers chose our country to always work and there is no reason to go back to tweak the process. To better understand what certain electoral college supporters, mean by not changing what the founding fathers wanted and what they drew up one has to go back in history.

It would seem that the founding fathers were a lot smarter than we give them credit for in 1792. This was the year the College, as we call it today the Electoral College, ratified in the Constitution of the United States of America by the colonies. This would also start the longest continuous debate our nation has ever experienced over a single political issue that continues even today. This debate came center stage during the election of 1800 when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (Jefferson’s Vice President running mate)received the same number of electoral votes for President even though they were running mates (http://www.ushistory.org/us/20a.asp). This tie would lead to changes to the Electoral College of their day and the foundation for the 12th Amendment to our Constitution.

The electoral college system is unnecessary at this point in time. When the electoral college system was thought up in the 1700s by the framers of the constitution, they believed that electors to represent the peoples’ vote would be more efficient since it was extremely difficult to get information to and from places quickly, meaning that citizens would be late on news. To to combat that, the framers created the electoral college system, a system where electors elected by a political party would represent the peoples’ vote, gather in Washington, and vote on their behalf. Because of the lack of technology, this method wasn’t a bad way to vote for presidents efficiently. But technology improved, negating the problem of Americans not knowing the news in Washington and concerning their candidates. Today, Americans have access to current and reliable news regarding their candidates and are generally up-to-date with politics. So with the technological advances present today, why do we still employ an electoral college to vote for our next president? There isn’t a pressing reason to keep it.

The Electoral College is the constitutional language of the country, the most popular state of the country should be the electoral college of state. The Electoral College has a specific way or procedure of working. The working of the Electoral College can be classified into different sections. It should appoint the manner as the legislature. The number of electors in the Electoral College should be equal to the number of representatives of senate that have been entitled by Congress. The main purpose of the Electoral College is to observe that the president of state has been selected wisely and all the procedure of election have been followed.

When the Electoral College was put in place as part of the voting process it seemed a good idea. “Our framers distrusted democracy and saw the Electoral College as a deliberative body able to correct bad choices made by the people.” (Anderson 519). Times have changed and today’s society is a lot different that it was when George Washington was President. It’s about time that the U.S eliminates the Electoral College and makes America more of a democracy by making the popular vote the deciding factor in electing the president.

The original framers of the constitution obviously preferred the electoral system to a direct popular election. The argument that historians give for this is that they preferred this system