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Rhetorical Analysis : The Electoral College

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Rhetorical Analysis: The primary audience for this paper includes every citizen aged eighteen and above eligible to vote in the United States. The proposed topic mostly concerns these individuals due to the fact, they are affected by presidential voting institutions. Throughout this paper, I will be arguing in favor of the Electoral College, with an end goal of persuading my audience of the benefits of the system.
MWA #1:
The Electoral College is a constitutional system written in 1787, in this system “each state selects as many electors as it has representatives in Congress”, members of the college casts ballots for individuals, the individual with the most electoral votes becomes the President of the United States (Shelley 80). It is
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“From 1972 to 2012, citizens 18-29 turned out at a rate 15 to 20 points lower than citizens 30 years older” from this data we can conclude that age is a demographic that affects voter turnout (What Affects Voter Turnout). Voting laws such as those of identification or registration impact voter turnout. For example, the introduction of early voting was meant to increase voter turnout, but has in fact decreased turnout (What Affects Voter Turnout). In response to the argument that the system lowers voter turnout rate, one should take the many other variables that contribute to turnout into account.
The argument that the Electoral College is undemocratic is correct, the system is undemocratic due to the fact, that it is the electors who elect the president, not individuals. While the Electoral College is technically undemocratic it is still a fair system. “Virtually all states award all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in the state’, even so it is possible for the winner of the electoral vote to lose the popular vote which we’ve seen in the 2000 election between Bush and Gore. This is an example of a flaw in the system, but a single flaw does not justify abolishing the system altogether (Posner).
Another common argument against the Electoral College is that it favors the interests of smaller states. However, according to J. Banzhaf who applied game-theoretic mathematics to the Electoral College system that invalidates this argument.
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