The Advantages of Electoral Systems

First off, what is the Electoral College? The Electoral College is the process put in place by our Founding Fathers in which America votes for its President and Vice President every four years. The Electoral College was put in place to help prevent abuse of power and corruption by having a separation of government. The Electoral College is made up of representatives from each state based on how many Senate and House of Representative delegates that state has. These numbers range from 3 to 54 with the total number of electors being 538. This system has taken much scrutiny over time. According to Lenz and Holman, “The Electoral College may be the least-known and most misunderstood government institution in the American political system.”

The Electoral College: a system that the U.S. has used over the years to choose representatives and is a compromise between election by a vote. The Electoral College should not be abolished for three reasons. These reasons are: The system helps candidates who struggle with winning the Popular Vote; with Electoral Votes, it gives the little states enough power and votes, and if we abolish The Electoral College, we weaken the Political Two-Party-System. And if not weakened, then destroyed. These reasons will show that the Electoral College should not be abolished, and should be kept.

The political system many of us know today as the Electoral College is one that has been in place in our country for over 100 years. The Electoral College is a system that helps determine who is elected as President and Vice President during major elections. The Electoral College is the primary source of determining who is elected. This system although having withheld through the times and stayed in place is not effective to me, and can lead to unfair elections in the eyes of some American People.

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.

Research suggests that the Electoral College system should be amended because it poorly illustrates democracy, is outdated and

system. The Electoral vote has the tendency and chance to grasp the attention of voters, rather

The Electoral College provides people with a way to select the president of the nation. The Electoral College is used in the presidential election as a counting method for votes per state. In this way everyone who is a registered voter is allowed to vote for who they believe is the best candidate. Since our democracy is a representative democracy and not a direct democracy, the people have to decide who will best represent their ideas, morals, and overall interests in the direction of the county as a whole. The Electoral College gives power to the people in selecting the ruler of the nation thus establishing them as a sovereign entity.

In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the

The continuation of the Electoral College is constantly debated. Some want to discontinue the system while others want keep it. There are several arguments used by those who want to continue the system. One argument by Electoral College Advocates is the Electoral College balances the power of the large and small states in elections. These advocates state that doing away with the Electoral College would give the states with larger populations too much power in the outcome of elections. The advocates feel that presidential candidates will spend their resources on the states with the largest amount of voters. These advocates also believe that the Electoral College protects minorities’ interests. Some believe that without the Electoral College candidates would spend their time and resources on the majority of nation because that is where most of the votes will come from. Some advocates also argue that the Electoral College helps maintain the federal character of the United States. They argue that the system gives both the people and the states an important role in the electing of a president.

Electoral college, was the system that had set up the Second Continental Congress to be able to care of the problem of the uneducated and uninformed voters. Each of the states were to select representatives to vote for the president. With the great deal of people in this day in age people are not aware of the events or candidates. Electoral college was set up to be able to represent the people with educated votes, so that they may elect the right

Without the Electoral College, elections would be dictated by populous regions, giving those in large metropolitan areas almost all the voting power. The system protects the rights of Americans who live in lower population states such as Wyoming, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. The Electoral College is a key part of federalism because it ensures that the states themselves count in an election.

The Electoral College began as a solution to the argumentation of how the United States should elect an executive during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. This system to the election provides a way for citizens to have an influential impact while also providing those within politics to hold some power, which may help guide and provide more insight on political knowledge. The Electoral College helps represent minorities’ interests, which help to benefit different groups of people allowing them to hold power. This system benefits the U.S. in helping it stay strongly together by forcing a distribution of the popular support. The Electoral College has been beneficial to our government by keeping a well-balanced system of representation within

"Our democracy, our constitutional framework is really a kind of software for harnessing the creativity and political imagination for all of our people. The American democratic system was an early political version of napster." Quoted from Al Gore(A vice president of US, an environmentalist, and a politician) Electoral college is defined as “a body of people representing the states of United States, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president. ” It is also a system of check and balances which means it makes sure that all organisms have equal amount of power.

Electoral College is a block, or weighed, voting system that is designed to give more power to the states with more votes, but allows for small states to swing an election, as happened in 1876. Under this system, each state is assigned a specific number of votes that is proportional to its population, so that each state's power is representative of its population. So, while winning the popular vote may not ensure a candidate's victory, a candidate must gain popular support of a particular state to win the votes in that state. The goal of any candidate is to put together the right combination of states that will give him or her 270 electoral votes.

For decades, Canadians have been defending their right to have a fair and open electoral system. Since its creation in 1867, Canada has been proud to call itself a true democratic country, but today there would be many people who disagree with this statement. The Canadian electoral system, which uses First Past The Post (FPTP), has come under scrutiny for not being as fair as it claims to be. Over the past couple of decades, many countries have switched their system to Proportional Representation (PR) or some form of it. Based on successful results in other nations, Canada’s current FPTP system should change to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), which is a form of Proportional Representation, as it will allow for more fair elections. The intent of this paper is to outline how an electoral reform from First Past the Post to Proportional Representation or Mixed-Member Proportional, will lead to more confidence in the government, more accurate seat-vote percentage, and better overall representation of the population.