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.
There have been four instances in
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.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, yet Donald Trump is president because he won the Electoral College. The Electoral College is the system that the United States of America uses to elect the president and vice president. A couple of groups have a problem with how the Electoral College currently operates with people like Barbara Boxer, a California Senator, stating that “94% of campaigning by the presidential candidates in 2016 took place in 12 states. That was it. Two-thirds of these general election campaign events took place in 6 states.” (Congressional Digest, page 21). The idea that the Electoral College and presidential elections is ignoring the majority of the states has spurred different groups to attempt to reform the Electoral
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.
When Americans vote for president, they are actually voting for presidential electors, who are known as a whole to be the electoral college. These electors, who are elected by citizens of the United States, are the ones that elect the chief executive. The electoral college has shaped the past, present, and future of the United States ever since it was constructed by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The electoral college was created with fair and good intentions.
The Electoral College is a system that creates a compromise between the election of the president by a vote in congress and a popular vote from the citizens of the U.S. This results in a total of 538 electors from congress and to win the presidential election you must have over 270 Electoral votes. There is people who do not like the electoral college because the system is old fashioned and not democratic according to the two articles In Defense of the Electoral College by Richard A. Posner and Time to End the Electoral College by The New York Times. There is people who do agree with the Electoral College process. The Electoral College should not be abolished because the system gives an opportunity to political parties to express themselves in the American government, gives small states a chance in the elections, and the system is determined by the constitution. If presidential candidate does not get over 270 votes then the House of Representatives decides with votes from the top three other presidential candidates with the most electoral votes and same goes for vice presidential election except Senate decides with only top two.
The electoral college is a system that was put in place by the framers of the constitution for many reasons. The main reason the electoral college is that the framers did not fully trust democracy for they believed that people were not educated enough to vote. After reading an article from Business Insider called The Electoral College Is Brilliant, And We Would Be Insane To Abolish It by Walter Hickey, I agree that the electoral college is necessary for our presidential elections. According to the article the electoral college is good because it keeps errors local, is a testament to a candidate's desire to win, and most importantly, forces majority. In the article opposing the Electoral College I found many of the arguments to be invalid or full of what ifs or buts, and that is why I do not have any reason to believe the electoral college is good.
the framers of the constitution debated many options for determining how the President of the
One of the greatest accomplishments in the history of the United States was the creation of the Constitution. It was created by the Framers who included many important and specific rules to make sure that the government would be able to sustain itself. The Idea of the Electoral College was first introduced in this constitution as a way to make sure that there was a buffer between the population and the selection of a President. They did not want a dictatorship to arise due to a manipulative candidate. In recent history, the Electoral College has been a very controversial topic. Many people do not agree with it and believe that it should be abolished due to varying factors such as the unequal distribution of votes per state. When the Framers first created the Electoral College, I believe that there hopes of what it would become have not been met and that they would not be pleased with it in today's government.
In presidential elections, citizens do not actually vote for the candidate of their choosing, instead citizens are voting for electors known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College chooses a President, and Vice President. The Constitution gives each state a number of electors that equals the number of House of Representatives and Senate, which totals five hundred and thirty eight and also includes three electors for the District of Columbia. Each state receives a certain number of electors based on population size. The results in a state determine which electors are chosen. All electoral votes in a state go to the candidate that gets the most votes, and after state elections appointed officials certify the popular vote of each state. Two hundred and seventy votes are needed to elect a President; the candidate with the majority of the votes becomes the president.
The Electoral College is the name given to a group of electors who are nominated by political activists and party members within the states. The electoral college really isn't necessary and should be abolished. There are numerous reasons why this is so. With the Electoral College in affect third parties don't have a chance to become the president, which isn't fair. Electors are expected to be honest but in the past our country has caught some untruthful ones. The electoral College was created so long ago that it is now outdated, so we shouldn't even have electors. People of the U.S. may think that they are participating in a direct election for the president, but with the Electoral College system
"The Electoral College is widely regarded as an anachronism, method of selecting a president that ought to be [overruled] by declaring the candidate who receives the most popular votes the winner" (Posner Richard 15). The electoral college is not fair for the people of our fine country. The residents of the United States of America live in a democratic country where they have the right to elect their leader, the electoral college prevents that. I believe that the electoral college should be disbanded because it goes against the people's democracy.
First and foremost, given that our country is built upon the intrinsic notion of democracy, the Electoral College undermines the fundamental basis of our government. When we vote in the general election, we cast our ballots for a particular presidential candidate, and then those votes are counted by state. Each state is allotted a certain number of electoral votes based upon the number of Senators and Representatives they have in Congress, and most states then give all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins their
One proposed change from Electoral College is the National Popular Vote. According to Gregg (2011),
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.