The Electoral College Then, Now, and Tomorrow
The Electoral College system has been in place for over 200 years and Americans are still not sure how it works or if it is the best system. Many Americans feel they go to the polls every year and vote for the president, and in the long run they are in control of the fate of our executive branch. With the 1992 election it was clear that many people had little understanding for how a president is chosen; the 1992 election came close to having no majority of electors due to Ross Perot and his third party. However, after this last debacle over the presidency, many people are crying "foul" even though they still understand little or nothing about the benefits of the Electoral College. We
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Winston Churchill later said, "the Electoral College system is probably the worst possible method of choosing a president--except for all the others (Glennon 3)."
However, according to the sensationalist propaganda that was mentioned earlier, there are three problems to the current Electoral College system. First, a president can be elected to office even if it is not what the people want. Second, electors are not punished for being unfaithful to what they have pledged. (At least not in 26 of the states) Finally the system for electing a president if no electoral majority is reached.
Recognizing the strong regional interests and loyalties which have played so great a role in American history, the Electoral College system contributes to the cohesiveness of the country be requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president. Without such a mechanism, the president would be selected either through the domination of one populous region over the others or through the domination of large metropolitan areas over the rural ones. Indeed, it is principally because of the Electoral College that presidential nominees are inclined to select vice presidential running mates from a region other than their own. For as things stand now, no one region contains the absolute majority (270) of electoral votes required to elect a president. Thus, there is an incentive for presidential candidates to pull together
Another problem surrounding the Electoral College system is that it allows one-party states, states that almost always go to one party. In this context, a Democrat who casts a vote in a mostly Republican state feels that his vote is wasted because of no way that state will be won by a Democrat. Besides, the system is based on two-party elections, the Democrat and the Republican leaving Americans with two candidates to choose (Belenky, 364). The voters end up picking the candidate with fewer issues rather than the one they support. In my opinion, people feel that Electoral College has single-handedly defeated
The Electoral College is an excuse of the electoral process, proving itself to be undemocratic, false in representation, and harmful to third-parties. Although the Electoral College may keep the peace between states and their representatives, the Electoral College makes it so that the winner of the presidential election is not what the nation truly
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 article, “Electoral College: An Overview,” written by Ballaro, Beverly, Bourassa, and Cheryl, explains how the electoral college is used and why people do not support it. This article targets anyone who is able to vote in the 2016 election. The purpose of this article is to inform voters that their vote does not always choose the president and explains how the president is chosen and the system behind it. The thesis of this article explains that many people abroad are still unaware that the president is not elected directly by the people. The president is chosen by the electoral college. The electoral college is a body of electors chosen to elect the president and vice president of the united states. This setup allows the chance for an
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.
In this country, we hold elections every four years to select the president. The founding fathers of our country established the electoral college to give the original thirteen states a fair voice in the election process. This country electoral called the electoral college into question on more the one occasion. In the most recent election, President-elect Donald Trump won the electoral vote over Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. This election has sent the country into an uproar and citizens of the United States are now challenging the legitimacy of the electoral college process. This paper will examine whether this process is reliable and valid when choosing the leadership of this country.
In June of 1804 the states had ratified the Twelfth Amendment which enacted the Electoral College in time for the 1804 election. When election time comes, Americans vote for the President and Vice President who are chosen by Presidential electors, who as a whole are known as the Electoral College. As a decision was needed for a method of choosing candidates, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 contemplated many different ways of electing the President, but toward the end of the proposals and ideas the matter had to be taken to the Committee of Eleven on Postponed Matters which is the committee who conceived the original Electoral College. In recent years, much debate has been stirring regarding whether or not the Electoral College has a place within this country's elections. For many states this method of tallying and casting votes is great because every state receives a minimum of three electoral votes considering each state has two senators and at least one representative (Lewis). However, these minimum electoral votes make the distribution of electoral college votes uneven throughout the fifty states, making each American citizen's vote count less or much more which is cause for change. If the information on these weighted votes is analyzed it can be concluded that states with a population similar to Wyoming has one “elector” for every 177, 556 persons while Texas has one “elector” for every 715,499 persons. While the Electoral College has worked for generations, there are some negative factors that give cause to abolish this practice, such that are; faithless electors, the winner take all system, and finally, safe and swing states.
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
The voting process in America appears straightforward, but it is a very complex, complicated system. The Electoral College is America’s current voting system. The Electoral College still serves its intended purpose, but with increasing political activity among Americans it has caused a need to reform this process. Research suggests that the Electoral College system should be amended because it poorly illustrates democracy, is outdated and the majority of Americans are in favor of abolishing the system.
The Electoral College is the system established by the Founding Fathers to select the President of the United States. It is important that Americans have a fundamental knowledge of this system, and the obstacles overcame in its development. There were many obstacles faced by the Founding Fathers while constructing the government. America was comprised of 13 states that wanted to protect their individual rights and leery of a strong centralized government. The nation’s population lay across a vast area with limited communication capabilities. In addition, the Founders believed that a true gentleman should not campaign for office. “The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office” was the saying. They challenged themselves
The entire point of modeling the Electoral College as it came to be was not to take power away from the people, but to rather ensure that Congress didn't ever have absolute or strong power over election results. As stated so eloquently by Martin Diamond in his 1977 book on the Electoral College, "(The Electoral College was) simply the most practical means by which to secure a free, democratic choice of an independent and effective chief executive," (Solomon).
This system needs to be put to an end. The American people are well enough informed to elect their own president without the aide of an Electoral College. The electors in the Electoral College do not actually make decisions anyway. They are just figurative for they should vote along their state’s popular vote, even though most are not legally bound to do so. Even though the electors’ votes reflect that of their state’s popular vote, the views of the people are not always represented. If one candidate receives 50.1 percent of the popular vote, and the other candidate receives 49.9 percent, the candidate with only .2 percent more of the popular vote receives all of that states electoral votes. This system is also very unfair to the third party candidate. He/she has very little chance of receiving any electoral votes. In 1992, Ross Perot won 19 percent of the national
In order to fully understand the underlying problems of the Electoral College we have to look back at the time that the idea of the Electoral College itself was proposed and see how the culture of the time and the ideologies of the people involved helped shaped the final outcome. Life today is much different than it was two hundred odd something years ago, and it’s fair to say that the political ideals and social norms around our society have changed drastically.
The United States, well known for its democracy, holds elections every four years to elect its President. Every American citizen over the age of 18 has a right to cast a vote in the presidential election. The voting process, although it seems easy and straightforward, can be very complicated. In the 2000 election, Al Gore captured the majority of votes, but George Bush won. The reason for this strange outcome and why Al Gore lost was because of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is voting system where different states are given a certain amount of votes in the election, and which ever candidate wins a state, is given that state’s votes. The Electoral College is out of date, and should be replaced by the Popular Vote system,
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.