The Importance Of The Electoral College

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.

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.

When the Constitutional Convention gathered in 1784 they had the difficult task of determining how our government should be assembled and what systems we should use to elect them. They quickly decided congress should have the powers to pass laws and the people should elect these people to ensure they are following the will of the people. But who should elect the president?

The Electoral College system was created in the constitution by the Founding Fathers. This system forms the beginning of the United States' national elections and is therefore, considered to be important to this country's history. It is made up of 538 members and a candidate must receive a majority of 270 electoral votes to win the election. Electors usually get selected to one of the presidential candidates running. When people go to the ballot on voting day and pick their favorite candidate, they are really choosing the electors for their state and then the electors are the ones that vote for the president. The Electoral College should be revised or abolished because it is both undemocratic, is not beneficial to the nation, and may weaken the validity of elections and the elected President.

When the Founding Father first wrote the Constitution the only way news got around were the newspaper and written works or word of mouth. In the 1700s most Americans were illiterate and only learned about candidates for president by word of mouth which isn’t the most reliable source of information. So they created the Electoral college to “protect” the American public from their own ignorance. This is an outdated notion for the modern American citizen and the Electoral College should be removed from the constitution in favor of the popular vote because the Electoral College is not the Democracy the framers worked so hard to create, it creates disparency in representation, and voter decisions ultimately don’t matter.

In the United States only about 30% of Americans feel they have a solid understanding of how the Electoral College works and what it is used for (Gallup). Most Americans are in favor of getting rid of the Electoral College because they say it is not fair and say it’s a non democratic way of electing a president. There are also people who suggest the Electoral College should be reformed to make it more fair for all Americans. And there are a select few who say that the Electoral College is fine the way it is now.

In this week’s discussion we talked about if the Electoral College and if it is important or not in our country today. Do we really need to have the Electoral College? I believe it is important in our country today and I believe we should try to keep it in our country for as long as we can.

Creating the Electoral College system proved trying because “the Founders struggled to satisfy each state’s demand for greater representation while attempting to balance popular sovereignty against the risk posed to the minority from majoritarian rule” (Destroying the Electoral College: The Anti-Federalist National Popular Vote Scheme). They overcame these difficulties and tried to satisfy both small and large states. The disagreement that paved the way for the Electoral College was whether Congress should choose the president or if the masses should vote. In the end, the three reasons for which the Electoral College was created were: to “work without political parties, cover both the nominating and electing phases of presidential selection, and produce a nonpartisan president” (American Government: Roots and Reform, O’Connor, Yanus, and Sabato). These essential rationales prove that the Electoral College cannot be done away with by amending the

“Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.” These words from the Greek philosopher Plato summarize the most fundamental concern of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention when they considered what the best way to conduct presidential elections would be. While, in concept, democracy sounds like the fairest form of government, in practice, it is less than ideal. Fear of “tyranny of the majority” prompted discussion over how the president should be elected. The Founders chose the Electoral College—which incorporates democracy, federalism, and republicanism—for presidential selection, because it provided for the best balance of power. The Electoral College was the product of no small amount of debate during the Constitutional

The Electoral College was founded in 1787, when the writers of the Constitution were discussing how they would go about electing the future Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States. The Electoral College is just a part of the United States process of electing the next president. In the diagrams on the page above, you can see the Electoral College in the election of 1800 and in the election of 2012. Over time, the Electoral College has played the same role, but as times are changing, is it necessary to keep the Electoral College and continue with what is familiar, or throw it in the trash and try something new?

The Electoral College has been around since the ratification of the Constitution. Overall, 5 of our presidents have not one the popular vote. These presidents are John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and our current, “president”, Donald Trump. This is why the electoral college should be replaced because only specific states (swing states) end up determining the outcome of the elections, it is outdated for our new, advanced country, and already 5 presidents haven’t been the candidate people wanted more.

Presidential elections in the United States have been run by the electoral college for centuries under the guise of a fair and free election, but people’s voices are still ignored. The electoral college is a body of electors that elects the president of the United States, but the voices of the people who they represent often become distorted in the process. The system used to elect the president should be a fair one that represents each person equally, but the electoral college is none of those things and has misrepresented the votes of the American people on multiple occasions.

The Electoral College has been losing favor for years, but recent elections have created all-new debates about its use and value. The institution has existed almost since American elections have existed, and it is deeply intertwined with the issue of political parties. American voting is highly bureaucratized. The Electoral College betrays American values of majority rule: a candidate can win the election without a majority of popular votes; some states are overrepresented; and a large number of citizens get left out, thus, the Electoral College should be abolished or reformed.

After every American presidential election, some citizens are upset with the results, but nothing has been seen quite like the 2016 election. On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton via the Electoral College, 306 votes to 232 votes (“2016 Election Results”). However, Clinton had won the National Popular vote by almost three million votes, leaving many Americans outraged. For example, outgoing Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) tried to put forth legislation to scrap the Electoral College as a whole (Linkins). America was so divided during the election that independent candidate Gary Johnson received almost 10 percent of the votes in New Mexico which is unheard of for a third-party candidate (“2016 Election Results”). The 2016 Election proves why America needs the Electoral College. The Federal Election Commission should keep the Electoral College system in place.

Overtime, America has used the Electoral College to elect their president. This prevents citizens from having a direct say in the next president. The Electoral College is made up of 538 voters from all states who vote on the President and Vice-President. The individuals voting for the electoral college are intelligent when making their decision, but this prohibits the majority of the population from electing the leader they want. Elections should be fair, but nothing is fair for the citizens who want their opinion heard with the Electoral College involved. In 2000, the electoral college exhibited a weakness where their vote was split, resulting in chaos. This is just another reason to find a better solution to our electing process. The Electoral College should be abolished to ensure justice in our voting system today, and to make sure every voter has a position in each election that takes place.