The Importance Of The Electoral College System

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.”

Though our founding fathers created the Electoral College over 200 years ago, it has been changed with time to accommodate modern needs and is still an important and necessary part of our electoral system. The Electoral College ensures political stability in our nation by encouraging the two-party system and also protects the interests of minorities. Furthermore, the Electoral College helps maintain a united country by requiring widespread popular support of a candidate in order for him or her to become president.

Despite the Electoral College system being founded by the founding fathers in America and being there as long as the Constitution exists, many people still do not have sufficient knowledge on how it works. The Electoral College does not provide honest presidential elections rather it has the potential to undo the will of people at any point from the selection of electors to the vote tallying in Congress (Shaw, 3). Electoral College in the United States has played a major role in depressing the voter's turnout. Every State is given an equal number of electoral votes despite the population and in turn, the system has put in place no measure to encourage the voters to take part in the elections. Besides, the system distorts

The Electoral College is an excuse of the electoral process, proving itself to be undemocratic, false in representation, and harmful to third-parties. Therefore, the Electoral College should be abolished, and the process should rely on the popular vote to have the leading judgement in the election procedure for a new president. The Electoral College has proven that a candidate may not need to win the popular vote of the people of the nation in order to win the presidential election. But first, beforehand, let me introduce the system in which the Electoral Process is based upon. The Electoral Process is the government’s created system of indirect voting in order to elect the nation’s president.

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 Electoral College makes it possible for citizens’ votes in certain states to essentially not matter at all. Since all of the electoral votes go toward the candidate that wins the popular vote in a state, if a state has a majority of people who vote for a certain party and a voter votes for the other party, his vote does not have any effect on the election outcome. The Electoral College system is leaving hundreds of thousands of vote’s discounted and irrelevant. The Electoral College twists each vote’s worth per state, causing the nation’s desires to be misrepresented. The Electoral College does not always show a distribution of support. A candidate could win the electoral votes

The electoral college should be abolished because candidates can win with very minimal popular vote, electoral college votes are not evenly distributed throughout the states, and many states are ignored by the candidates.

In the year 1787 the founding fathers met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to discuss and revise the Articles of Confederation. During the revision, Framers were faced with many issues including the process of electing a president. Some agreed that the president should be elected by a direct vote of the people, while others thought that the people were not capable enough of electing the highest position in the American Government. This compromise is known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a very poor system for present day America because it cheats larger states out of their fair representation, and also fails to reflect the majority's will. Many people argue

In the United States, the Electoral College determines the victor of a national election. Each state has its own number of electoral votes, which is determined by state population. This system is a “winner takes all” system. Which means the candidate with 50 percent or more of the votes in an individual state gets all of that states electoral votes. The 2016 presidential election will have 538 electoral votes, this means that the election will be decided who is the first candidate to 270 votes. Some people have seen this system as outdated and unjust. Many are looking at a way to change the system and others would like to do away with the system

The system gives more electoral votes to states based on population; while this seems as though it would lead to accurate representation the side effect of this is that candidates focus their attention onto these powerful states rather than appealing to the entire country. In the recent election, it was found that Trump and Clinton made higher than 90% of their campaign stops at swing states with two-thirds of these stops occurring in the four states with the most electoral votes (Weber and Fong). These sections have been appropriated labeled battleground states because, without fail, candidates spend large amounts of time in these areas fighting for votes. While the president is meant to concern themselves with the views of the entire nation, the Electoral College encourages candidates to pander to specific states in the hopes of gaining more electoral votes. Despite the facts, some still argue that it is the democratic way to elect a president because it follows the majority

Throughout the time line of America, the electoral college has made a negative impact. There are several negative out comes from having the electoral college. The United States has states that have a larger amount of electoral college. There are states several states that are worth more electoral votes than others. Presidential candidates need at least 270 votes to win an election. This creates the problem of paying little to no attention to states with small electoral votes. Candidates often focused on states with higher amounts of electoral votes such as: California (55), Texas (38), New York (29), Florida (29), Illinois (20) and Pennsylvania (20). It was often the strategy to have rallies in these areas to get ahead in electoral votes. “The system of the Electoral College offers power to the small, less populated states, which is unfair with the larger states. It improves that small

The presidential candidate who receives the majority of electoral votes, which is 270 out of 538, wins the presidency. Many American's are surprised to learn that when they step into a ballot box and vote for a specific candidate, they are essentially voting for an elector appointed by states, not the actual presidential candidate. These electors cast a vote for the presidential candidate that the voters have supported. The purpose of the Electoral College is to provide a sense of stability for electing a chief executive, however, this system has been the subject of criticism for many years, as it has occasionally maligned. Many critics have attempted to reform the system, especially when apparent discrepancies occurred after the election results.

The Electoral College has become ineffective in the twenty-first century due to the advancement in technology and the progression in public education, allowing one to formulate a cultured opinion in today’s politics. Nevertheless, the decision to do so will positively affect the citizens and government relations; therefore, will cause America to become more democratic, improved country. However, if it is not abolished soon more elections, like 2000 and 2016, will occur, thus, an increased amount of distrust between the people and the government. Nevertheless, Americans are already divided and will result in new, larger problems in the future if the country’s leader is unable to bring his or her people together. Therefore, Electoral College is only causing problems in America’s democratic process rather than solutions that will only escalate from today

The United States of America prides itself on many things, including freedom, prosperity, opportunity, and even its vast assortment of fast food restaurants. However, the most prevalent of things America prides itself on is democracy and the idea that its people rule. However, thanks to the electoral college, true democracy has not always been the case during presidential elections. Five times in American history the president who won the popular vote lost the election due to a lack of electoral votes from the electoral college. Should the indirect way of electing the president be done away with and replaced by a more direct method? Abolishing the electoral college is necessary because the current system discourages third parties, over represents small states, and invalidates the concept of democracy.

The Social Justice Project that I have chosen is the system of the Electoral College. The reason why I have chosen this as my topic is because of its underrated control over America and its citizens. This hidden system is perpetrated by those who benefit from it, Presidents and Congress members. Advocates of the Electoral College say that it makes for a simpler election with a clear victor and that “of course no [one] voter’s vote swings a national election”. Critics argue that every vote should be weighed equally without regard to where you live or the votes of those who live near you.