The Need to Reform or Abolish The Electoral College Essay

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

How would you react if you learned that the Presidential candidate you had cast your vote for, had actually received more of the popular vote than his competition, but was not elected the next President of the United States? Every four years in November over 90 million Americans vote for the presidential candidates, then in the middle of December the president and vice president of the United States are actually elected by the votes of only 538 citizens. Wouldn't you think there was an obvious flaw in the system? I would be willing to bet that the majority of you would, but in the case of the Electoral College apparently the majority doesn't count.

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.

Since the electoral vote is partially based on the state’s representatives in the House, the most populated states have more votes. This can be evidenced above with the four most populated states in the nation, California, Texas, Florida and New York, having the four highest electoral votes in the nation. The question of to whom the state’s electoral votes go to is decided by an elector. An elector is someone who decides to which candidate the state’s electoral votes goes to, electors are instructed to award the votes to whomever wins the state popular vote. However, electors can go against these instructions. Most electors pledge to keep to those instructions but sometimes an elector will cast the state’s electoral against the instructions, these electors are known as “faithless” electors. Due to “faithless” electors, nine electoral votes have been cast against instruction since 1820. Thankfully, none of these votes changed the outcome of any election.

The electoral college has a major corruption through the fact that each vote is represented by a different percentage of a state’s population. Wyoming has one vote for every 187,875 citizens, while California has one vote for every 677, 345 citizens.(Document 2). This turns away any constant in the amount of voters

The Founders built certain protections for individual rights into this country's founding documents. The United States Constitution was one such document. In particular, such protections guard Americans who hold minority viewpoints from those who side with the majority. For example, the First Amendment protects the right of free speech to ensure that people who hold unpopular views have just as much freedom to express those views as do people who tend to agree with the majority. The United States Constitution, therefore, was intended to protect the individual rights of Americans from a tyrannical government and majority. However, today, the Electoral College does not represent the vibrant democracy into which the United States has grown.

As citizens of the United State of America, one of our most important rights is that of which to vote. By voting, the general population has a say in who its leaders are. Votes for local, state, and even federal representatives directly reflect who the constituents want in office. However, America’s highest office is not elected by a vote of the people. Instead we use a confusing and outdated system called the Electoral College. Our president is not elected by the people, but by 538 electors who can legally vote for whomever they choose. Several times in our nations history an elector has voted against the people’s will. Three presidents have been elected into office by the electoral college and

In theory, they are supposed to vote for the candidate who won the popular vote of that state, but you can't always trust them to do so. You may think that they are voting for who they should, but they could be really voting for who they want. Electors also vote quite a time after the people. With the time in between, certain things could change their minds on who they want to win. "There have only been twelve unfaithful electors in U.S. history. The most recent was in 1988 in West Virginia (Glennon, 1992)."

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 Constitution of the United States of America created a system called the Electoral College where it outlines the rules in which we elect the President of the United States of America. As stated in Article 2, Section 1 of the U. S. Constitution created the Electoral College. Each state receives as many electoral votes as it has senators and representatives. Therefore, each state, including the District of Columbia, will have at least three electors. This is the vision of the Constitution. Now the problem arises when all the Electoral votes from one state are given to the popular winner for that state. This causes a with people’s right to chose their leader as votes of the people that voted for the losing candidate are tossed in the trash. All this while giving the state the ultimate power to elect the president.

The electoral college is full of issues and complications that further support the idea of it being demolished. Despite the fact that many argue the electors vote based on the popular vote of the citizens, it has been proven more than once that this is not the case. In fact, since the creation of the electoral college, electors have never been bound to their presumed party under the constitution. The book, Electoral College Primer written by Lawrence D. Longley and Neal R. Peirce offers insight on the roles and requirements of a presidential elector. The book includes a quote by Senator Benton in eighteen twenty-six which reads, ‘the elector, “may give or sell his vote to the adverse candidate, in violation of all the pledges that have been taken of him. The crime is easily committed, for he votes by ballot; detection is difficult, because he does not sign it; prevention is impossible, for he cannot be coerced; the injury irreparable, for the vote cannot be vacated; legal punishment is unknown and would be inadequate… That these mischiefs have not yet happened, is no answer to an objection that they may happen.”’ As Senator Benton explained, electors are often bound by pledges, although it wouldn’t be unusual for a political figure to break a verbal promise. Since eighteen twenty-six, state laws have been put in place to attempt to limit the independence of each presidential elector, which requires the electors to vote for their pledged candidate. Though some punishments for breaking the law are strict including large fines and in some states even considered a felony, this law is only observed in twenty seven states, leaving electors in twenty three states and the District of Columbia without punishment for voting against their party. This signifies that in twenty three states, the only thing bounding electors to voting with the popular

“The Electoral College in the US is a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and the vice president.” The Electoral College has been the system of voting in the US since 1787, but with the growing and changing of our country, it has been a very controversial topic whether or not to keep the system in place. On five separate occasions in the history of our country, the Electoral College has voted against majority rules for the nation’s president. Many may say that this is an infringement on the rights of the people themselves to vote for their own president, because in these five instances, it truly was left to a small group of people

before, it characterises a situation where a member of the Electoral College does not vote for

In Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution it states, “The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not lie an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each;” People do not directly vote for a president on Election Day. Although it may seem that way on the ballot list, but people are actually voting for a group of electors. These so called “Electors” are simply just a group of regular citizens who have pledged to vote for the candidate of their choosing. The process for choosing electors can vary throughout all 50 states in the United States. Usually, political parties select their electors at their state party conventions. They can be chosen based of their service and dedication to that specific

The presidential elector system is an anachronistic vestige of aristocratic attitudes, both undemocratic and easily manipulated. Its survival until 2013 reflects the power of inertia and founder worship. We should change it.