The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

The Electoral College was created in 1787 to protect this country’s voting system. It is a group of 538 members that directly cast the votes to determine who the next president will be. (Green) However, the issues of the present day can’t help but wonder, is the Electoral College’s system outdated and corrupt? My dialogue’s purpose is to defend the Electoral College and show how it still protects us to this day by using evidence from the most recent 2016 election, and prove that it gave us the best candidate suited for the role of the President of the United States.

Every time there is an election in the United States, the debate of Electoral College always heats up, and suddenly everybody seems to know about or at least they are interested in learning about it. The Electoral College is firmly established under the United States Constitution to elect the president and the vice president of the United States indirectly. A slate of “electors” are chosen from each state, and they are the ones responsible for voting for president in the general elections depending on which party the candidate is vying with. From this statement, what it means is that one does not choose his or her preferred leader directly and this has made many suggestions that the Electoral College is not a true representation of democracy. This paper will look at the strongest arguments for and against the Electoral College, analyze whether the current Electoral College should be re-engineered or scrapped in favor of direct vote and finally determine if the Electoral College is consistent or contrary to democratic principle.

“I’m sorry we ever invented the electoral college” Al Gore. Many think the electoral college is a great thing, others? Not so much. If you’re unaware of what the electoral college is, it’s a process, not a place. The founding fathers established it in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. There’s pros and cons of the electoral college, and by the end of this essay you may decide if you’re for or against it.

In the “Point: Abolishing the Electoral College,” Benjamin Bolinger, a licensed lawyer who can practice law in Colorado and Pennsylvania, argues that the Electoral College needs to be abolished for the American democracy. Bolinger examines that some states with a little population have large number of electoral college compare to those states with larger populations. He believes that the Electoral College damages the value of democratic government by leaving

Is it possible that the heart of the election process hurt the principles of democracy more than it helps? The Electoral College has existed since the time of the Founding Fathers leading many to believe it is a crucial aspect of the election process meant to protect the ideals of democracy. In truth, this system has largely hindered the possibility of a representative government. Thus, the Electoral College is archaic and anti-democratic, supporting unfair election practices such as underrepresentation and must be abolished.

The Electoral College should be disbanded or fixed because this system is going against the idea of democracy. We as Americans believe that we are voting for a candidate to become the president every four years but

Many people hail the Electoral College as democratic, but the 2016 Presidential Election was anything except democratic. The highly scrutinized leader, Donald J. Trump, won a majority of the Electoral College, sealing his place as the Forty-Fifth President of the United States, but did not receive the majority of votes, as the popular vote went to Hillary Clinton. The results of previous elections have not reflected the people’s opinions, and it disenfranchised millions of Americans. Although the Electoral College is outlined in the United States Constitution, it reflects the needs of an eighteenth century society (Amar, 2016). Because the Electoral College does not meet the needs of a twenty-first century society, it should be replaced by a national popular vote where voter registration is based on a test regarding basic knowledge of the United States government.

The Electoral College is an outmoded system which denies the American people the right to elect their president democratically and should be abolished and

The Electoral College has long been controversial, and is subject to both criticism and defense. To understand why either side is valid we must look at its values and its weaknesses, its pros and cons. The Electoral College was devised to proportionally dole out the power of selecting our executives geographically. In doing so the Electoral College gives otherwise marginalized portions of the U.S. population a voice. Adversely the Electoral College can be seen as an obstruction to democracy and the will of the people. Whether or not the Electoral College serves the best interests of all the people in United States is up to debate. This paper functions to reveal what validities either argument may include.

Bob Barr, a former member of the House of Representatives, writes, “This certainly is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they envisioned the Electoral College and how it should work” (“The Pros and Cons” 31). After many revisions of the system, it has become a completely different system than what it used to be and what it was meant to be.

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.

Many people ask themselves this question: should the electoral system be abolished? Some answers are yes, others are no, others maybe don’t know. I think that Electoral College should not be abolished but instead it should be reformed. First of all let’s define what the Electoral College is and how it works. Many do not believe that voters are not well informed about the candidates and cannot make good elections, which is why the Electoral College was seen as a way to help with this issue. “The Electoral College, is the institution (whose members are selected by whatever means the state legislature chooses) that is responsible for selecting the president of the United States.” (Bond, pg. G-4) The

Since the fiasco that was the Presidential Election in the year 2000, many Americans have been calling for a reform of the Electoral College. Most of these people were Gore supporters; disillusioned by the fact that Bush won the office of the President while, in fact, he lost the popular vote. The American people did not elect George W. Bush; the Electoral College did.

The United States Electoral College had been a contradicting system due to the diversification of America throughout the years. The major issue with this system, however, relies on America’s own national popular vote that contradicts the Electoral College. Many citizens would rather rely on alternatives such as the national popular vote in order to make presidential elections more bearable. All systems conclude of disadvantages and advantages. Ultimately I as well as many people disagree with the Electoral College.

Voting for a president makes us feel like we actually have a part in our government, but what if that wasn't true. Abolishing the Electoral college is necessary for our government to be fair. How is it possible that a candidate can win with the majority of the people disliking him? At the beginning of our government we strived for equality, that is why small states were given the same representation as large states. The difference in populations is colossal. The largest state california with a total population of 39.25 million (2016) (Doc F) while the smallest state Wyoming( Doc D) with a population of only 582,658. It is shocking how in the house of senate they are given the same representation. We should definitely abolish the Electoral college because it is undemocratic and is not in the best interest of the people, small states have too much power, and it doesn't give third parties a fair opportunity to run for president.