United States Electoral System

The political system many of us know today as the Electoral College is one that has been in place in our country for over 100 years. The Electoral College is a system that helps determine who is elected as President and Vice President during major elections. The Electoral College is the primary source of determining who is elected. This system although having withheld through the times and stayed in place is not effective to me, and can lead to unfair elections in the eyes of some American People.

When Americans vote for president, they are actually voting for presidential electors, who are known as a whole to be the electoral college. These electors, who are elected by citizens of the United States, are the ones that elect the chief executive. The electoral college has shaped the past, present, and future of the United States ever since it was constructed by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The electoral college was created with fair and good intentions.

Proportional representation is almost always acknowledged as the fairest electoral system. With this in mind, many still reject a mixed member proportional system. Critics argue that the current method has produced a stable and effective government, while MMP would create an ineffective government. Wiseman feels that since Canada has been consistently stable, our electoral system does not need to be changed. Hiemstra and Jansen disagree with the plurality system that is currently in place for it does not produce fair

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.

In presidential elections, citizens do not actually vote for the candidate of their choosing, instead citizens are voting for electors known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College chooses a President, and Vice President. The Constitution gives each state a number of electors that equals the number of House of Representatives and Senate, which totals five hundred and thirty eight and also includes three electors for the District of Columbia. Each state receives a certain number of electors based on population size. The results in a state determine which electors are chosen. All electoral votes in a state go to the candidate that gets the most votes, and after state elections appointed officials certify the popular vote of each state. Two hundred and seventy votes are needed to elect a President; the candidate with the majority of the votes becomes the president.

In the “Redrawing the Electoral Map: Reforming The Electoral College With the District-Popular Plan,” Craig J. Herbst discusses the reformation of the Electoral College, using a different method for elections, and the U.S. Constitution. The author argues that District-Popular Plan method is better for the nation because if it is used candidates will have put more effort into developing strategies for the popular vote, and people would be more knowledgeable about politics with those developments. Herbst notes that District-Popular Plan can help groups of people who are disadvantaged and underrepresented. He also states that the only and the best way to do this to have a constitutional amendment which is so hard to pass. Ultimately, he concludes the article with explaining the benefits of having the District-Popular Plan. Craig J. Herbst’s article was published in Hofstra Law Review which is and academic and credible source because it is peer-reviewed by experts on the issue. The purpose of this source is to inform people about the Electoral College and the U.S Constitution, and an alternative way for the Electoral College. I will use this source to get more information

The Electoral College was created in the beginning to make a buffer between the selection of a President and the population. It was also created so that the smaller states received extra power as to not be overpowered by the larger states. Currently, the Electoral College consists of 538 electors. The number of members in the House of Representatives and Senate decides the numbers of votes that a state receives. The District of Columbia however has three electors and has been looked at like a state for the Electoral College under the 23rd Amendment (“U.S. Electoral College”). This system was first created by the founding fathers through fear that a person could manipulate the public in order to come to power. Therefore, a candidate running for presidency could win the run even if they do not win the popular vote. However, I think that the Electoral College is out of date and should be changed. This is because we, as a whole, are not fairly represented because we are only represented as a state, and not as each individual.

In the 2016 election there was an increased amount of citizens that have realized that the current voting method we are using is unfair because not everyone’s vote is being counted due to them being minorities within the states that are already spoken for. However in the past, a couple of states have already done this and modified the method in a way that makes every vote count because equality is what our country stands for. By using the Congressional District Method instead of the current electoral college, it increases the chances we have in including everyone's vote. Many people are against changing the electoral college and believe that keeping it as it is is the best method we could use because they are afraid of change; however this

The Electoral College is one of those things that differentiate the American electoral process from the rest of the world. It is an old institution that has been fundamental to the American political system ever since the Declaration of Independence. There have been calls to disband this way of voting to join the rest of the world with the ordinary populace voting. During the month of November in a presidential election year, every state holds an election in which all citizens who qualify may participate. They cast a ticket for president and his vice president. After this voting, the winning party is allowed to choose a slate of

Certain philosophies of the Electoral College infringe on the democracy that the United States of America stands for; however, the Electoral College was put in place by the Founding Fathers for a reason, and under the Constitution that reason should be respected. American Democracy suffers under the overbearing nature of this voting system, but it is a fact that a pure democracy would never work. Under this system, there would always be an inferior minority. Reforming the system is a solution to this problem of whether or not the Electoral College should continue or cease to exist. There should still be a system of electors, but instead of the warped winner-take-all system, the votes should be given proportionally to the popular vote. This

Five of the fifty-eight total United States Presidential elections in history have ended in discrepancies between the popular vote and the electoral vote; on average, the president elected into office was not actually favored by the majority of Americans almost ten percent of the time. We need to acknowledge the fact that this, along with the Electoral College system as a whole, undermines our foundation in democracy. Additionally, the Electoral College is based in slavery and oppression and is therefore not indicative of the social progress that America has made since the Constitution’s ratification. Because of this, I am proposing an amendment to eradicate the Electoral College and instead elect presidents by direct popular vote. This would end an antiquated, obsolete, and arguably undemocratic practice that continues to plague us despite centuries of progress as a nation.

The Electoral College in the United States is not a place but a process. It was a process our founding fathers established in the Constitution. It is a complicated voting system that most citizens today do not understand. The Electoral College has been in place for well over two hundred years and is unfortunately showing its age. Most people believe that when they vote in a general election for the President, they truly believe they are voting for the president. This has shown to be the case many times in the past elections, but it has happened that the candidate who won the popular vote was not elected President by the Electoral College. The Process spelled out in the Constitution as written by our founding fathers known as the Electoral College needs to be replaced with a better method that truly represents the will and vote of the American people.

The Electoral College in the United States is not a place but a process. It was a process our founding fathers established in the Constitution. It is a complicated voting system that most citizens today do not understand. The Electoral College has been in place for well over two hundred years and is unfortunately showing its age. Most people believe that when they vote in a general election for the President, they truly believe they are voting for the president. This has shown to be the case many times in the past elections, but it has happened that the candidate who won the popular vote was not elected President by the Electoral College. The Process spelled out in the Constitution as written by our founding fathers known as the Electoral College needs to be replaced with a better method that truly represents the will and vote of the American people.

A Congressional Proportional method is another alternative being proposed in opposition to the Electoral College. A Congressional proportional method would allocate votes based on the winner of each congressional district. It would also award the winner of the overall popular vote in each state two electoral votes(senators). Once again on the surface this system looks fair and reasonable, but if you investigate deeply it can be seen that there is one glaring flaw in this system. The act of Gerrymandering which is used throughout the United States in every state is when the authority in each state decided which way the districts will be drawn. In simpler terms an authority could draw district that would exclude certain type of voters to increase

As one of Europe’s oldest democratic countries, the United Kingdom consequently has one of the oldest voting systems, a plurality system often called First-Past-The-Post. The system relies on a basic principle; voters can vote for only one candidate and the candidate who receives the most votes wins the seat. (UK Parliament Website, 2014) As the quotation from David Cameron shows, the system is often hailed as one of the simplest voting systems possible, and is mainly used in the U.K for national elections.