What Are The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College System

For as long as American citizens can remember the assigned method of election for the United States presidency would be the use of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a process not a place or institution, in this essay I will briefly describe the Electoral College process as well as describe some pros and cons of the electoral college and lastly, I will attempt to answer the controversial question, if you could improve the electoral college, would I choose to abolish or reform the system?

The Electoral College has been instituted since 1787 and is a group of people that elect the United State President and Vice President. The United States citizens do not directly vote for the president, but their vote is considered by electors that have pledged to vote for the winning candidate. There are 538 electors which corresponds with the 100 senators and the 435 representatives plus 3 electors for the District of Columbia. An elector is nominated or appointed by their state’s party and are usually well connected. Congressmen and high ranking U.S. officials are prohibited from being electors. In most states they follow a “Winner takes all” format, where the elector votes for the candidate who wins the popular vote. The Electoral College systems is outdated and illogical for the present and should be abolished.

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 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 (Green) However, the issues of the present day can’t help but wonder, is the Electoral College’s system outdated and corrupt?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.

First of all, the Electoral College ignores what most citizens want and undervalues their votes. Because people in each state are voting for electors that are assigned to each party rather than the actual candidates, the decision for president is really up to 538 electors instead of the population of more than 300 million Americans (The Electoral College: Top 3 Pros and Cons). 48 states use a winner-take-all system, where the dominant candidate in each state gains control of all the electors. The only states that don’t use this system are Maine and Nebraska ( ). This system the election about winning states in order to gain electors, and not about each citizen's individual vote. It’s so focused on winning overall states that it completely neglects the popular vote. It is mathematically possible under the Electoral College system that a candidate can win only 21.8% of the popular vote and still win the presidency.. This is due to the fact that the 39 smaller states have too many electoral votes for their population, and because of the winner-take-all system in every state except Nebraska and Maine, all a candidate needs to do is win 50.01% of the popular votes in those states, and he/she can clinch the election (Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College). Events similar to this have happened in history where the candidate who received more popular votes didn’t win the election. For example, in 1876

“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.

The voting process in America appears straightforward, but it is a very complex, complicated system. The Electoral College is America’s current voting system. The Electoral College still serves its intended purpose, but with increasing political activity among Americans it has caused a need to reform this process. Research suggests that the Electoral College system should be amended because it poorly illustrates democracy, is outdated and the majority of Americans are in favor of abolishing the system.

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.

The validity and necessity of the Electoral College has been questioned approximately since it was formed in the Constitution. Many different events in history, such as the president having a vice president from the opposite party, and the electoral college electing a president that didn’t win the popular vote has caused this to be an area of controversy. After looking into the origin of this system, how it works, and societal and technological changes that have occurred in the past 200 years, one can see why the Electoral College isn’t needed in this day and age.

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 Founding Fathers worked to create an equal nation without the chance of an oppressive ruler, such as King George the Third. They hoped to balance the power and make sure that the nation was never in the hands of a leader like him. To accomplish this goal of equal representation they created the Electoral College. This created a system where Americans when voting for the President, weren’t voting directly for the candidates and were voting for electors that would cast votes to represent their state. Although this system worked in the time that it was created, when there were fewer states and people, now there are problems within this system leading to an election that isn’t as representative of the nation as the Founding Fathers would have probably wanted. Although it provides many benefits and is better than other systems of electing presidents, there are too many ambiguities for the system to not be labeled as wrong and unequal. The Electoral College is an inept and disadvantageous system due to its influence on the citizen’s efficacy, misrepresentation of the people, the chance of electing a president that the majority don’t want, and the ability of

However, it has withstood over 200 years with minimal issues. The Electoral College produces a president who appeals across regions of the nation while also remembering the importance of listening to the voices of minorities and individual states. The Electoral College was created to protect the liberties laid out in the Constitution and secure our nation’s form of government—a democratic republic (i.e. representative democracy). Although several alterations have been proposed and some opponents wish to abolish it, the Electoral College still stands, able to fulfill its imperative task of selecting the nation’s

The Electoral College what can I say to be honest, I know nothing about the Electoral College, but I will do my best to explain it to people who might know and to help them know so when they 're seventeen they know like I should. So the Google definition of the Electoral College is a body of people representing the states of the US, who cast votes in the election of the President and Vice President. I would have not given that explanation, it would have told you it is a College. So helping you and myself, I will first explain how it works, then how Electors are selected, and the qualifications to be one and their restriction on who the Electors can vote for. Then the Election 1800 and the 12th Amendment. Then I will explain times where

Larger states, like California and Texas, are a main focus for candidates because of the number of electoral votes that they would earn. Also, a president can be elected, even if he or she does not represent the ideas or opinions of the people. In rare cases, a president can win the popular vote and lose the electoral college vote. “If this is the case, the very large margins secured by the losing candidate in the other states would add up to over 50% of the ballots cast nationally. Therefore, the losing candidate may have gained more than 50% of the ballots cast by voters,” says “Does Your Vote Count? The Electoral College Explained”. If the people vote for a particular candidate, that candidate should be president. Finally, people who disagree with their states are not represented due to the “‘winner take all’” system. A person may vote for the democratic candidate but the republican

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