Discuss the reasons why the Electoral College has not been reformed. (25 marks)
The Electoral College is the system used in America to nominate the president and vice president. The Electoral College entails Voters to go to the polls and they will be choosing which candidate receives their state 's electors. The candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes which is 270 wins the Presidency. The number 538 is the sum of the nation 's 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and 3 electors given to the District of Columbia. There are many reasons as to why the system has not been reformed and in this essay I will elaborate on this further.
Furthermore the reason why the Electoral College has not been reformed is due to the fact it upholds
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This causes significant overrepresentation of the small states. For example because Alaska’s population is relatively small it should only have 1.2 electoral college voted however it has 3 votes due to Alaska having 1 representative and 2 senators. This is unfair on states such as California which has a very large population; it should have 65 Electoral College votes but only has 55. Therefore the Electoral College system is unfair on larger states; an individual citizen in Wyoming has more than triple the weight in electoral votes as an individual in California. Therefore the Electoral College is unrepresentative. The system was designed by the Founding Fathers and due to tradition and respect the Electoral college has remained unchanged in addition to the difficulties of changing a constitution a 2/3 majority is needed in both Houses.
Additionally another reason why the Electoral college has not been reformed is because it provides a clear winner with no coalition being formed, the last time the system failed to provide a clear winner was 1800 and 1824 unlike the UK where a coalition was formed between the Conservative and Liberal Democrats because there was no single part that had gained a majority. However the system has proved controversial it terms of the legitimacy the president. For example the 2000 presidential elections was won by Al Gore, that is Al Gore got more votes than
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?
One of the greatest accomplishments in the history of the United States was the creation of the Constitution. It was created by the Framers who included many important and specific rules to make sure that the government would be able to sustain itself. The Idea of the Electoral College was first introduced in this constitution as a way to make sure that there was a buffer between the population and the selection of a President. They did not want a dictatorship to arise due to a manipulative candidate. In recent history, the Electoral College has been a very controversial topic. Many people do not agree with it and believe that it should be abolished due to varying factors such as the unequal distribution of votes per state. When the Framers first created the Electoral College, I believe that there hopes of what it would become have not been met and that they would not be pleased with it in today's government.
So what is the electoral college as defined in the constitution? The electoral college is a slate of electors who will cast the real votes for the president and vice president. These electors are appointed by the state in proportional amount to the number of senators that each state are entitled by congress as well as entitled representatives.. The actions of these electors and the manner of how they will be chosen is outlined by the Constitution, “The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall
The Electoral College has been the basis for nearly all of our presidential elections, but it is time to update to a more logical system.
Established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Electoral College is a system utilized in The United States of America to select the President and Vice President. This process was established by the Founding Fathers in 1787, when the Constitution was written. The original purpose of the electoral system was to ensure that those who select the leaders of this nation were the most knowledgeable and informed people that America had to offer. The electors - the elected officials that make up the Electoral College - are elected to office through a general election wherein the entire national population has the right to vote. The President of the United States, however, is actually elected to office by the Electoral College only, regardless of the popular vote of the citizens in general. Thus, the Presidential election is the only federal election in our nation where the vote of the citizenry does not directly determine the victor. Despite the fact that this electoral system has been in place and operational for over two hundred years, the Electoral College is looked upon by some as an honorable system, whereas others view it as faulty. The Electoral College is not fair and equitable because it is based on population, it is not trusted by the people, and it is unjust to the wishes of the citizens.
A change in the Electoral college should be the number of electoral votes for each state's. Now they are based on the population, for example the Electoral Vote chart shows the higher the population in each state the more electoral votes that state has. The less populated states have less Electoral votes than the bigger more populated states. (Doc. 2) This shows that the less populated a state is the less say the have with the voting. Each state needs to have the same number so that it is appointed accurately. This majority would help with which state and show that more of the population chose a certain candidate.
The Electoral College system was created in the constitution by the Founding Fathers. This system forms the beginning of the United States' national elections and is therefore, considered to be important to this country's history. It is made up of 538 members and a candidate must receive a majority of 270 electoral votes to win the election. Electors usually get selected to one of the presidential candidates running. When people go to the ballot on voting day and pick their favorite candidate, they are really choosing the electors for their state and then the electors are the ones that vote for the president. The Electoral College should be revised or abolished because it is both undemocratic, is not beneficial to the nation, and may weaken the validity of elections and the elected President.
The Electoral College was created 200 years ago and times have definitely changed. People are well educated these days, and have a better understanding of the whole election process. Two centuries ago people didn't have TV, radio, news broadcasting, or the internet. These are all good sources that to supply us with more than enough coverage of the elections at hand. The whole system makes no sense, because depending on how big a state is, depends on how many electors that state has. The smaller the state, the more electors it has. It should be the other way around. Also population density has changed over time.
The Electoral College has been in place for hundreds of years and it has sparked the debate of if it should be abolished from presidential elections. I believe that the Electoral College should be abolished because it gives unfair treatment to low populated states, it gives Congress more power in the election, and causes unfair election results. Document A shows that California and Texas have the most electoral votes with fifty five and thirty eight respectively but lower populated states such as Delaware and Alaska have only three electoral votes. If you split the map of the United States into four sections using horizontal and vertical lines, one can draw the conclusion that candidates running for president do not have to go to certain sections of the United States due to their low electoral votes and
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 other reason why Electoral College can’t best represent the people is because only majority of the state's votes count, but the rest are not important or used. This is very important because the smaller states do not really get a say in government while the larger states are in control. Although most people’s vote count toward the state's votes same do not. I think it’s a big problem that not everyone is getting represented and that needs to change. Everyone should have an equal say in who they want to be president and the Electoral College System needs to change for the better of the
Some choose to argue for keeping the electoral college. One reason they do this is because it was part of the Constitution’s framers’ plan, “Historically, federalism [the combination of a central government with some authority given to state and local governments] is central to our grand constitutional effort to constrain power” (Document C). One can assume that the framers put the electoral college system in place to prevent one form of government from becoming too powerful. After much consideration, the Constitution's framers’ believed that the electoral college would be the best way to prevent a tyrannical president from taking office. Another reason why people argue for keeping the electoral college is because it boosts the power of small states,
The Electoral College is an obsolete system and should be replaced because of the reasons discussed below. The Electoral College should be replaced because it was developed based on the idea that only the electors were capable of making wise decisions about the election of a president. As Alexander Hamilton wrote, “A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most
The Electoral College is a constitutional system written in 1787, in this system “each state selects as many electors as it has representatives in Congress”, members of the college casts ballots for individuals, the individual with the most electoral votes becomes the President of the United States (Shelley 80). It is
What is the Electoral College? The Electoral College is a system that our Founding Fathers established in the Constitution in which representatives from the 50 states elect the President of the United States. The system begins with the people electing representatives to represent them, and then the representatives meet so they can vote for the next President and Vice President. The votes from each representative are then counted by Congress and are able to elect the candidate that has the most votes. According to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (2013), “The Electoral College consists of 538 electors…270 electoral votes is required to elect the President.” Every state has an