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Replace the electoral college
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Electoral college essays
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What is the electoral college? Why was it created? Should it be banned? The Pros and Cons. All of these questions are important towards the electoral college because there are people in the world who doesn’t understand what the electoral college is or even what it does. The books definition of the electoral college is the name given to the body of representatives elected by voters in each state to elect the president and vice president. I know for myself I thought the electoral college was just a vote from cities with college in them so they would take the college students vote. It seemed logical to me at the moment until I enrolled into American Government and it gave me more of an insight on the electoral college and how it is used. The …show more content…
If each state has elected officials to make the decision for them why is it so important for the people to go out and vote when our vote the “popular vote” basically gets overlooked. The popular vote is a vote made by majority of the people or as some may call it, the peoples favorite candidate. In the article “Is the Electoral College System Still the Best Mechanism for Electing U.S. Presidents?” Richard Lempert states that “ if democracy means the majority rules, the electoral college is an undemocratic institution, Twice in the last five elections it has delivered the White House to the loser of the popular.” Meaning though these candidates lost by our opinion they won through the electoral college for whatever reason. It continues to state that “In 2000 it gave the Nation George W. Bush, Two weeks ago it gave us Donald Trump, although [Hillary] Clinton will most likely have a more than 2 million vote edge among those who cast ballots.” (Lempert, 2017) Hillary Clinton had the popular vote in majority of the states but due to the electoral college the presidency was handed over to Donald Trump, who we know as a racist individual due to his acts he have shown over time. He wanted to “build a wall” to keep hispanics or foreigners out of the United States when his wife first lady Melania Trump is from a foreign country as well. My personal viewing on Trump is that he a joke and shouldn’t have won …show more content…
Though many may not know much about politics we could learn and when a candidate is interested in fixing the problems not only in the world but in individual communities you are able to tell the difference between the candidates that actually care and the ones that are full of crap. But stated in the article “ How the Electoral College System Works” that form of election process wasn’t efficient along with many others such as selection by Congress, by the governors of the States, by the State legislatures, and by a special group of Members of Congress. As I believe when one thing doesn’t work you should try to figure out what the initial problem is and fix the problem instead of throwing it off to the next group of individuals. Everyone deserves a voice and everyone vote should matter my shouldn’t just left upon a group of strangers passing bias opinion on a candidate just because he or she is a republican or democrat or based upon someones
Originating in 1787, the Electoral College was created as the official body within American politics that elects the president and vice president. The decision of who will win is based off the vote totals in each state, and “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.” (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, “What is the Electoral College?”). During this time, the job of the Electoral College was to make peace between differing states and federal interest groups, provide popular participation in elections, give a vote to less populated states, and keep the president’s powers separate from Congress.
The Electoral College is the name given to a group of electors who are nominated by political activists and party members within the states. The electoral college really isn't necessary and should be abolished. There are numerous reasons why this is so. With the Electoral College in affect third parties don't have a chance to become the president, which isn't fair. Electors are expected to be honest but in the past our country has caught some untruthful ones. The electoral College was created so long ago that it is now outdated, so we shouldn't even have electors. People of the U.S. may think that they are participating in a direct election for the president, but with the Electoral College system technically, this isn't the case.
Since Electoral system can change outcome of the election, it often misrepresent the will of citizens. In electoral system, candidate with most popular votes in states wins electoral votes regardless of difference in popular votes. That means, people living in urban areas support one candidate, they could easily mislead the result of popular votes. Smaller area with more population often drag result on one side than larger part with less population. Either it is a presidential election of 1888 or 2000 election, candidates with higher electoral votes happen to win against people’s popular votes. Candidate of election of 1888, Benjamin Harrison won seat in white house even if he lost popular votes because he carried electoral votes on his side. Furthermore, margin between electoral votes was less than one percent, but still Harrison became president despite of 100,000 popular votes difference! Election of 2000 came up with same scenario. Gore won people’s support but lost electors’; therefore he had to accept G.W.Bush as President. After all this, what we can believe is indeed, the Electoral College is such an unreliable representative of the...
The fact that the popular vote holds no power to whom becomes president shows that only some of the people have the power. This seems like a sign that our own government doesn’t have faith in the population to make an educated decision on who should become president. The way smaller states votes are more important than bigger states, shows that states are still not equal in power. The way to win the presidency is more of a strategy than having the ideas to be elected. An example of this is how the electoral college elected George Bush when Al Gore won the popular vote. George Bush is said to be one of the United States worst presidents and was elected through a thought to be flawed system. I also feel as though corruption plays a role in the electoral college compared to the popular vote being authentic. I think this should be replaced with a system of electronic voting that could accurately and clearly show who the majority of the population voted for. But I also think that some sort of requirements to vote should be enacted. Education plays a big role in politics and I feel as though there are people who just vote to be voting with no kind of background knowledge. As bad as it sounds I feel like it could narrow a better decision being made than smaller, less developed states being “mind controlled” into voting for
over the past two centuries, the electoral college needs to be abolished and the election process needs to be changed. Keeping elections away from physical situations and making them into efficient, easy at home polling will make the election process smoother. Making the popular vote be the determining vote for president will keep more electors happier and will give them less reasons to lash out against the results. The recent elections have evolved from just electing the president, to being strong emotional situations that can possibly endanger many people when they end the wrong way. I think that if we can implement these two new ideas into the election process that it will keep electors safer, make them happier with the outcome, and will prevent elections from turning into bad
Abolishing the Electoral College is the best option for our democracy because keeping it slim the chances for independent candidates to win and unfair voting distribution to exist. In Document B, the 1992 presidential election shows Ross Perot with 19,743,821 votes but 0 electoral votes. Independent candidates like Ross Perot don’t get any electoral votes but millions of popular votes. This proves my claim to be true because major party candidates are receiving all electoral votes and are not allowing independent candidates to have a fair election. In Document F it states, “Because each state casts only one vote, the single representative in Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the 55 representatives from California,
The Electoral College can be a bit confusing to understand. It was created by the founding fathers and according to the History, Art & Archives, U.S House of Representatives, “…established in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the Electoral College is the formal body which elects the President and Vice President of the United States.
Due to the discrepancy between the winner of the popular vote and the winner of the electoral college in the most recent election, there has been a lot of talk about eliminating the electoral college and moving to a direct popular vote. While many people argue for this shift, usually with little knowledge of what a popular vote election would look like, there are also many citizens who are opposed to the idea. In our polarized political climate, this fact is not surprising. Those who support the electoral college defend it by claiming that it is not only constitutional, but it also represents the whole county, and makes for a more certain, legitimate election process.
The Electoral College was created by the framers at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. They believe that it wasn’t a good idea for the people to elect the president directly because they did not trust that voters would have enough information to make a good choice. The Electoral College basically chooses who the next president will be since it takes away our freedom to vote. The Electoral College should be abolished because it’s undemocratic, the small states are overrepresented, and it hurts third parties. The United States of America is a democratic country that is characterized by the equality of rights and privileges.
In fact, the Constitution contains provisions for direct and indirect election of the different parts of the legislature and the executive, based on overlapping but distinct electorates (Muller 1251). In addition, many people believe that, the Electoral College process of electing the president necessitates replacement with a direct popular vote to honor our democratic form of government in the United States. Moreover, in a democratic form of government, the authority rests with the people rather than in one or a few as in a totalitarian or authoritarian form of government. People believe a direct election supports the 14th Amendment principle of “one person, one vote” (Wagner 577). Therefore, the winner-take-all system inaccurately represents the will of the American citizens since not all candidates garner any electoral votes. On the other hand, a popular vote for the president could lead to many runoffs if neither candidate reaches a majority, creating a bigger opportunity for voter fraud and manipulation of the vote, which would not truly represent the will of the people, states, or country. The Electoral College sometimes fails to represent the national popular vote because states use the winner-take-all approach and not some proportional method for the representation of its voters. However, the Founding Fathers were not too keen on
This process of electing a president is unjust and is not based off of the people’s views. In Document D the chart provided illustrates how some of the electoral votes favor some states over others; for example the twelve states listed and the district of Columbia seem to have a bigger say in the presidential election process than the citizens of Illinois. This itself is unfair because Illinois deserves to have an accurate representation of their votes, the same as other states do. This shows that the Electoral College undercuts the principle of one person, one vote, and therefore violates political equality. “It is not a neutral counting device... it favors some citizens over others, depending solely upon the state in which voters cast their votes for president” (Document D). Political equality means all citizens are equal and it also allows citizens to partake in state affairs, including the right to vote and the right to challenge elections. However the Electoral College violates the principle of this for the fact that it weighs some citizens’ votes more heavily than others (video). Generally it makes no sense for the people to vote if they’re not even counted, and either way it violates their rights.
The Electoral College was a compromise between those at the Constitutional Convention who wanted the US president elected by popular vote and those who wanted congress to select the president. They believed that having it where each state would get a certain number of votes based on population would keep a manipulative and charming person out of office. They thought it would prevent bribery and corruption along with secret dealings. I don’t think that this is the case and it one of the reason I feel that the Electoral College should be abolished.
In the United States we are all guaranteed one vote per person. Everyone has an equal voice in electing the people that serve in the government. Every four years during the month of November citizens of America go to the polls to vote for a president and vice-president of the United States. Am I right? Not really. They actually vote for electors that then vote for our president. It makes me wonder, "Are we a democracy?" Having the Electoral College defeats its purpose. I oppose the electoral college for these three reasons, in election 2000 the president that lost the popular vote actually won, everyone's vote doesn't really count, plus the electoral college has disrupted elections fifteen times!
The Electoral College is a system where the President is directly elected. This process has been used in many past elections as well as the current 2016 election. This process also helps narrow down the large numbers that were made by the popular votes, into a smaller number that is easier to work with for electing the President. Some states use a system called “winner-takes-all”, which is another system that is connected with the Electoral College. This allows a candidate with the most electoral votes, to get the rest of the votes that the state provides. This has made it very unfair to many people, because the Electoral College has the most advantage for candidates. The Electoral College is a very unfair system that causes any candidate to win easily if he or she has the highest votes, and makes the number of voters
As the United States of America gets older, so does the presidential election voting system. The argument to change this method of voting has been becoming more and more popular as the years go on. It has been said that the Framers of the Constitution came up with this method because of the bad transportation, communication, and they feared the public’s intelligence was not suitable for choosing the President of the United States. Others say that the Framers made this method because they feared that the public did not receive sufficient information about candidates outside of their state to make such a decision based on direct popular vote. My research on this controversial issue of politics will look into the factors into why the Electoral College exists and if it is possibly outdated for today’s society. It will look into the pros and cons of this voting system, and it will explore the alternative methods of voting such as the Direct Popular vote. Many scholarly authors have gathered research to prove that this voting system is outdated and it does not accurately represent the national popular will. Many U.S. citizens value their vote because they only get one to cast towards the candidate of their choice in the presidential election. Based on the Electoral College system their vote may possibly not be represented. Because of today’s society in the U.S. the Electoral College should be abolished because it is not necessary to use a middle-man to choose our president for us. It is a vote by the people, all of us having one voice, one vote.