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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. Before one can understand why we still need the electoral college, they …show more content…
It states that “each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress” (US Const. Art. II, sec. 1). The number of electors the each state receives is equal to the combined total of its Senate membership and House of Representatives delegation. By combining both the Senate and the Houses of Representatives, that Founding Fathers made it so that smaller states would not be forgot, while insuring that states with a larger population would have a larger say in the election. The 23rd Amendment, ratified on March 29, 1961, provides an additional three electors to the District of Columbia. Currently there are a total of 538 electors, corresponding to the 435 representatives and 100 senators, plus the three electors the District of Columbia is provided. The number of electoral votes in each state ranges from three to fifty-four for California, the most populous state. The total number of electors each state gets are adjusted following each decennial census in a process called reapportionment, which reallocates the number of Members of the House of Representatives to reflect changing rates of population growth (or decline) among the …show more content…
The Electoral College requires a presidential candidate to have transregional appeal. No region (South, Northeast, etc.) has enough electoral votes to elect a president. This ensures that whoever gets elected has policies that do not just appeal to one or two major population centers, but rather to the country as a whole. America is conglomeration of fifty states all joined together. The size of America makes it a very diverse country. Farmers living in rural towns in the midwest have very different concerns and beliefs, than someone living in a liberal city like New York or the suburbs of New Jersey. The electoral college requited the president to be everyone president, while also allocating more votes to areas with a larger
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 started in 1789, even then controversy arose. Key factors supporting the Electoral College are representation in states with a small population, prioritizes the organization of campaigns, and provides equality throughout the United States. Candidates would campaign in the major populous regions, overlooking rural area. Virtually placing emphasis in the major cities, neglecting small towns leaving them obsolete. Keep America a two-party system intact in important, how could a candidate win the majority with four or five parties. The South would vote their candidate, California their candidate, East Coast their candidate, causing an enormous problem, avoiding a recount, saving time and
The Electoral College has been the favored method by the United States to elect the president for many years. When the College was first created in 1787 it was seen as an efficient and reliable way to vote the president into office. It has been more than 2 centuries since this method of electing was chosen, and many things have changed in U.S. society. The Electoral College is failing to keep up with these advancements in society and a new method must be chosen soon. Throughout the almost 2 and a half centuries since the beginning of the Electoral College there has been a large change in population.
Every four years, the citizens of America migrate to their respective polling locations and cast their vote. On this important day, the second Tuesday of November, the next President of the United States is elected. The election race for United States presidential candidates undergo a political marathon, negotiating primaries, party conventions and an electoral college system along the way. The electoral college is one of the main aspect of a presidential election. The Electoral College is made up of electors in each state, who represent the states popular vote. Each presidential party or candidate designates a group of electors in each state, equal to the States electoral votes, who are considered to be loyal to that candidate, to each State’s
The Electoral College system should be scrapped and be replaced with popular vote because it is unfair. By abolishing the Electoral College and replacing it with popular vote, it would represent citizens equally, it would allow citizens to elect their president just as they elect their governors and senators, and it would motivate and encourage citizens to participate in voting.
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.
The United States of America is often touted as the guiding beacon of democracy for the entirety of the modern world. In spite of this tremendous responsibility the political system of the United States retains some aspects which upon examination appear to be significantly undemocratic. Perhaps the most perplexing and oft misunderstood of these establishments is the process of electing the president and the institution known as the Electoral College. The puzzle of the Electoral College presents the American people with a unique conundrum as the mark of any true democracy is the citizens’ ability to elect their own ruling officials. Unfortunately, the Electoral College system dilutes this essential capacity by introducing an election by
Instead of a direct democracy, the United States has what is called a representative democracy, which means that when you vote, you are voting for a representative who in turn will vote for the president. This system may seem fair but it gives more power to people in a less populated states than those who live a highly populated state. If the 538 total votes in the Electoral College were divided evenly, then there would be one vote for every 574,000 people. However, the rules of the Electoral College say that each state gets at least three votes, regardless of population. Then the rest of the votes are given out based on population. This happens because the Electoral College gives the votes to the state rather than the people. California has about 37,000,000 people and has fifty-five compared to the 560,000 people in Wyoming, which gets represented by three votes. So Wyoming gets one electoral vote or one for every 187,000 people. However California gets 55 electoral votes, or one for every 677,000 people. This means Wyomingites have three and a half times the power of Californians in the Electoral
The electors in each state are equal to the number of representatives that state has in Congress resulting in at least three electors per state regardless of population (McKenzie 285). Each state has two votes to correspond to the senators representing that state in Congress, and then each state has one vote to correspond to the House representative that represents that state in Congress. Smaller states comprise a higher percentage of the total electoral votes than would a popular vote for the president in those states (Muller 1257). The Founders intended the Electoral College to protect overshadowing the small states’ interests of the larger populous states by allowing at least three representative votes rather than none at all, and the smaller states were not willing to give control of the election process to the larger states, which was similar to their fight for representation in Congress (Muller 1250). However, it ignores the people who voted against the winner, since once the result is determined at the state level; the losing voters no longer have any significance nationally (Wagner 579). Wagner also points to the fact that the winner-take-all system can lead to selecting the minority candidate over the majority vote, as in the George
One of the main reasons is that America today is vastly different than when the Electoral College was created. There are a lot more states, a lot more voters, and citizens nowadays somewhat have the necessary education and/or access to information to make better-informed decisions. Some states are grossly overrepresented in the Electoral College, leaving the votes of some citizens counting more higher then other votes. In Electoral College a candidate could still be elected to be president even without winning the popular vote. It also reinforces the two party system leaving voters to pick from the lesser of two evils and alienating the chance for a third party system from
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.
Beginning at the time the Electoral College was put into place, many debated over its pros and cons. As time has gone on, more and more people have begun to show support for a change in the system (Saad 2013). After George W. Bush defeated AL Gore in the 2000 election by losing popular vote, but winning the college, leading to a “legal recount contest”, many began to question the fairness of the college (Cohen, 2010). This marked the “third time in the nation’s history” the less popular candidate has taken office (Longley). However, the Electoral College should remain in place because it ensures the continuation of a Representative Democracy, maintains a two party system, and because currently no plausible plan has been produced as a means of replacement.
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.