Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: U.S bill of rights
In the Electoral College system, every state has one electoral vote for each congressman and senator. Congressman is allotted by population and every state has two senators, so Rhode Island, which has basically nobody in it, has three electoral votes. California, with 53 representatives and two senators, has 55 electoral votes. The states choose electors and the electors meet in what is called the Electoral College to pick a president. In practice, nearly every state has passed a law that the electors will all vote for the popular vote winner in their state, but as the Supreme Court said in Bush v. Gore, the people of the United States do not have a constitutional right to pick the president. A state could, if it felt like it, select the electors by coin toss, party affiliation and could let them vote how they liked. It should be scrapped because it is undemocratic. …show more content…
As a Californian, my vote for president is worth 1/3 that of an Alaskan or Rhode Island. One reason Bush won in 2000 is that his support was spread over small states with their extra senators. Democracy is in principle wedded to the idea of one citizen, one vote. The Electoral College is an insult to that principle and discredits our democracy.
With or without point one, the Electoral College can pick a popular vote loser as president. It doesn 't happen often, but when it does, it is as much or more an insult to democracy as lopsided vote values. People who support it can go on all they like about the "subtle brilliance of the framers in balancing urban power with rural" or rubbish like that, but any system that awards a victory to the loser of the popular vote is quite simply wrong. It requires in it somewhere that some Americans are worth more than others and should have a greater say in who is
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
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.
The electoral college is a group of five hundred and thirty-eight people who, every four years, decide our countries president and vice president. This number is created by taking the House of Representatives (four hundred and thirty-eight members elected per stated based upon population), The Senate (Two representatives elected per state), and three representatives from the
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
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 away. The Electoral College should be abolished because it’s undemocratic, the small states are overrepresented, and it hurts third parties.
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
Although much of the nation believes that the Electoral College should be kept, there are many reasons as to why the Electoral College should be abolished. First off, the fact that there is a possibility that the popular vote of the citizens is not really taken into consideration when it comes down to electing a president that will rule over them. Although the citizens are allowed to cast a vote in favor of the particular candidate that they wish to elect, but it is not necessary that the electoral vote reflects the votes casted by majority of the population of that state. As a result of the unjust representation of the people’s votes, which adds to the many reason as why the Electoral College should be abolished, the voter turnout has been decreasing as an increasing amount of the citizens realize that their votes doesn’t actually matter. Even though the Electoral College will still be in place for a decent amount of the future, if I were to devise a new way to elect the President and the Vice President of the United States of America I was leave it to direct popular vote by the citizens which the Electors must be obliged to cast their vote corresponding to the popular vote of the citizens. Also, the distribution of electors between states should be increasingly equal. This way the United States of America can leave up to its democratic name and the citizens of the
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 gave birth to the Electoral College system. The Electoral College system can be briefly described as a system where voters are able to vote for candidates(electors) on election day. Electors then cast their vote for a candidate in their respective party. Our Founding Fathers described the electoral college system in Article
What is the Electoral College? Well for one, it isn’t a college, nor a place at all. The Electoral College is a process. What process? It is the process of choosing a president. “You mean when America votes for a president?” someone such as the reader might ask. Close but no, not exactly, The Electoral College consists of 538 electors who then vote in a president. When A Patriotic citizen, also known as a voter, votes on his or her president and in turn voting for that presidents electors. There are 538 electors in total. The amount of electors depends on the number of congressmen plus three. There are 435 members of the house of representatives, one-hundred senators,
Originating in 1787, the Electoral College was created as the official body within American politics that elect 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
The author argues that without the use of an Electoral College that every vote by an American citizen would still create a big outcome in the election for a candidate. Instead of telling electors who citizens wished to cast their vote for, citizens would be able to really vote for the candidate in which they feel will be most effective for the country. The author believes that the Electoral College has soiled our elections and that we should make a better way in which we can make the elections more efficient and equal for each and every citizen in
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.
Although, it is remotely possible in a very close election that there will not be one candidate receiving 270 electoral votes, in which case the House of Representatives chooses the President. In this scenario, each state has merely one vote each to decide the presidency out of the top three contenders for the office. The Senate chooses the vice-president out of the top two contenders.
Understanding the factors that warranted the creation of the system is essential. When the constitution was being created, the framers wanted to avoid creating a strong executive branch. One idea the framers created was to have congress directly choose the president. However, the idea was rejected because some felt that making this choice would be too divisive and leave animosity in congress. Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. An alternative reason why this idea was rejected is, “others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government” (Kimberling 2). This idea was also rejected because many felt that it would ruin balance between the legislative and executive powers. A second idea for presidential elections was to have the president elected by the popular vote. The idea was discarded because the framers feared that the citizens would not have sufficient knowledge of candidate outside one’s state. T...
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.