The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

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The American public has a Democratic society. The responsibility of the Democratic society is to choose who their elected officials will be to represent them. The way the elected officials are chosen is through voting. Elected officials within individual state and local elections are decided over a majority or popular vote. However, this form of electing is not how the President of the United States is chosen to represent the people. The President of the United States is chosen by the number of electoral votes the candidate receives. Each state is given a certain number of electoral votes. The amount given is based on the total number of senators and representatives that each state has. The Amount our Congress members each state has is decided …show more content…

When the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, they left room for improvement to occur with the electoral college. Electors are chosen by the voters, in most case those electors will heed to the majority vote of the state. The total amount of electoral votes a state can have can change depending upon the population of a state ("Electoral College - Facts & Summary"). However, to stop the use of the electoral college it would need a 2/3rd vote from both House and Senate, in addition it would need to be ratified by 38 states ("Critics Work to Get Rid of The Electoral College: NPR"). In all the years that the electoral college has been established, only 6 elections occurred where the popular vote didn’t match who won the electoral votes ("Presidents Winning Without Popular Vote - FactCheck.org"). However, this still makes people feel as their vote did not count, and discourages voters. Critics of the electoral point out how this method frustrates voters, it makes them feel contrary to what is being told to them, that their vote indeed does count. Another issue with the electoral college it does not help support the minority candidate. The Majority parties are the Democrats and Republicans. The electoral college typically favors the majority party, and because of this the “winner takes all” typically doesn’t favor minority candidates

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