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Merits and demerits of electoral college
Pros and cons of abolishing electoral college
Electoral college should be revised
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If you think on the Election Day, you just voted for US president, than you are mistaken, just like millions of Americans who hope their votes would pick next president. When voting for President, we actually vote for state electors who hold Electoral votes. Electoral votes are the votes that decide victory of candidate in election. This Electoral College System has limited democracy to people in major three ways. Electoral college holds an ability to alter result of Election over popular votes, discriminates candidates to campaign in certain states not others, and creates high voter turnouts.
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...
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...on of 2008, in Montana half of million people voted, on the other hand in Wyoming nearly two hundred thousand popular votes were recorded. Even though there was a difference of quarter million popular votes, same numbers of votes were provided. Thus, this system discriminates people who live in states with high turnout. Rather than having statewide electoral vote distribution, vote distribution in congressional district could be little more effective in way to represent people’s will.
Upon this defectiveness of Electoral system, current system is failure the way it mislead results and misrepresent population. This system is being used to choose our president for a long time and it is hard to find a replacement for it, but little effective change in the system is possible. If that is done, that change may bring huge breakthrough to the way we Americans see election.
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.
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.
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
As stated by Jamin Raskin, a professor of constitutional law at American University and a Democratic state senator in Maryland, “…It simply calls for an interstate compact among all states to agree to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote. It becomes effective and binding when states representing at least 270 electors enter the compact. This is the way we will get to elect presidents as we elect governors and senators: everyone acting together, without games and subterfuge”. So really what happens with national popular vote is when a person votes, their vote is going directly towards their choice of president, unlike where in the Electoral College, a persons vote is going towards electors whom is a group of people who have pledged to work for their chosen candidate. The founding fathers thought that people directly voting for their chosen candidate would be too problematic and a disaster, which is why they came up with the Electoral College. So technically with the Electoral College, a candidate can win the most votes yet he can still lose the election, which is one of the reasons the Electoral College System is confusing and hard to understand to some people, and may even discourage citizens to vote because one may think their vote will not count towards their candidate in
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 United States of America is a democracy country that is characterized by the equality of rights and privileges. The Electoral College is considered undemocratic because it gives a higher percentage of the voting power to states with low population. Thus, the popular vote should be counted and not the electoral votes. In Document D of the Electoral College DBQ, there’s a chart that shows the comparison of population and electoral votes in 2010. In the chart, it has the twelve states that are less populated plus DC with the total population of 12,500,722 and total electoral vote of 44. In addition, Illinois has the total population of 12,830,632 and the total electoral vote of 20. This shows that Illinois would have less electoral vote than the 12 states plus DC which has 44. It is unfair to the larger states and it shows the unequal electoral votes to the states. In Document F, Bradford Plumer wrote, “the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, where the state
Voting is at the center of every democratic system. In america, it is the system in which a president is elected into office, and people express their opinion. Many people walk into the voting booth with the thought that every vote counts, and that their vote might be the one that matters above all else. But in reality, America’s voting system is old and flawed in many ways. Electoral College is a commonly used term on the topic of elections but few people actually know how it works.
In America, voting for the President is a privilege and a lie. Many Americans think when they go to the polls in November, they are voting for the President of the United States; but really, they are voting for a group of electors who have pledged to support a nominee for the President. The Founding Fathers were concerned that presidents would always come from a populous state and wondered whether the public would have the knowledge of various candidates necessary to make a wise selection. They did not have access to technology like the internet or smart phones as we do. In most states, as the result of the election, the state awards all its electors to the winning candidate (Belenky 1308). A Presidential a candidate must win 270 Electoral
This is unfair because this suggests that voting power changes with your geography. Election of 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000 reveals that sometimes a candidate with fewer popular votes can still win a majority of the electoral votes. This is a disadvantage because the state’s popular opinion is being neglected. Another thing to consider is the winner take all system, a system in which the “winner of their statewide popular vote gets all of their allotted votes in the Electoral College System which poses another disadvantage. The winner take all system is also known as the “Congressional District Method”; all states follow this except Maine and Nebraska. Maine and Nebraska tend to divide the votes proportionally. The winner take all system is however inequitable because in a state there is a vast amount of opinions, and this system prevents the minority from being discerned. This system “ does nothing to provide representation to any group making up less than half of the population in a given voting district.” Winner take all is a discriminatory rule as it tends to under represent minority. Winner take all is also a binary system, so if you are a Democrat living in Alabama (which is primarily a Republican state) your opinion is less likely to her
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.
They are more likely to research the issues and make an informed discussion. We should place focus on each person’s vote rather than each person’s vote being clump into their state’s vote. Why would someone take the time to vote when to them it does not matter? They see their vote going to a group of votes to decide the outcome of their state not the outcome of the whole race. If we could give the people the chance to see their vote as a discussion to the whole race I can see them taking the time to vote. There will be less of the attitude my vote doesn’t could why should I vote. This would be a way to get more people involved and to further advance the country. If we have people involved in electing the president then we have people that are involved in our country and would fight to keep it going. I feel that we should focus on getting more people involved in the country and one way to do that is to get rid of the Electoral College and continue with the popular vote.
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.
...lso speaks of the instances where the system had failed to accurately represent the national popular will’s vote and goes into depth about each instance. Obviously this article is against the Electoral College and it gives many points in support of the anti-electoral college supporters. In conclusion of his article he does mention that this voting system has worked well throughout the years, but believes that it is not necessary because of the reasons that the Electoral College was established is no longer an issue in today’s world. So therefore the voting system is outdated. My use for this article in my research regarding the Electoral College debate will strengthen my argument against the Electoral College. It will be useful because of the in-depth explanations of each instance in which the current voting system failed to represent the national popular will.
Americans do not vote for their presidential or vice-presidential candidate. Instead, they indicate their preference of candidate. Whichever candidate gets a plurality of the vote in a state gets all the Electors for that state. Each state's number of Electors is based on the number of Representatives and Senators it has in Congress. Once a candidate gets a plurality, the Electors vote in the "Electoral College" (a sort of caucus in their state six weeks after the election) for that candidate. So a candidate who gets just one more vote than the other in a given state wins all the votes from that state. Notably, although it is called a College, the Electoral College is a process administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It is not a particular place (NARA 1).