Importance of Electoral College The Electoral College is a way that the government elects the President, Vice President and members of the electoral press. It is obvious that the Electoral College plays a huge role in the key decisions that will be in effect in the government’s head politicians. It may seem that the Electoral College is a place that the government goes to to decide who will go into office, but it is more of a way or process of determining the elections. The Electoral College consists of 538 members that place their personal votes to decide who becomes the President of the United States and also the Vice President. During the election period, there is a Tuesday that the voters go cast their votes at the polls. On that day, …show more content…
This Nation also states that, “they were fearful that a well-spoken but not well intentioned individual could flatter the people and win their support.” (This Nation). It is believed and proven from past elections that the Electoral College would not be phased or change their minds based on flattering or the amount of support that is shown towards one candidate or another, so that is a clear and sufficient reason why the Electoral College exists and is beneficial to electing our nations leaders. Another reason to show how the Electoral College is effective and functional is to give each individual state a say in the presidential elections. This Nation explains that “the principle of federalism was and is a critical feature of the American political system. By placing states in this important position in the selection of the country’s leader, the Framers sought to maintain the position of states as important entities in the American political system.” (This …show more content…
Christopher Klein states that, “electors are prohibited from meeting in one central location. To minimize the chances of corruption, bribery and backroom deals, electors are prohibited from gathering in one central location to cast their ballots. Thus, electors meet in individual state capitals to vote.” (Klein, 2012). Also, “a similar electoral college was previously used by the Holy Roman Empire. From the Middle Ages until 1792, leaders of the Holy Roman Empire were elected by a college of prince-electors from various German” states (Klein,
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.
For the most part, the connection between the Presidential election process of 1788 and the present Presidential election procedure are both determined through the Electoral College process. The Electoral College process made sure people played a crucial role in the selection of the President of the United States. As was previously stated, I have expounded on the process of how the President is elected; the vital role that people played in the election, and the responsibility of the House of Representatives in response to the
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...
Through these almost 2 and a half centuries since the beginning of the Electoral College there has been a large change in population. Since then, the U.S. has grown from a mere 4 million to a looming number of around 300 million people. It is because of this population increase that the Electoral College has become obsolete and is beginning to fail at its duties. Alexander Hamilton was a Federalist and a supporter of the Electoral College who was quoted as saying “It was also desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder/ promise an effectual security against this mischief” (Document #1). The College would have prevented tumult and disorder for
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 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 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 Founding Fathers had multiple reasons on why they created a federalist government, the main reasons were avoiding a tyranny, more people participating in politics, and “experimenting” the states in order to find new government ideas and programs James Madison stated the Federalist Papers, The Federalist, No. 10, If "factious leaders kindle a flame within their particular states," the national, or federal government, can "conflagration through the other states." Federalism and the 10th amendment prevents one to take control of a state or the federal government, avoiding tyranny. The idea of having more people evolved in government came from the ideals of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson believed having both local (state) and national (federal) officials would increase participation in government.The last concept with using states as “experiments” comes from this concept: let us say that a state disastrous new policy, it would not be a disaster for everyone. In contrast, if one state 's new programs or policies work well, other states can adopt them to their own
The Electoral College can be considered one of the more misunderstood parts of our government. People have many misconceptions on how it works, at least I did until I took this class. When the Framers were developing how their new government was going to work, they ran into many problems. One of those problems was they has different ideas on how the president and vice president were to be elected. Some wanted to elect them like they do in Great Brittan with the parliament electing the prime minister. Others disagreed. The compromise was the creation of what we now call the Electoral College.
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.
The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors which represents the voting membership of both houses of congress (535) and 3 additional electors to represent Washington D.C (Neale, 2004) . Each state is allocated electoral votes according to their representation of members in both houses of congress, giving electoral college ...
The principle of federalism was established by the Constitution to protect the country from tyranny as well. In this case, it is said that the national government cannot over power the fifty states. In the fifty states, each state consists of two democratic representatives.
The Founders built certain protections for individual rights into this country's founding documents. The United States Constitution was one such document. In particular, such protections guard Americans who hold minority viewpoints from those who side with the majority. For example, the First Amendment protects the right of free speech to ensure that people who hold unpopular views have just as much freedom to express those views as do people who tend to agree with the majority. The United States Constitution, therefore, was intended to protect the individual rights of Americans from a tyrannical government and majority. However, today, the Electoral College does not represent the vibrant democracy into which the United States has grown.
If the Electoral College stays, then the people will not be able to choose the right person for the right job. So this shows how it can cause so many people to be frustrated with the Electoral College, which does not really help the country at all, in terms of the choosing a new President.