The Electoral College: Indispensible or Unnecessary? The Electoral College plays a vital role in American politics — so why is it so misunderstood and so frequently criticized? The Electoral College is the method by which a president is elected: each state and the District of Columbia hold voting contests, then cast a set number of electoral votes for a candidate based on the results of the state contest. A candidate must gain 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. The system may seem confusing or unnecessary, but its importance is revealed by the care taken by the Founding Fathers in designing the Electoral College, which was described in more detail and at greater length than any other issue addressed in the Constitution (Guelzo and Hulme). Despite this, many still call for a shift to a popular vote system for the presidential election; however, such a change would be a mistake. The Electoral College should not be abolished and replaced by a popular vote because it is necessary to uphold the structure of the United States government, to protect the interests of the whole nation, and to preserve the integrity of the presidential election. Opponents of the Electoral College frequently argue that the Electoral College is outdated to the point of becoming obsolete, that it contradicts America’s identity as a democracy, and that it gives too much power to states with a small population. Critics of the Electoral College condemn it as a relic of a bygone era. They say that,
There are many proposed plans to run the government and decide the next president. Ideas including the District Plan, the Proportional Plan, the Direct Popular Election, the National Bonus Plan, and the National Popular Vote plan are in mind to fix the current system yet none have been decided. Currently, the president is decided by a method known as the Electoral College; however, this method has many disadvantages. In the United States today, the government runs a system known as the Electoral College.
I think we should keep the Electoral College. Electoral College is defined in our textbook as; “An unofficial term that refers to the electors who cast the states’ electoral votes” (Patterson, T.E., 2013). Electoral voting is tied in with the states popular voting. Choosing electoral college adds to the cohesiveness of the nation by obliging an appropriation of popular support to be elected President, improves the status of minority interests, contributes to the political dependability of the country by promising a two-party system, and keeps up an elected arrangement of government and representation (Kimberling, W.C., 2008). I think that the Electoral College system is a big part of the cohesiveness of our country and it requires the distribution
The Framers of the Constitution created the Electoral College as a compromise between electing the President directly by popular vote and having Congress choose the President. At the time, there were concerns about electing the President directly, such as the lack of communication and travel infrastructure to facilitate a national election and the possibility of uneducated voters being easily swayed by popular demagogues. Additionally, the Framers were concerned that smaller states would be overshadowed by larger ones in a direct popular vote. The Electoral College has several pros and cons.
Electoral College has been in United States for a long period of time. The system was formed to select a president through an indirect election and to avoid suspicion of corruption and belief of compromised votes, but the Electoral College never worked as it was intended to work by founding fathers. There are many pros and cons for this system but one of the major con of this system is that people in the U.S. doesn’t think that their opinions about choosing president really matters because of the Electoral College and I also feel the same way about it. I think there are more cons of Electoral College than pros. One the major con is that people in U.S don’t feel that their vote matters because Electoral College redistributes its vote every
I. The Electoral College is an unnecessary institution that undermines democracy by not ensuring the victory of the presidential candidate who wins the plurality of the popular vote, by creating a system in which not all votes are equal, and by incentivizing politicians to focus on the needs of specific states while ignoring others. II. A. The Electoral College is a body of people that represent each state within the United States and formally cast votes for their state in the election of the president.
One reason that the framers of the constitution included the Electoral College is because they believed people will only vote for people in their own states and basically play favorites. However, in modern democracy it is evident that this system no longer benefits entirely the people of the states’. It must be modified because the restrictions that vary state to state through each election is now unnecessary in today’s society. In a presidential election an electoral vote should count the same as a popular vote no matter the circumstances. The states that remain mutual in a presidential candidacy election, where the populations are evenly divided causes an issue of winning the state
The first words in the Constitution are “We the people”, yet the Electoral College takes away power from the people to directly elect a President. To better understand the Electoral College, we will delve into the basics of the Electoral College and presidential elections, the pros and cons of the Electoral College in modern times, and a specific instance in which the Electoral College majorly affected the outcome of an election. The government should abolish the Electoral College, so United States citizens can directly elect whom they feel should head the Executive Branch. To begin, the Electoral College is a process, not an educational institution.
Ever since the election involving Bush and Gore, the viability of the Electoral College has become a heatedly debated topic. The question is whether the Electoral College is still an effective system considering the conditions the United States faces today as opposed to the conditions that the Founding Fathers faced when they created it. For over one hundred and fifty years, the United States has used this system, and controversy has followed it ever since. It was created in an effort to protect the people and institution of America by putting the final vote of the presidency in the hands of a trusted and respected few. These few have the power to disregard the popular vote due to the fact that there is still no federal law demanding electors
If we somehow happened to be a capable vote, then we ought to have the capacity to really pick who might be president. The Electoral College removes that from us. The Electoral College is not by any stretch of the imagination reasonable for our rights and our opportunity. It, for the most part, takes away the ability to vote the president. The Electoral College was made in a period when votes were harder to gather and number.
The Electoral College is a group of people whose vote represents the state of the United States; they formally vote during the presidential election in accordance with the vote cast by the public to elect the next President of the United States. With the definition provided and the role the electoral college plays in the presidential election, it does not correlate with the rule of democracy. Democracy allows the public to directly vote for an elected official to represent them in the government and carry out the will of the people. But with the Electoral College, the voters are voting for the presidential electors and not the candidate they want to become their next President.
All through the history of the United States of America, many people have discussed the abolishment of the Electoral College. For many reasons, some believe it is what makes our country have the type of government we have, some believe that it's what limits the power of the government, and many people such as Mitch McConnell believes it is what gives us our freedom and prosperity. While these are valid arguments there is a multitude of reasons to why the electoral college should be abolished. Such as there is only a need for twelve states in order to become the president, popular vote of the people for president can still lose, and the Swing states are given too much power and attention compared to that of the other states. This is why I believe in the abolishment of the Electoral College.
In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. The delegates understood that the need for a leader was necessary but still bitterly remembered how Britain abused of its power. The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is defined as “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” Since 1787 the Electoral College has been the system for voting in the United States, but with our nation ever more changing and growing it
Electoral College has maintained for hundreds of years and it’s time for a change because of the more and more serious problems it is causing. These are some reasons why we should consider replacing this system with a new more efficient one. Firstly, Electoral College creates the possibility for the candidate who loses the popular vote but wins the electoral vote to become president. In the much-publicized election of 2000, Vice President Al Gore beat Governor George W. Bush by more than 500,000 votes in the national popular tally but lost in the Electoral College because of a last-minute, 537-vote margin in Florida .
The Electoral College is the process to which the United States elects the President, and the Vice President. The founders of the Constitution came up with this process. This was done to give additional power to the small states, and it was done to satisfy them. It works by the citizens of the United States electing representatives called electors. Each state is given the same amount of electors, as they are members of congress.
Several years after the United States came to be, the Constitutional Convention met to determine how the new nation should govern itself. The delegates saw that it was crucial to have a president and vice president, but the delegates did not want these offices to reflect how the colonies were treated under the British rule. The delegates believed that the president’s power should be limited, and that he should be chosen through the system known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. Many citizens feel that the Electoral College goes against our nation’s principle of representative democracy, while others