Benefits Of The Electoral College

1956 Words8 Pages

Since 1789, the process in which the President of the United States was to be selected was established in the United States Constitution. Article II of the Constitution determines that the President will not be determined by popular vote, but rather by the Electoral College. The Electoral College is comprised of 538 electors. This number is determined by the amount of Senators and House Representatives each state has. When voters vote, they are not voting for president. Instead, they vote for the electors who will then vote for the President in December after Election Day. In this system, it is possible for the winner of the election not to win the popular vote; this has made the institution extremely controversial. The elections of 1876, …show more content…

Beginning with modern technology, people are able to access information to make educated decisions, therefore the Electoral College isn’t seemed to be essential. Also, “Electoral College are now selected by the political parties and they are expected to vote along party lines regardless of their own opinions about the candidates”(procon.org). Meaning that their decisions are based on their party system alone, and the electorate personal opinion does not count. In addition to this, some may agree that the general people's opinion is being disregarded. This was seen in the most recent election in 2016. In this election, Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote by more than one million votes and lost the election due to the fact that she did not receive as many electoral votes as Donald Trump. Most would agree that the one who wins the most popular votes should be elected president. Not only does their opinion not have as great of an impact, an issue that some have with the Electoral College is that they give too much power to swing states. Such as in the most recent election, “Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have made more than 90% of their campaign stops in just 11 so-called battleground states. Of those visits, nearly two-thirds took place in the four battlegrounds with the most electoral votes” (procon.org) When it comes to campaign strategy, only certain states are selected, …show more content…

A positive attribute is the Electoral Votes allows multiple regions to be in focus, benefiting the entire population. However, a negative of the Electoral College system results in a system in which certain states are ignored in the electoral process, either due to their number of electoral votes or depending on which way their vote swings. In, addition to that issue, the popular vote seems to be not accounted for, as seen in the most recent election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Overall, the Electoral College should be eradicated from the Constitution, mainly because it is not an accurate representation of the peoples of the nation's vote, and voters have access to information to make an educated vote. Being so, more states need to enact the National Popular vote so the Electoral votes will have to be based on the popular vote of that

Open Document