Sophie Goldenberg Honors Civics Electoral College DBQ Should the Electoral College be Repealed or Remain as is? On every first Tuesday in November of every fourth year, many Americans go to the polls to vote for their favorite candidate. Little do they know that they are actually voting for electors who then go vote for the president. This process is called the Electoral College. The Electoral College has been our presidential election procedure since 1787. This system was created to indirectly choose the president in a way that fits the desire of the citizens, which also prevents uninformed voters from deciding upon the country’s leader. Each state receives one electoral vote for each member of Congress, which totals up to 538 electors. …show more content…
The Electoral College frequently results in a distinct presidential winner despite the popular vote being level. The pie charts of the 1980 presidential election, gathered from various sources, compares the percentage of popular votes and electoral votes for each candidate. Ronald Reagan, who won this election, appeared to only win with 50.7% of the popular vote. However, Reagan actually won the presidency with 91% of the electoral votes. The Electoral College made it appear as though Reagan dominated the election. In reality, this was a very close race between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, with Reagan winning the popular vote by about 8.4 million votes. This does not properly reflect the desires of the people. On this same chart, John B. Anderson, who was an independent, received 6.6% of the popular vote in the 1980 election. Nonetheless, it appears as though these votes had no significance because Anderson received 0% of the electoral votes. While a percentage of the population believed that Anderson should have won the election, the Electoral College’s results presented the votes in a way that made it appear as though no individual wanted him to become president. Because of the winner-takes-all system, some presidents have won the election without the majority of the popular vote. In the 48 states that use the winner-takes-all system, whichever candidate wins that state’s popular vote receives all of the electoral votes for that particular state. The data gathered from the 2000 election demonstrates that despite winning the popular vote by about 540,000 votes, Al Gore proceeded to lose the election to George W. Bush by only 5 electoral votes. Florida’s 29 electoral votes were the deciding factor in this election. Because of the winner-takes-all system, when Bush won the popular vote in Florida, he was awarded with these votes, costing Gore the election. Bush
Brooks Burnside Gilmore Research Essay History 2 4/23/2023 How George Bush Won the 2000 Election The United States presidential election of 2000 was one of the most contentious and controversial elections in American history. George W. Bush, the Republican nominee, won the election, defeating the Democratic nominee Al Gore. However, the election results were disputed, leading to a legal battle that ultimately ended with the Supreme Court's decision to stop the recounting of votes in Florida, thereby handing the presidency to Bush. In this essay, I will explain how George W. Bush won the election of 2000 by examining the political and social factors that contributed to his victory.
In the United States, there is a popular belief that the public decides presidential elections directly, as in a true democracy; however, this is only part of the truth, due to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is the system that the United States has in place to decide the president and vice-president, the way that it works is the United States people vote for electors who will represent them in a vote based on each states population (Jost & Giroux Sec. 1 Par. 6). The Electoral College is a widely debated topic among people in the United States, as stated in a document by Jost and Giroux “The Electoral has been controversial throughout U.S. history” (Jost & Giroux Sec. 1 Par.
Due to the past election there has been several protests and opposing opinions thrown from both the Democratic and Republican parties. One particular article, “Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College”, suggests the idea that our society should abolish the electoral college, due to it’s “unequal distributed [voting power] across our nation”, and switch to the popular vote, when voting during a presidential election. At first this idea may seem sensible to those who do not understand how the electoral college works, the demand is in fact, senseless and will only lead to unproportioned voting amongst all states. However, it is easy to understand why this article is depicting that the electoral college needs adjustments, and to view the main
With the unpopular winners, it makes it seem that the Electoral College does not truly have the people’s choice heard. The president just needs to win the Electoral College but not the national election. This makes it possible for the president to win without the public opinion in his or her favor. In fact, an unpopular president has been elected five times, in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 with George W. Bush and 2016 with Donald Trump(Ballaro and Bourassa). This creates an 11% or 5/45th false-positive rate for the presidential election.
The significant election of 2000 with George W. Bush and Al Gore made a huge impact. With the close statistics of the race, there are various polls taken that suggest whether Bush or Gore should have won. Others may believe that the difference in votes throughout different groups may have had an effect on the numbers. Statistics show that Al Gore’s popular vote was 48.38%, while Bush’s was 47.87%.
The argument considering the validity of the electoral college system is home to many complicated components, therefore, creates very diverse opinions. In addition, not all voters are well educated as to how the system works as a whole nor the beginnings of the electoral college and why it was called to action. Because many people are only exposed to portions of the media, biases are easily founded. Some would argue that the electoral college helps the nation to manage large numbers of votes and essentially "round-out" a winner. When the elections are fairly slanted towards one candidate, the electoral college is helpful in fully distinguishing a winner.
The Electoral College was made because the first leaders did not want a government where only the majority of its people ruled. They thought that it would be unfair. They believed that a pure democracy would destroy the country. There are two parts in the voting process. The first part is democratic.
During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Founding Fathers of America instituted the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a system in which the populous does not vote directly for a presidential candidate, but rather for representatives that would vote on their behalf. The political party that won the popular vote in a state would be able to have their state representatives vote in the election;the presidential candidate with the most electoral votes wins, so long as the votes reach 270 out of the 538 votes. Even though the representatives can go against their party, the Founding Fathers established this system to prevent a pure democracy and encourage coalition building.
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.
It is arguable whether or not electoral college is relevant or not to our society. While many may argue that this system is not convenient, from my perspective it is. There are several statements from the article The Electoral College is an Excellent System by George F. Will that lead me to believe that the electoral college is most suitable for our present life. The electoral college system the most appropriate way of electing the President. Electoral college is convenient in several ways.
The election results were greatly contested, focusing on the count in Florida, one of the states that has a large number of Electoral College votes, and ultimately, after traveling all the way to the Supreme Court resulted in George W Bush winning the election with a Electoral votes of 271. Accounting for this particular example it seems as though the Electoral College votes were adverse to the majority popular choice, leading to the question, does the Electoral College actually represent the national interest and democracy as it is intended? Throughout our history there has been a plethora of times that the individual that won the popular vote still lost the election and vice versa. Another contention about the fairness of the Electoral College is that when the Great Compromise was conceived its intention was that all states, even the smaller and less populated would have representation within our Federal government. With the Electoral College working the way that it does, it
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
When the candidates are running to be president, there are two systems of voting, the popularity vote and the Electoral College vote. The popularity vote is when the people vote, and choose which candidate they want for president, and then the people who run the polls look at the amount of votes each candidate gets. Which ever candidate gets the most votes in that state, normally gets all of that state 's Electoral votes. When it 's over they count up how may Electoral votes each candidate got. Each state has a different amount of Electoral votes based off of population with s state such as Texas having 38 votes, while one like Vermont has three, and at least 270 Electoral votes are needed for a candidate to become president.