When you go and vote for president, do you think your vote goes toward the decision of who becomes president? If you do, think again because the system is not as clear cut as it seems. In 1787 during the Constitutional Convention, the delegates discussed a way to vote for president without having the passions of the people and average voters getting in the way. The Electoral College has 538 members total which are divided among states, with each state receiving the amount of electoral votes that corresponds with their population. The outdated system known as the Electoral College, should officially be abolished from the process of the presidential election in the United States. Throughout the election process under the Electoral College, the …show more content…
The 538 members in the electoral body who are supposed to represent their districts, are mostly biased when it comes to voting for the president of the United States. Typically when the whole group of electors gather to vote for president and vice president, they “are loyal to their political party and pledge to vote for their party’s nominees” (Source C). The fact that the decision of who becomes president is put in the hand of only several hundred electors who are biased is unjustified, as their votes are biased and not impartial. Since the electors pledge to vote for the party that elect them into that position and have laws where they can’t go against their pledge, this allows for a political party to rig the system to garner an outcome that only benefits themselves. This political feature in the United States disregards the opinions of hundreds of millions of citizen’s votes, and abides by the votes of 538 intransigent electors. In this modern era of presidential elections,“the Electoral College ignores the will of the people. There are over 300 million people in the United States, but just 538 people decide who will be president” (Source D). In a country that globalized democracy, the nation itself is now letting the voices of hundreds overshadow the voices of hundreds of millions. Every four …show more content…
Supporters of the continuation of the Electoral College assert that this institution brings forth equal importance among all states and that the voting of the president is the hands of a well educated body who will choose what is best for the country. In a letter written by Alex Hamilton to the state of New York, he praises the Electoral College in that the electoral body is composed of “men most capable of analyzing the qualities needed to be president… [and] will most likely possess the information and judgment needed for such complicated investigations” (Source A). The modern era today leaves no one uninformed especially when it comes to politics. The fact that the Electoral College wants the decision to be made by credible officials is commendable, but in the current world any civilian can access the most up to date information about presidential candidates with a click of a button. This entails that there is in fact no need for a separate party to carry out a decision for the citizens of America. Even if someone was not able to access some form of technology, when voting or near the time of voting pamphlets are given which provide information on every topic for the voter to vote on. As an effort to level the playing field between less populous states and more populous states, the Electoral College
The Electoral College does not accurately align with the ways of a Democratic society. The idea of ‘Democracy’ was different when the Constitution was created and as an ever-changing country, we must establish laws that fit our time period and put an end to the ones that don’t. Presidents being elected despite losing the popular vote goes against the definition of democracy according to Oxford Languages, “Control
In the last twenty years, we have had two times when the system has given a winner that wasn’t supported by the majority of voters, yet we didn’t have any in all of the 20th century. This could mean that it is getting more and more likely that the electoral college will have someone that the majority of voters didn’t vote for. All of this contributes to the idea that one vote is worthless, which is why the electoral college is antithetical to a democracy. Congressmen aren’t elected through a slate of people voted by citizens to vote for citizens, so why is the president? If the government is truly to be by the people, why can this happen?
In the constitutional convention of 1787, our nation's founding fathers came together to come up with a method to elect a president at a time when the majority of Americans couldn’t make an educated decision when voting so Electors who trusted with the responsibility to represent their state and make an informed choice. Our founding fathers came up with an indirect method, the Electoral College, which proved successful by allowing Americans to choose their state representatives and senators who would represent their vote and through a majority choose a president-elect. Through the electoral college, each state gets two senators and a varied number of state representatives depending on the population of their state that the people vote for themselves
Emma Williams American Government 1A Mr. Baker 2 March 2023 The Positives of the Electoral College Once a teenager turns eighteen, they have the privilege to practice their right of voting for their local and federal government officials. Unlike voting for their mayor or House Representatives, the Presidential elections require the Electoral College. Established in Article II of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers decided the best way to elect the President was by both using congressional powers and equal representation. To explain, each state automatically gets two votes representing their Senators, then depending on the number of Representatives in the state, the number of Electoral votes a state gets are decided.
Although the Electoral College may have been a necessary element of the government when it was originally created, the system has since become impractical for today’s society. The will of the people is now far better expressed through the resulting popular vote than the electorate of the Electoral College. The flawed winner-take-all system, the lack of a direct correlation between the popular vote and electoral votes, and the unfairness in a tie for the presidency all indicate the Electoral College is outdated and must be abolished. In the current electoral system, the slightest majority in a particular state means all of the votes in that state are given to the candidate that wins the majority.
The outdated and undemocratic notion that a small group of people should choose the leader of the country because of their deeply rooted classism is preposterous and oligarchic. Disregarding the Founding Fathers’ prejudices, the system itself is problematic in that it has failed to choose the candidate with the most votes several times throughout our history, and electors, instead of critically analyzing the candidates, have simply voted for the winner in their state. Furthermore, it discriminates against voters by giving too much leverage to some states over others, diminishing or increasing the influence of voters based on where they live. The Electoral College was created with undemocratic intentions, but it is because it continues to subvert fair and representative democracy with its flaws and weaknesses that it should be abolished and
The Electoral College is a process that was established by the founding fathers of the United States to elect the President of the country. It was established as a compromise between the election of the President by popular vote and election of the President by vote in Congress. The Electoral College is composed of three parts: the selection of the Electors, the Elector meeting where they cast their votes, and the counting of the votes by Congress. In this paper, I will discuss the composition of and procedures within this Electoral College system in detail. The Electoral College is composed of a total of 538 Electors, of which 270 votes are needed as a majority to elect the President.
The Electoral College Many people believe that when they go to vote on Election Day that their vote is going directly towards their preferred presidential candidate. In actuality their votes are counting towards electors that are chosen by each state that pledge to vote for one of the perspective presidential candidates (Neale, 2012). When citizens go and vote, they are deciding which of the candidates receives their states electors. The electors in each state then vote to decide
A sad truth comes to light as the results of a tight race for the next president starts to roll in. The truth is that the dysfunctional system that demonstrates the whole voting process takes the future of America 's leader, the one who will set many precedents and lessons for future generations to come, into the hands of former politicians and notable political figures, who take on the careless and unnecessary role of an elector. These electors are part of a voting system called the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a group of 538 people that are elected at state conventions to officially vote for the next presidential candidate based on each state 's popular vote. This structure is old and should be banned for several reasons.
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
Benjamin Bolinger, the author of, “Point: Abolishing the Electoral College,” believes that America was founded on the idea of majority rule. He asserts that the Electoral College defies these ideals through the winner-take-all system, which has allowed candidates to lose the popular vote but still earn a ticket to the white house. The author believes that the President should be chosen the same way as every other elected official, by a popular vote. In a popular vote, the majority would rule and every person’s voice would matter (179). In addition, the author points out that America was also founded on the phrase, “no taxation without representation,” and yet four million United States citizens are excluded entirely from voting in the election.
The Electoral College is the system used to elect a new President in the United States where there are a set of electors for each state that represent the state’s number of members in its Congressional delegation. Each state is allowed to decide their own method of choosing their electors within each state’s constitution. There is a total of 538 electors and to win, the President elect needs to win 275 elector votes. After the election in November, the chosen electors then meet in December to cast their final vote on who will be the President. This was established in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers in 1787.
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
Electoral college has been with us since the birth of the constitution, and to this day we are still using this type of system to this day. The Electoral College is a system that the United States uses to elect our upcoming presidents and vice presidents. Each state has electors equal to their senate member and house of representatives, however who ever gets the highest popular vote in the state gets the electoral vote. The issue is the Electoral College do not give votes to the people, but to the states. Which has some unfair consequences.