Recently, especially after the 2000 elections where Al Gore won in the popular vote with 500,000 more votes but lost the electoral vote to George W. Bush, has the public began really arguing if the Electoral College should continue to be the major deciding factor in elections. “The Electoral College, the assemblage of state electors constitutionally charged with electing the president, also limits third-party growth. With the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska, states award all their votes to the plurality winner within the state,(a term commonly referred as winner-take-all)” (AM GOV). Each state receives an electoral vote for every member they have in the Senate and House of Representatives. The Electoral College comprises of 538 electors, …show more content…
The states in general have essentially more power as it’s the state to decide how they are going to handle the Electoral College votes, keeping the states a part of the election of a president. The Electoral College also gives more power to the smaller states by giving them Senate and House of Representative votes (APECSEC). The Electoral College is just as democratic but is more federally democratic. There is also an argument where the rural areas of states get more attention than they would normally compared to popular vote since the concentration of the campaigns would shift to mostly high population areas. Recounts on a federal level could also have large delays if it is the votes are counted in one or more states compared to precincts within the states (Franck). One of the last arguments of why we should continue the Electoral College is since the Electoral College Is part of the Constitution it is difficult to amend and there should be just a work …show more content…
The Electoral College, in states where they have the winner takes all system, make voters that are voting in states that are strongly controlled by the a certain political party feel like their votes aren’t really important considering that all the electoral votes will just go to the political party that wins. This feeling like out votes don’t count is the biggest argument against the Electoral College that it should’ve been for quite a while already a popular vote decision not an Electoral College decision (Davis). This argument also goes hand and hand where a president and vice president voted into office won because of the popular vote and received a majority of the support. Also removing the Electoral College would remove the power that only a certain states have, the swing states, but the downfall is swing states will just be replaced with high population states. Some people also view the Electoral College as being undemocratic especially in large population states where the votes of the losing political party, are a large number of voters, are essentially
The Electoral College has gone through several amendments to become what it is known as today. Early on, each of the thirteen colonies was designated with two electors, but could gain more depending on the number of representatives. These colonies were allowed to appoint their own Electors, however members of
The electoral college, created in 1787 and written into federal law in 1845, is a system in which citizens of the United States vote in general elections to choose a lineup of “electors” who pledge to vote for a particular party. Established by our Founding Fathers, it is made up of 538 members and is used by the people to indirectly elect the president of the United States and the vice president of the United States. Each state, however, does not obtain an unlimited amount of electors to choose from; the number of electors is equal to the number of members of Congress (House of Representatives and Senators) each state in entitled with. A candidate must receive a majority of 270 votes in order to win the presidency, an ideology that has begun to spiral down as the years, and presidential elections, go by.
The year a new president must be chosen is always a time of tension in the United States. Hopeful candidates run for president, and citizens start swearing their allegiance to a candidate and party. The GOP and DNC start grooming the candidates they wish to have as president while independent candidates are just trying to get their names in the news. One of the topics that is always criticized and defended around the time of the presidential elections is always the Electoral College. One side say it is undemocratic and unfair, and the other side says that it is a pillar of the United States government.
The Electoral College is a group of 538 votes used to decide the president. The number, 538, is the number of senators plus the number of representatives in the U.S. These votes are given to states depending on that state's population. California has the most electoral college votes, they have 55. While places like Wyoming and Alaska have only three electoral college votes.
There are positive effects of the Electoral College though, especially for small states such as Vermont. The Electoral College weighs the votes from smaller states more than larger ones because each state's electoral votes are equivalent to the number of House and Senate seats it has, thus giving one of those smaller state’s votes the power to really make a difference. The Electoral College also only acknowledges the majority vote of states and ignores the minority votes. Those who do not agree with everyone else are not represented at all, which is not
They believe that it would be a hassle trying to reform what our founding fathers envisioned from the start and could cause political fragmentation in an already very divided two-party system. Supports of the Electoral college also believe the Electoral College proves to be crucial to supporting our nation's two-party system which proves to be the most effective in providing the nation with a majority popular vote (Kimberling). They believe that changing our Electoral College system would lead to issues that as recounts that could delay results during elections for weeks or months and undermine the federalist principles that our forefathers founded our nation upon
The Electoral College has been a confusing subject and is now rising up some serious questions. Does your vote really count? What is a faithless elector? How are they chosen? What is a direct democracy?
One of the most popular reasons why we should keep the electoral system is that it gives small states an equal opportunity. If the president was elected through popular vote the areas of America with more population would rule the White House. But in the electoral college the smaller states have a more equal vote. Small states can make a big difference when it comes to tight elections and because of that candidates cannot ignore the smaller states. But if we had the popular vote system the candidates would only travel to bigger states with a larger population.
The Electoral College should be abolished because of the occasions where presidents have won without popular vote, the number of electoral votes each state gets, today people are more educated and their vote should be counted one person, one vote. There have been four occasions where the president elected did not win the majority vote because of the Electoral College. One of the four elections was in 1824 when John Quincy Adams was elected president even though he did not receive the majority vote. He received 84 electoral votes, Henry Clay received 37, Andrew Jackson received 99 and William Crawford received 41. None of the four candidates received 51% if electoral college so the vote went to the House of Representatives.
The President is chosen from a group of electors which are picked from the states. Each state gets an elector for every member that state has in congress. The presidential Candidate who receives the state's most popular votes receives electoral votes. The framers were afraid of the public being manipulated by a tyrant and wanted to prevent them from coming to power. (Patterson, 2015, p. 378.)
The Constitution felt it was the states responsibility to decide on the amount of electors. Overall, the Electoral College is made up of a total of 538 electors. In order to win the presidential election this candidate is required to attain more than half of the votes. When
In an attempt to change the Articles of Confederation, the Convention created the executive branch to unite the country with a single leader. Even though the delegates wanted to consider the wishes of the citizens, they did not trust that they would make an educated decision. As a result, they formed the Electoral College. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors who indirectly elect the president and vice president. Each states’ entitlement of electors is equal to the sum number of their senators and representatives.
The number of electors in each state is equaled two plus one for each member of the House of Representatives, and Washington DC has three votes, bringing the total number of electors to 538 (“What is the Electoral College?”). It’s a well-known fact that when the public goes to vote for a candidate they also vote for the corresponding vice president. A much less well-known fact is that they are actually voting for the electors as well; by voting democratic or republican the corresponding electors for the party are elected as well (“Electoral College” 2010). Then on the Monday after the second Wednesday of December the electors assemble in a central location in each state and cast their votes for president. In forty-eight states, there is a “winner-take-all-system” where the highest vote getter in the state gets all the electoral votes, however in two states, Maine and Nebraska, there is a proportionality system in place; where if one third of the votes are for one party and two thirds are for another, the electors will split and one third of the state electoral votes will go to one party and the rest will go to another (“What is the Electoral College?”).
The Electoral College system assures balanced power between the states, puts the independent parties under control, grants balanced voting, and supports the major political parties. The Electoral College has proven itself to be very sufficient in determining the president and the vice president of the United States. Since this system has been successful since our Founding Fathers created it, there should be no reason as to why we should get rid of the Electoral
“Pros and cons of the Electoral College it said this about what supporters think about the electoral college “Naturally, supporters of keeping the current system have their own statements. They claim that the Electoral College forces candidates to focus on states rather than simply cities with the most population. They say the Electoral College forces candidates to build a nationwide coalition in order to win. There are also claims that, had the Electoral College been abolished, Bush still would have won the 2000 election. They reason that, knowing the election was to be focused on popular vote, Bush would have allocated his resources differently and still managed a victory.”