A government institution that is constantly questioned is the Electoral College. There are many positive and negative elements of the Electoral College. Many argue if we should keep it in our election system. The Electoral College has always been a very controversial issue in American politics.
The Electoral College has many good attributes some of those include giving equal representation to the small states and keeping the system simple. “The election of 2000 is one of the rare cases where the winner of the popular vote did not also win the electoral vote, but the electoral vote reflected the fact that Bush won in far more states (30) than did Gore, and thus highlighted the federal nature of the system.” The outcome of this election shows how the Electoral College more accurately represents the citizens votes than the popular vote. In this scenario without the electoral college the election would have been swayed in favor of the larger more populous states. “the Electoral Colleges strengthens the two-party system and discourages third-party challengers who could further fragment the existing political system.” Another
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“ one of the most undemocratic features of the current system.” how undemocratic the Electoral College is definitely one of its most negative aspects. When people vote for president they are not voting for the president but for their electors. Therefore, the votes are not really coming directly from the citizens. “By guaranteeing each state a minimum of three votes, the existing system over represents the people of the smallest states.” How the number of electors are determined result in the small states receiving a unproportionally large amount in relation to their population. This can sway elections to either side causing a dishonest outcome. The Electoral College has some major faults in its
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
Did you know that the Electoral College was created as a compromise between those Founding fathers who wanted the president elected by Congress and those who wanted direct election by the people? Presidents are elected by a group of 538 electors, acting on behalf of the states and not by the citizens. This arrangement is called the Electoral College. Every four years, millions of United States citizens vote for a president and a vice president of the United States.
The electoral college is a process the founding fathers established in the constitution with the intent to create a safeguard between the population and the selection of a president, and to give extra power to smaller states. However, based on the information presented in the articles the electoral college should be abolished as it violates our right of political equality, and fails to represent a third, independent, party in any election. Although there are many reasons to abolish the electoral college, the principal reason to take action would be the result of an obvious violation of our right to be politically equal. As shown in the chart provided (Doc D) 12 of the lowest populated states and the District of Columbia have almost the
I must preface this discussion with the fact that I am anything but, pro Electoral College. Nonetheless, the Electoral College is a method of voting within our democracy, which each state is allocated a certain amount of “electors” who are sworn to vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote in their respective state. However, there are two exceptions to this rule, the states of Nebraska and Maine, which bifurcate their respective electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote. The quantity of electoral votes in any given state is grounded in the state’s congressional representation. Respectively, each state is afforded two votes for every Senator with an added vote for every member of the House of Representatives, which is in-turn grounded in volume of the state population.
A complicated system such as the Electoral College causes there to voter suppression. Politicians use unfair methods such as gerrymandering. Electors may not stick to their pledged candidate which causes there to be a shift in the outcomes of the election. The Elections put more weights on swing states causing other states not to gain enough
The Electoral College is a system of voting created by the writers of the Constitution. The main goal of the Electoral College was to ensure that the citizens of the United States could not elect the president directly. The writers of the Constitution believed that the voters would not be properly educated on who they were voting for and consequently make a poor choice. The Electoral College is no longer in need today given that the public is adequately educated on the candidates for elections as a result of the excess amount of communication today. The Electoral College should be abolished because small states are over represented, the system is unfair to third party candidates, and a tie leads to a vote in the House of Representatives.
In an article by Procon.org, it states “The Founding Fathers enshrined the Electoral College in the US Constitution because they thought it was the best method to choose the president” (The Electoral College: Top 3 Pros and Cons). This is important because the Founding Fathers created the Constitution to establish the rules of the nation, basically to keep the peace. They figured that if they set rules and precedents in place, there would be tranquility. Without the government, there would not be life, liberty, and property. It was not easy for George Washington and the others to establish this new rule.
The Electoral College has been widely debated since the Bush and Al Gore election in 2000 and has divided the country. In the 2016 election, the popular vote was nearly split in half, showing that people have very different political views. The founding fathers thought it would be the best way to choose a president, but times have changed. A system where a group of electors from each state has the power to override every vote cast in the America for the next president is absolutely intolerable. The Electoral College is no longer relevant now that a two-party system is in place.
The Electoral College has been one of the most debated topics in politics ever since its inception. The original idea behind the College was that, back in the 1700s, when communications were slow, voters were uninformed, and votes were counted by hand, the Framers needed a streamlined and efficient system for electing the President. The college worked – and made sense – back then. The question is: does it still apply today? Today, Americans have the technology to vote directly for a President, yet they don’t.
In a twenty-first century environment, the Electoral College is unfair. Caroline Jenkins makes this case against the Electoral College: In testimony before Congress in 1997, the League of Women Voters pointed out that apart from the public outcry that would be caused by circumvention of the popular will, there are a number of other serious flaws in the Electoral College system. The Electoral College system is fundamentally unfair to voters. In a nation where voting rights are grounded in the one-person, one-vote principle, the Electoral College is a hopeless anachronism.
“That creates a system of government that tends to be indecisive and weak because everyone argues for their own best interests.” (Gaille). The electoral college may not be perfect, but it allows for decisions to be made quickly. Not everyone thinks alike and that means that no matter what happens the government will not please everybody. A leader is supposed to be able to lead.
For many years, America’s voting system has been criticized, with the main point of interest being the Electoral College. Some say that the Electoral College is necessary to streamline and simplify the voting process, while others say that it is outdated and takes away power from American citizens. After investigating the subject, it is clear that the Electoral College should be abolished due to the three major defects its critics find in the system; its undemocratic nature, its tendency to give small states’ votes too much power, and its disastrous effects on third-party candidates. The first, and possibly largest, defect in the Electoral College is its undemocratic nature. A professor of political science once said that “the Electoral College violates political equality” (Edwards 453).
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
One advantage is that it eliminates victory based on solely on populations. This gives power to states no matter what size rather than the population of the state. If the Electoral College was not in place this will lead to campaign solely on the big states rather than all. The Electoral College will continue to create and maintain a two party system. It allows for some continuity and stability for the current government.