Another variation of the electoral college is the proportional system. This system splits the state’s electoral college votes by the popular vote percentages. It is like a mix of the electoral college and the popular vote. The winner of the state gets two votes, like the Congressional District Method. According to FairVote.com, “This way, a candidate who comes in second place in a state with 45% of the popular vote would receive 45% of the state's votes from that state, instead of 0%.” This means that the minority supporters still get their say. Also, safe states for a candidate can give them less votes than the electoral college and safe states for the other candidate can give the rival candidate votes. Finally, “Candidates can’t simply ignore …show more content…
It meets all of the requirements set in paragraph 8 of this paper: letting the minority’s votes worth something, ensuring that there are no safe states, fixing the electoral college’s problems and keeping the good parts about it. The proportional system makes the minority get votes by splitting the votes of a state proportionally. This makes no safe states, some votes from a state go to the minority. It represents the population better, but doesn’t shut out the small states. It fixes what’s bad about the electoral college, but keeps what is good about …show more content…
If third parties get votes, then there may not be a candidate who gets 270 votes. If this happens, then there will be a vote in the House of Representatives, where there is lots of gerrymandering. Each state gets a vote, and the winner of a simple majority is who will be the next President. The Vice-President is elected by the Senate; whoever wins 51 votes is the winner. This can be unfair because the House of Representatives has lots of gerrymandering, making sure that one party always has the edge over the other party in a state. The electoral college isn’t like that, third parties never get votes, so there is always a majority. This is why the electoral college is the best
In its favor, one may argue that it supports smaller states, creates more stability within the election due to the two-party system, and prevents the chances of recounting votes. However, the Electoral College is also believed to be “complicated” by cause of its unique representative system, persuade candidates into giving more attention to the smaller states, and be a magnet for faithless Electors, or Electors who decide to not vote for their party’s candidate (Veracity
He got most of his votes from the NE area which caused him to win” (Document G). “George Edwards says the Electoral College violates political equality by ignoring small states and most larges ones and mainly focusing on minorities to will the presidency”(Document D). This needs to change so everyone can evenly vote for who they want.
It operates on an “all-or-nothing” or “winner-take-all” system. This means that if a candidate wins in a state, they receive all of its electoral votes. As a result of this, the voters who voted for the other candidate are ignored. “The winner-takes-all system skews the results and also makes the voting minority of each state under-represented” (“Problems with US Elections: Winner-takes-all Electoral System”). The gap of the win does not matter, so even if a person wins 51% of that state’s votes, they will still get all of that state’s electoral votes even though almost half of the state voted against them.
The electoral college is, “a body of people representing the states of the US, formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president” (Kimberling). Come election time, the states that make up the United States are worth a certain number of votes. That number depends on the population of the state. For example, California has 55 electoral votes, the most, because it is the most populous, and the District of Columbia is one of the smallest and has 3 electoral votes. In
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.
One reason that the framers of the constitution included the Electoral College is because they believed people will only vote for people in their own states and basically play favorites. However, in modern democracy it is evident that this system no longer benefits entirely the people of the states’. It must be modified because the restrictions that vary state to state through each election is now unnecessary in today’s society. In a presidential election an electoral vote should count the same as a popular vote no matter the circumstances. The states that remain mutual in a presidential candidacy election, where the populations are evenly divided causes an issue of winning the state
In most states the candidate who wins the plurality of popular votes receives the electoral votes, but this is not always true (Gronke). The electoral college was conceived of at the constitutional convention in 1787. It took much time and discussion till they finally came to the decision of using this method for voting. The country only consisted of 13 states so using popular vote just didn't seem practical. They believed that if a candidate had to win over a whole state, they would more likely have wide ranging support instead of just in their home town.
Most countries in the world that practice democracy use a multi-party system. The United States does practice democracy, but only uses two parties when going through elections. The parties are the democrats and the republicans. One person from each party is chosen to represent their party. The presidential election is when those two representatives from each party go head to head to try to win the vote of as many states they can.
Seeing that all the electors have identified with one of the two major parties, most independent or other party candidate do not even stand a chance. Third of all, many third-party candidates do not receive any Electoral College votes at all, even though they do receive some votes from the people (Document B & G). This furthers the argument that anyone who does not side with one of the two major parties does not stand a fair chance in the
They may argue that it gives less populated areas a voice, leading to a unified country (Kimberling). William C. Kimberling notes, “Proponents argue that the Electoral College system contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president, without such a mechanism, they point out, president would be selected either through the domination of one populous region over the others or through the domination of large metropolitan areas over the rural ones.” When stated this way, one can see the benefits of the Electoral College. On the contrary, some believe it allows rural populations to have the upperhand (Kimberling). This is due to the fact that electoral votes are not determined by population size, but by the number of House and Senate members.
For example, a candidate would reap all 21 votes from Illinois, regardless of whether the competitor won 51% of the popular vote or 99% of it (Source B). This system is impractical and unjust as it nullifies the voice of the populace voting for the minority candidate in that state, which allows for almost half the people of a state not having a say during an
Edward’s point means that votes aren’t population-based and that an individual’s vote may outweigh another’s depending on the state. The Electoral College undercuts the principle of one person, one vote and therefore is anti-democratic and should be
At first glance this doesn’t seem like a bad thing, everyone gets an equal say, right? Wrong! This means that Wyoming which has a population of about 500,000 voters will have an the exact same say in presidency as California which has a population of 35 million voters. Essentially, highly populated states will find that their individual votes count proportionality less.
Third party candidates lack political influence in the U.S. due to the overwhelming two major party success rates. Their success can be largely attributed to the many electoral institutional rules that contribute to limiting the rise of third parties, their competition. This historically proven major party dominance is due to many factors including institutional arrangements, election laws, electoral college rules, and campaign finance laws that have shaped the course of American elections; however, there are instances in which third parties can overcome electoral institutional challenges and make noticeable progress. The institutional arrangements in the United States have made major two-party success almost inevitable; however, there is
(Black, 2012) So, while it is clear that the Electoral College was set up to ensure all states have a voice, it now seems to have the ability to take away the voice of the people. It is necessary to look at our voting process and make the necessary changes needed to ensure the process of electing our President represents the voice of the people. By switching to a majority vote we ensure that the voice of all people are not only heard, but are represented equally, which is how it should be under the one-person, one-vote