In the early years of America the Founding Fathers created the constitution for everyone to follow. One thing that is in the constitution is know as The Electoral College is a group of electors that decide on who the president will be. Electors are decided by each states party convention before the election takes place. The Electoral College consist of 538 people and to elect a president they must reach a majority of 270. The Founding Fathers of the United States created the Electoral College because they believed it was the best way to elect the president, although there are good things about the Electoral College there are also some fall backs. The Founding Fathers clearly created the Electoral College because they saw many benefits for …show more content…
Like many others great creation the Electoral College has some downfalls. The first con of the Electoral College according to Amelia Josephson " It gives too much power to swing states". What this means is when candidates run for president are more likely to target swing states rather than going to a state that always goes blue or red. Candidates do this because they are trying to sway the swing there way so they can win, which then gives the swing states power into picking the presidency. The second con the Electoral College according Kathleen McCleary " The Electoral College ignores the will of the people." This refers to when a candidate wins the the presidency but loses the popular for example this happened during the presidential race of Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, which then left people questioning the legitimacy of the Electoral College. The last con according William C. Kimberling " the risk of so-called faithless electors". This is referring to the people of the Electoral College who are pledged to vote for wha there state decided but go rouge and vote for the opposite
The Electoral College is pretty much a process that was established in the Constitution by the founding fathers which was suppose to be a compromise between election of the President by a vote in congress and by the popular vote of citizens. This process consists of the selection of electors, the meeting of the electors is where they vote for the President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. In the Electoral College it contains 538 electors and to win the majority they need to have 270 electoral votes. As well as, the number of electors for every state is equal to the number of Representations that the state has in congress which is based on the population and there is also one vote for each Senator. So, each state has at least three electors and votes.
The Electoral College is “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” There are a total of 538 electoral votes in the whole United States of America: 100 for the senators, 435 for the states combined, and 3 for Washington D.C. Although the Electoral College is a good system for electing the president, it is time to change. There are many flaws for this system. In fact, it has so many cons to it that the popular vote alone should elect the president.
The Electoral College exists, according to the Federalist Papers, in order to account for the opportunity of the tyranny of the majority or factions. It gives us the responsibility of choosing the President and members that are the best for us that prevents from bias opinions on who is chosen. The reason that the Constitution calls for this extra layer, rather than just providing for the direct election of the president, is that it will harm us a whole. James Madison worried about what he called "factions.” Until today, we are afraid of what Madison called, "the tyranny of the majority" – was that a faction could overgrow 50% of our population, at which point could sacrifice the rights of other citizens.
The American Founders were in favor of the electoral college. When the electoral college was created most of the people in America were not educated and could not read and write. Therefore, the Founders believed that the elections wouldn’t be fairly voted upon due to lack of knowledge from the people. Furthermore,
The third reason the Electoral College should continue to be used, is that it reduces problems such as fraud, recounts, lawsuits, and runoff elections. Because of the structure of the Electoral College, fraud becomes isolated and more difficult to attempt. It reduces recounts and lawsuits as it sets a threshold for a candidate to win and makes the winner apparent at the end. Also, by setting a threshold, it can eliminate runoff elections. In 227 years, the winner of the popular vote has lost only five times, which shows that the electoral college is working.
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
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.
When the founding fathers were creating the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, there was a constant struggle between the states because they wanted to have power. With the Electoral College, these smaller states had more power because of the number of electoral votes. For example, in the article it states, “Compare that to ten of the small states by population in America; with only 6,000,00 voters combined, they get 32 electoral votes for president.” Even though the bigger states have a larger population, if the smaller states combine, they can have more electoral votes than the larger states but with a less population. One advantage of the Electoral College would be that the smaller states have a greater say in the
The electoral college is not as effective as it was in the past, we have more people now and there are more laws placed so that everyone could vote. The electoral college has many problems due to the ‘swing states’ which are the most densely populated states causing the state vote to have too much power. If America were to get rid of the electoral college then every vote will count and everyone would have the same amount of
The United States Electoral College is an American system designed by the founding fathers to conduct elections. However, it has become subject to controversy in the 2016 Presidential election. The unique aspect of the Electoral College is how electors are awarded to presidential candidates using a state-by-state method of determining the number of electors. While the Electoral College is fundamental to the founders of America to protect the nation, its fatal flaws are too damaging to the people of the United States. In my opinion, the Electoral College needs to be reexamined in order to establish a new way of electing Presidents and Vice Presidents.
The invention of the Electoral College is particular to The United States; there is only one like it in the world today. Many other countries use the popular vote, or use a parliamentary system to pick their leaders. This brings up the question of if the Founders, in creating a unique voting system, were mistaken. The passionate supporters of the Electoral College argue that this invention is fair and should be kept in use. In fact, they are wrong; the Electoral College should be abolished because of its undemocratic system, its discrimination against voters in different states, and the subversion of its original purpose as was intended by the Framers.
In order to take a more perceptive look into the electoral college debate, we will need to take a look into the history of the debate as well as the Founding Fathers’ intentions for it. The first thing that we need to take a look at would be the Founding Fathers' intentions as well as how the electoral college changed throughout history. In the article “Electing the People’s President: The Popular Origins of the Electoral College” it is stated that “Our Founding Fathers understood that America is a nation of both ‘we the people’ and a federal system of states” (Villegas 202). What Villegas is saying is that the Founding Fathers' looked at the people’s rights, as stated in the promised bill of rights during the Continental Congress. Most people who argue against the electoral college say that the people’s will and saying of “we the people” in the Constitution are violated, but rather it is a compromise between giving the people a chance at a say of the vote, as well as the federal state of
Overall, just because you win the Electoral College vote this does not mean that you will also go on to win a majority of the national popular vote as well. The race at this point is still far from over voters still have enough time to change direction and abandon their earlier views towards a particular candidate and the Electoral College vote gives voters an insight on what the race is shaping up to be like towards the final stretch). I believe the main pros and cons of the college electoral vote are the people amongst society play a vital role in deciding who will lead the country. Although the popular vote can be over ruled by the electoral vote the American citizens still have the opportunity to participate and educated themselves on the process of choosing the president. With the Electoral College comes its opposition, who believe that the considerations of the Founders are no longer relevant in today’s political system (Madonna,
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
The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors who vote to decide the President and Vice-President of the United States. When voters go to the polls, they will choose which candidate receives their state's electors. The candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes (270) wins. The number 538 is the total of the nation's 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and three electors given to the District of Columbia.