Argumentative Essay On Electoral College

In short, the Electoral College was a solution to the question: “How should we pick our president impartially?” Much like any other point in the early American Government system, there was a long, arduous process of deciding who should be able to choose. Congress, State legislatures, and popular vote were all considered for the job, but none of them would suffice (Kimberling). This was because there was a definite threat of corruption in the government in its early stages of implementation in all three options. And so, a “Committee of Eleven” was created to provide an “indirect election of the president” (Kimberling). This fact, in particular, is interesting because, contrary to popular belief, it was not because the Founding Fathers believed

Once the foundation of this institution had been laid out, the Electoral College went through two iterations - one before political parties were created and one after. The former involved a complicated series of events that would ensure the votes of the members of the Electoral College were fair and just without both political parties and national campaigns (Kimberling). The latter involved the creation of the 12th amendment (“requiring one vote for president and a separate vote for vice president”) in order to accommodate for the formation of political parties (Kimberling). Since then, the Electoral College has been proposed to be reformed or eliminated “700 times in the past 200 years” in order to get to the institution we know today (“U.S. Electoral College”). Thus, despite the overwhelming backlash over the last 200 years, the Electoral College still stands proud as our defining presidential election

However, the Electoral college is, in fact, unnecessary for a multitude of reasons. The first of which is the change in population geography. In 1789, the entire United States only held about four million people (Kimberly). Compare that to the 326 million people in 2017, and the differences are staggering (“U.S. World and Population”). The Electoral College delegates a number of votes to the population of a state. (With the exception of giving every state three votes automatically) When the country held four million people, most of those being slaves, the Electoral College model made perfect sense. More people in one area should absolutely mean more impact on the weight of a vote. However, taking in the dramatic change in the cultural and population landscapes, the Electoral College model as it stands is not constitutional. For example, Wyoming receives three electoral votes for its meager 532,688 citizens. As a result, each electoral vote equates to 177,556 people (“Population vs. Electoral Votes.”). This is unfair in comparison to Texas (which has a population of twenty-five million) has thirty-two electoral votes. This means 715,499 Texans are represented by each singular Texan Electoral Vote. What this all boils down to is that if an American citizen lives in a less populated state, they will technically have their voice heard more. If a country is polarized by states with electoral voters