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Arguments For Electoral College Reform

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On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December of a leap year, five hundred and thirty eight electors travel to their state capitol buildings to decide who is the next president of the United States of America. They take an oath, and cast the official ballots for the presidential election. The problem is that this system is not fair. So, which way of electoral college reform is the best? In this essay, some options for electoral college reform are introduced, and the best one is chosen. Before one chooses which one is the best, one must find out what is wrong about the winner-takes-all electoral college. A reason that the electoral college was created was because the framers of the Constitution were worried that the people do …show more content…

Some people argue that there are no swing states because every vote counts the same. This is not true. There are only five swing states under the popular vote, and these have the major cities of the country. If a candidate wins these states, they win the election. According to diffen.com, “Another advantage is that the impact of any state-level problems, such as fraud, is localized. No political party can commit large-scale fraud in any one state to dramatically influence an election.” This means that the electoral college stops people from rigging the election, it only stays at a state level. If anyone frauds the election with the popular vote, it will show at a national level. Also, the less populous states would not have any say in the elections. What say would Wyoming’s 585,501 have against California’s 39.25 million? Further, people in California are abandoning popular vote systems for electoral college like ones because the more populous parts were shutting out the less populous parts. If the presidential elections would be like that, then we would have the same issue. Therefore, the popular vote system is not a good option for the US presidential elections.
The popular vote isn’t the only reform option, though. Maine and Nebraska use the congressional district method, and it is another way of electoral college reform. The congressional district method is an electoral college system that is not winner-take-all. It uses the same process of the electoral college, but the difference comes when counting votes. The winner of the popular vote in the state gets two electoral college votes, and the winner of each congressional district, or the district in which a representative in the House represents, gets one vote. This can create a split of electoral votes in a

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The Electoral College

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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.

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To What Extent Should the United States Restructure its Electoral College System? : States With the 2016 election in the books, the United States has elected a candidate that lost the popular vote by over two million votes. This is the second time in the twenty first century that this has occurred. In such a democratic nation, the ability to win the important office of the presidency without popular consent raises a few concerns about the two hundred and forty year old system. In a democracy, the voices of the states and their respective populations must be heard.

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Again in Document D, George Edwards says about the Electoral College system, “(I)t favors some citizens over others, depending solely upon that state in which voters cast their votes for president.” Though candidate must have 270 of the electoral votes to become president, if there is a tie than the top three candidates are taken to the House of Representatives where each state has only one vote, and they select the president. This particular part of the Electoral College shows absolutely no political equality. In Document F, Bradford Plumer says, “Because each state cast only one vote, the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters.” The fact that one representative has as much power 55 representatives is just one example of the inequality and how the power in the Electoral College system is not divided correctly.

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For instance, California has the most electoral votes, 55 votes, opposed to the least number a state could have which is three. Smaller states are at a 52 vote disadvantage. There are 29 states that have less than 10 electoral votes which is more than half of the United States. (Document A) The Electoral College gives the more populated states more power and votes to control the election.

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Most candidates in the race have to win certain states because of how big they are. But if the electoral college were to be abolished these smaller states would not really matter in the election at all. The number of electors must be “equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives” (Document 2). Since these two types of committees are based on the population it must be equal, not less or more. This system also allowed Washington DC to have three electoral votes, it is a system that lets these little states to have a vote.

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There is potential for complete breakdown in the election process if the Electoral votes would come to an even tie. Some might argue that the whole idea of the Electoral College should be scrapped all together for the national popular vote, however, there are problems with that idea. The election process needs to be altered to better reflect the will of the people. There was a lot of debate over how the president would be determined during the Constitutional Convention including the popular vote, which was ultimately rejected during compromise. (Miller, 2012)

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Every state has a different population per electoral based on the state’s population. For example Wyoming’s population is 563,626 and every 187,875 is another electoral vote, therefore they have 3 electoral votes. While California’s population is 37,253,956 and every 677,345 is another electoral vote, which means that California has 55 electoral votes (Document #2). This is unfair because Wyoming gets more votes from every 187,875 people while California receives a vote from every 677,345. Therefore the Electoral College favors smaller states rather than bigger and more populated

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Competitors won't intensely crusade in states they know they can't win or states they know they can't lose. Seeing an applicant vigorously battling in states that reliably vote a specific gathering, for example, New York (Democrat), California (Democrat), and Texas (Republican), is exceptionally uncommon or even non-existent. Rather, hopefuls will intensely battle in "swing states", expresses that don't generally vote a similar gathering, for example, Ohio, and Florida. Another contention against the Electoral College is that littler states are over spoken to, due to the way the votes or appropriated. In his article, ”10 reasons why the Electoral College is an issue”, writer Eric Black expresses, " An individual citizen in Wyoming has more than triple the weight in electoral votes as an individual in California" (Black,

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Electoral college has been with us since the birth of the constitution, and to this day we are still using this type of system to this day. The Electoral College is a system that the United States uses to elect our upcoming presidents and vice presidents. Each state has electors equal to their senate member and house of representatives, however who ever gets the highest popular vote in the state gets the electoral vote. The issue is the Electoral College do not give votes to the people, but to the states. Which has some unfair consequences.

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The electoral college also helps the small states have an opinion that actually is heard in the presidential election. In class, it was discussed that Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota together, though their combined population is less than that of Oklahoma, each of those states has three electoral votes, whereas Oklahoma just has seven votes. Going by electoral votes, a candidate would have a better chance at winning the election if they won over Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota versus Oklahoma. With the electoral college, a candidate could win over all thirty-nine small states and win the entire election. Though the candidate could be supported by less than a quarter of the population,

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In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. The delegates understood that the need for a leader was necessary but still bitterly remembered how Britain abused of its power. The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is defined as “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” Since 1787 the Electoral College has been the system for voting in the United States, but with our nation ever more changing and growing it

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First, with the specifications of the electoral college there only needs to be 270 electoral votes to a person for them to win. With this rule only 12 states need to be won CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, PA, OH, MI, GA, NC, and NJ(DOC A) and this is only a part of the overall population of America. While

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Over the years we have used electoral college to determine our presidents. Currently our system is for who ever gets the majority vote in each state gets all of that state’s electoral votes. Because of this system, there have four been presidents who actually lost the popular vote but still won the presidency. Obviously this system is flawed. There have been plans discussed to replace it.

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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?”).

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