Electoral College: Article Analysis

The submissions for this assignment are posts in the assignment's discussion. Below are the discussion posts for Alexia Aldridge, or you can view the full discussion.

from Reading Discussion #2

11 hours ago

The first three articles of the United States Constitution define our government’s 3 branches: congress, executive, and judicial. Article I, Section I establishes the House of Representatives and the Senate, granting them “All legislative powers” (1). This legislative power can, however, be checked by the executive branch should the president use veto powers established later in Article I, Section 7. Section 2 of Article I discusses our “most numerous branch,” (1) the House of Representatives. The amount of representatives “shall not

The original system for U.S. elections was changed by the 12th Amendment, to the highly controversial method which uses “a number of electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the congress” (5). This electoral college, at the suggestion of their state’s vote count, then casts their votes on behalf of their citizens. In the 2016 election, we witnessed what some would consider a failure of the electoral college, where the popular vote was won by Hillary Clinton, while the electoral college elected Donald Trump. This was a situation that the forefathers did not intend when they created this system in order to prevent a monarchy in America, but it does pose a question on whether we should reconsider our election process.

Article III establishes the judicial branch and its’ power, which extends to “all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this constitution, the Laws of the United States” (7). It gives the Supreme Court original jurisdiction over cases involving foreign agents, or ambassadors, otherwise all cases are appealed from lower courts through various methods to be heard, and even then are not guaranteed to hear as the judges decide most of their caseload. Section 2 gives all cases (besides impeachment) the right

You are not alone in finding the fact that the majority vote does not always win in United States elections. There are actually many groups attempting to abolish the electoral college after the election of Donald Trump, as he did not win the popular vote. I think that the electoral college was a good solution for the founders to give all of America the ability to have their voice heard by a nonpartisan election caster, but unfortunately it does not seem to be working as well today.

Ali

from Reading Discussion #2

11 hours ago

Hi Angelo!

I also felt sort of bad realizing that I didn't know a lot of this stuff, especially since I want to attend law school at some point. It is a lot of information to absorb and the verbiage is difficult to get past, but most of the concepts make sense once you get past how they are worded. I think it also comes from the difference in political climates- we are not currently escaping an oppressive monarch government and attempting to create a vastly different government to avoid the same situation so some of the drastic measures (like the original method of electing a president) simply don't make