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Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq

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For many years, there has been a controversy whether to keep or abolish the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a system that was created by the Founding Fathers to eliminate unfairness and to ensure that all parts of the country are involved in the Presidential election. However, there is evidence for both sides of the argument to prove whether it is an effective system or not. The Electoral College should be abolished from our government. To start off, in some cases, it is unfair to candidates who win the popular vote, but do not win the Electoral vote. For example, in the Presidential Election of 2000, G. W. Bush ended up with 50,456,002 popular votes, Gore with 50,999,897, and Nader with 2,882,955. (Document F) As you can see, Gore was in the lead for the popular vote, and it seems like he had a good chance at being elected President. However in the Electoral vote, G. W. Bush had 271 electoral votes, Gore had 266, and Nader with 0. The lead shifts to G. W Bush, so he ends up winning the Presidential election. Clearly, after a popular vote, the population does favor that candidate more, but then changes the lead after the Electoral College votes. …show more content…

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. To add on, other controlling states include Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida who have the power to control every Presidential election. This ignores the interests of minority states, and it allows the powerhouse states to also give candidates a large amount of electoral votes that can get them into the

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593 Words | 3 Pages

The way it’s set up makes the people think they’re choosing the president yet in reality it’s the slate of electors who are choosing who they want in office. They basically give the people that look up to the higher ups false hope by leading them on. “For example Hayes lost with popularity, yet won the election (popular vote-4, 036,572 and electoral vote- 185). How?

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605 Words | 3 Pages

This can be supported by when pro 1 from the Pro and Cons of the Electoral College article, states that, “To win the election, presidential candidates need electoral votes from multiple regions and therefore they build campaign platforms with a national focus, meaning that the winner will actually be serving the needs of the entire country.” This evidence informs us that not only does the Electoral College allow and ensure multiple regions to be involved in the election, it also mentions that the presidential candidates require votes from multiple regions, thus requiring them to campaign with national focus if they want to win. This makes it so the presidential candidates have to appeal to an entire country, which benefits it as it makes it so they serve the entire country and its

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579 Words | 3 Pages

If these smaller states get virtually ignored during the late part of the election process, is it even fair for these smaller

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1267 Words | 6 Pages

Even though the United States is supposed to be a democracy, the people do not actually elect the president directly. Instead, a group of electors from each state vote for the president through a process known as the electoral college. Through this system, a group of state-elected officials from each state, not the people, decide who wins the presidency. The number of electors a state has is relative to its population size. For example, a state with a smaller population receives less votes than a state with a greater population.

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1736 Words | 7 Pages

In the 2000 election. Former president George W. Bush won the election while losing the popular vote due to the Electoral College. Electoral College will lead candidates to the presidency of the United States to focus on a number of states with high number of Electoral College votes to win at least a majority. It is currently 270 of 538. There is a concern whether the fact a person lives in a “safe” v. “battleground” state has an influence when it comes to whether or not to vote at all.

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702 Words | 3 Pages

In a popular vote, voting fraud is much easier to commit. In electoral College, fraud does little to affect the entire election but in a popular vote, voter fraud will have a much greater effect. Furthermore, Popular vote does not get smaller states and minorities involved in the election. Some may argue that Electoral college is unfair because someone could win the popular vote and lose the whole election because they did not win the Electoral College. This is a flawed argument because the point of the election is to get everyone opinion and in the popular vote only the majority's opinion matters.

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1710 Words | 7 Pages

Those 538 votes are distributed throughout the states. The candidate with a majority is elected President of USA. The states themselves uses the system most political scientists call FPTP or first past the post. FPTP is a system where the candidate with the most votes wins. So if you win more votes than your candidate in a state, you get all the electoral votes of that state.

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635 Words | 3 Pages

However, the electoral college does not make candidates care more about small states. Instead, it makes candidates focus on so called, “battleground states”, ignoring the rest of the states. In the 2004 election, almost all of campaign costs were spent in 17 states. “Wisconsin, another “battleground state” received a total of thirty-one candidate visits … ignored states included Texas and Illinois.” (source D)

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1368 Words | 6 Pages

The age old question about should the Electoral College be abolished. First, lets define what the Electoral College means. Dictionary.com states it’s “a body of electors chosen by the voters in each state to elect the president and vice president of the U.S” (Dictionary.com, 2015). We the people state it’s “the electors from each state who meet after the popular election to cast ballots for president and vice president” (Ginsberg, Lowi, Weir, Tolbert, 2015). I would define it as each states elected representatives and senators will select the president and vice president of the United States (US) by casting their electoral vote.

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965 Words | 4 Pages

What would you think if a presidential candidate got over 2 million more votes than the other candidate, but still lost? Does that seem fair to you? Well that sort of thing is exactly what the Electoral College does. The Electoral College is the unfair voting system America still uses to pick their president that needs to be abolished and changed to a popular vote system. The Electoral College is the current voting system used in America to elect their president.

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805 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the history of the U.S., this has only happened 5 times: John Quincy Adams first election, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Since a the popular vote does not chose the presidency, the people/citizens really are not choosing their

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643 Words | 3 Pages

The electoral college is the system that has been used to elect Presidents in the United States since the Constitution was established. However, there has been a debate that the electoral college should be abolished. (Claim) The Electoral College should be abolished and replaced with a direct popular vote. This system goes against the Constitution by undermining democracy, and the distribution of voting weight in states is extremely uneven.

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1729 Words | 7 Pages

Again in 1884 Benjamin Harrison received over 100,000 votes less than Grover Cleveland, but won the electoral vote by a hefty margin. In more recent times however the differences between the electoral and popular winner have been more defined. In the election of 2000 George W. Bush lost the popular vote by almost half a million votes, and Bush only winning the electoral race by 5 votes thanks to him narrowly securing the Florida electoral votes after disputes about who really won Florida. This election sparked many people into believing that the Electoral College system is not good for the nation because the candidate that most Americans are voting for is not winning the office. This issue was clearly shown again 2016 in the race now President Trump, and former Secretary of State Clinton.

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628 Words | 3 Pages

Without the electoral college these smaller states would not be as adequately represented in the election, due to a smaller population leaving a majority of these states potentially without a voice. On the other hand it keeps larger states from potentially ruling an entire election. The electoral college assumes that each state and citizens within that particular state are like minded in the way they want to be governed. That being said, if a large state who all thought the same came together they could potentially elect a president who would have more of their particular state's interests in

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437 Words | 2 Pages

• The system guarantees a winner in the presidential election. With the popular vote the candidate has to ensure they reach a specific percentage. In 1992 Bill Clinton won the presidential election, but had only won 43 percent of the popular vote. • The system also guarantees competitiveness, especially since each state holds it’s own contest. Candidates have to create strategies on how they will approach each state and determine if it is worth any additional effort to win states over.

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