Electoral College Should Be Abolished Dbq Essay

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The United States of America Prides itself on its extensive democracy--it is one of the most free places in the world--so why is it that a citizen has the right to vote, and is expected to exercise it, when it could be potentially pointless to cast a ballot? The answer, is the Electoral College. The Electoral College was established because our founding fathers dictated that their citizenry was incapable of making informed decisions, and they thought it best that the central figurehead of the nation be decided by men like them. That is false now--the Electoral College is an antiquated system that needs to be abolished because it is an inaccurate representation of what the people want, it forces people to throw away their vote, and most importantly, …show more content…

Anderson. He got 489 (91%) of the electoral vote, but only 43,904,153 (50.7%) of the popular vote (Doc B). In short, although he only got just over half of the nations support, the election seemed like a landslide in his favor. The electoral vote did not accurately represent the nations position on their preferred candidate. Although he would have won without the support of the electoral college, it doesn’t always end up this way. In 2000, George W. Bush won the presidency against his competitors--but not because the citizenry chose him. The Electoral College did. He received 543, 895 less votes than his competitor Albert Arnold Gore Jr (Doc G). However, he got more electoral votes, so he was the one sitting in the …show more content…

Still, no. The Electoral College doesn’t actually level the playing field for all the states, since the electoral votes of a state directly correlate with population size. For instance, the state of Illinois has a population of 12,830,632, and 20 electoral votes, while Wyoming has a population of 563,626 and only 3 electoral votes (Doc D). Even if Wyoming was 100% red, with no outliers, they’re still only going to have 3 electoral votes. The even greater inequality, however, is that the smaller states are overrepresented, while 3 electoral votes to a population of 563,626 may seem accurate, Wyoming is not the only state in this situation. If you were to add Alaska, Delaware, DC, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming you’d get about 44 electoral votes, with a total population of 12,500,722. As previously stated Illinois has a population of 12,830,632, and 20 electoral votes. Those small states combined have twice the weight on the vote, but less than Illinois total