Electoral System Dbq Essay

When the Democratic System in America was founded in 1787, it was built on the sturdy ideals of equality and fairness. The founding fathers of the constitutional convention developed the Electoral college system with the best interests of the American people in mind, as the average person was highly under-educated and they did not trust them to make a decision as important as the But over time as society and even our democracy has changed, it has become ridden with flaws and corruption especially in the electoral college and voting system. The effects of the Electoral College’s inefficiencies oppose the very ideas our democracy was built off of. Because of the over-representation of small states, the broken promises of political equality, and

The minimum amount of Electoral Votes a state can have is three; one for each senator, and one for each representative member in the House. This means that a state like Wyoming with a population of around half a million will receive three electoral votes, while a state like Nevada with a population 6 times that of Wyoming's, only has double the electoral votes. The Electoral map on Document A clearly shows the inequality of electoral votes given to small states, as 13 states have four or less votes. This means that the individuals vote in these states and many more, are worth more proportionally. Document D really delves into this idea as well, as it synthesizes data from populations of 12 different states whose total is less that the population of Illinois, but have more than double the electoral votes. Illinois, with a population of 12,830,632 has 20 votes in the electorate. Yet the total population of the 12 smallest states (with a population less than 1.5 million) as well as Washington D.C., have a total population less than that of Illinois but have a whopping 44 votes in the electorate. This clearly goes to show the massive over-representation of small low populated states, as their popular vote, has a bigger effect on the actual outcome of the election. This idea brings about many more issues as

This means that whoever takes majority, plus one vote, will win it all. For example, If the state of Nevada was voting between two candidates and the popular vote was 49.9% to 50.1%, whoever had the upper hand would receive all of that states slate in the electorate. This then shows for the extreme support of the two party system. It is undeniable that the current Electoral system is quite fond of, and does a good job at supporting the fundamental ideas of our democracy like a 2-party system which then legitimizes the candidates- as Documents C and E explain, but it is this very system that absolutely crushes and hope for a third party or independent candidate. Document D also reveals percentages of the popular votes and electoral votes in two major elections. Both explicitly portray that a third party candidate will never have a chance due to the winner-take all system. Because of the Electoral system as well, and the focus on winning the states electoral votes instead of the population’s as a whole, this means that a candidate can lose the popular election, but still win the presidency (as the 2016 elections show). This breaks the idea of true democracy, the idea of 1 person 1 vote, the idea of political