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Essay On Electoral College

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Recommended: Explain why the electoral college must not be abolished

Ethan Garner Government Baker 2/28/2023 Why The Electoral College Works? The Electoral College system was established by the founding fathers. It is the way which the President and Vice President of the United States are picked. According to the National Archives “The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your State has the same number of electors as it does Members in its Congressional delegation: one for each Member in the House of Representatives plus two Senators.” (National Archives) Despite the criticisms that the system has received, it is still important that we maintain the Electoral College system for multiple reasons. The first reason is that the Electoral …show more content…

Unlike a popular vote system, the Electoral College makes sure that the candidate who wins the most votes from the electors is the winner. A popular vote system would result in a run-off election if no candidate received over 50% of the vote. Also, a popular vote system would trigger a need for a recount if the votes were close.Vitana.org states that the cost of a presidential election in the United States is already several billion dollars. On a close popular vote, often defined as a difference of 0.5% or less in the tabulated results, an automatic recount would likely be triggered. That means the cost of counting all the votes would be duplicated. With the polarization in global politics today, especially in the United States, a switch to the popular vote would likely increase costs even further. …show more content…

To win the election, a candidate must win most of the electoral votes, which means that they must have support from across the country. This process makes sure that the winning candidate has a broad base of support and is not just popular in one region of the country. This is essential because the President and Vice President can represent the interests of all citizens. Although an argument could be made about the good of the popular vote system for example It gives each vote an equal amount of power, it would eliminate the threat of a faithless elector, It could encourage voter turnout, Battleground states would disappear in U.S. elections, It would eliminate the Congressional provisions for a non-majority election, It could help to reduce partisanship. All of these are good things, but they do not outweigh the system we currently have. As the great Burt Lance said, “If it aint broke, don’t fix it.” In conclusion, the Electoral College system is essential to ensure that all states have equal representation in the election process, provide a clear winner, make sure that the President and Vice President are elected by most of the country, and are elected by a diverse group of people. Despite the criticisms that the system has received, we should maintain the Electoral College system to ensure that our democracy is fair, representative, and

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The state can only reward the candidate a specific number of votes. This forces the candidates to diversify themselves within the country to campaign in both Republican and Democratic areas. This also prevents the candidate from solely campaigning in very dense populated areas, which only helps with the popular vote in that specific area. Additionally, the Electoral College system keeps the government in line with the checks and balances. Certain proponents have argued that when the President is directly elected he can declare a national well-known mandate, which will undermine the other branches of the government, which would lead to tyranny (Advantages and Disadvantages of Electoral College,

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I think the Electoral College was a decent idea in the past when the government was just starting out. Now, I believe we should get rid of it and move to a direct voting system. The reason being that there are several things wrong with the Electoral College system. To start out the candidates already have a good idea what states they are going to win. So a republican’s vote in a democratic state such as New York is not going to matter at all.

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If the Electoral College did not exist, the presidential candidates would feel more obligated to visit every state, or at least more than they do now. However, I do think the Electoral College does a respectable job at representing minority states, so I don’t think it should be completely abolished. Instead, it needs to be

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If the United States was to alter the system from an electoral college voting system to going straight to the popular votes, each vote in all different state would be gathered and combined together. Once all of the ballots are counted, the candidate with the majority votes becomes president and vice

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A positive attribute is the Electoral Votes allows multiple regions to be in focus, benefiting the entire population. However, a negative of the Electoral College system results in a system in which certain states are ignored in the electoral process, either due to their number of electoral votes or depending on which way their vote swings. In, addition to that issue, the popular vote seems to be not accounted for, as seen in the most recent election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Overall, the Electoral College should be eradicated from the Constitution, mainly because it is not an accurate representation of the peoples of the nation's vote, and voters have access to information to make an educated vote. Being so, more states need to enact the National Popular vote so the Electoral votes will have to be based on the popular vote of that

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The Electoral College system assures balanced power between the states, puts the independent parties under control, grants balanced voting, and supports the major political parties. The Electoral College has proven itself to be very sufficient in determining the president and the vice president of the United States. Since this system has been successful since our Founding Fathers created it, there should be no reason as to why we should get rid of the Electoral

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("Should the Electoral College be abolished?" n.d.) Another downfall of the electoral college system is that votes cast in smaller states are more significant than those of larger states because the smaller states have fewer electoral votes. Therefor every vote from the people has much more weight than those from larger states. Without the electoral college, candidates

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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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Rush Limbaugh once said, “The primary purpose of the Electoral College is to maintain the power of the states and to support the idea that the election is decided by the states. It’s not decided by the general population, and it never was.” Rush Limbaugh is describing exactly why the Electoral College was created- so that power could be divided amongst the states without one person holding more power than another. Although some people think that a national popular vote would be a better way to have elections, it is actually the exact opposite. Getting rid of the Electoral College would mean that not only would the bigger, more populated, cities hold all of the power, you are just one vote that is going up against thousands of others.

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I understand how this makes the election process quicker and organized but what happened to all American people voices being heard and their votes should count regardless. Conclusion: Reforming the Electoral College system is much needed because I think for the Presidential Election; the votes of the qualified citizens should count. By using National Popular Vote system, it would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate, who receives the most popular votes in all the states. The national popular voting system make all states competitive in presidential elections and makes every vote

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Voting systems, especially those representing hundreds of millions of people, are far more complex than they appear. Many want to do away with the Electoral College, because it does not give every citizen an equally weighted vote. For example, many Republicans in New York and California choose not to vote, because in a “winner takes all” system, they do not believe there voices will be heard. On the other hand, the Popular Vote System may result in an elected candidate that the majority of voters do not favor. This can happen using the Electoral College System, but is more likely to occur using the popular vote, especially when multiple parties are running in the race.

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The founding fathers were smart and thought long and hard about the best ways to help our country vote and the electoral college is what they agreed on. There is no need to be, “tinkering with a process that is over two centuries old [because it] could destabilize one of the steadiest political systems in the world” (Stepman). Since the system has worked so well for so long it's hard to find good reasons to change it. In conclusion, we should keep the Electoral College because its fair, have lower risks of mistakes, and has been always been successful.

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Over the course of its existence the college has been amended “more than 700 times (Rudalevige).” This shows the immense dissatisfaction with the current state of the electoral college. The popular vote is more beneficial than the electoral college because it encourages more people to get involved, as opposed to simply standing by and not voting because they feel that silence and voting are equivalents. A popular vote would guarantee that each person voting gets a direct say in what happens as opposed to the current system. For example, all the people living in Wyoming during the 2016 election only gained 3 electoral college votes, but each of their votes were “worth 2.87 California voters in terms of her individual share of her respective state’s electoral votes (Rudalevige).”

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The Electoral College is a longstanding organization in place in the United States of America that was originally established by the Founding Fathers in create equality in presidential elections has become a topic of harsh criticism and controversy over the years. The Electoral College was established by the Founding Fathers of the United States at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in order ensure there was representation of the people while keeping the best interests of the nation in mind (“What is the Electoral College?”). At the time of the writing of the Constitution, there were two main ideas on how to elect a president. The first was that there should be a simple vote of all eligible people and who ever gets the most votes becomes

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The Electoral College is the process to which the United States elects the President, and the Vice President. The founders of the Constitution came up with this process. This was done to give additional power to the small states, and it was done to satisfy them. It works by the citizens of the United States electing representatives called electors. Each state is given the same amount of electors, as they are members of congress.

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