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