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Essay On Electoral College

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The United States of America is known as a nation of freedom and liberty, where democracy is popularly exercised everyday. Every four years, qualified citizens are called to vote for the next president and vice president, who will represent the nation. One common belief among the people is that the presidential election’s result based solely on the votes of the people, and each person has one vote. Everyone has an equal opportunity to vote for those who will hold positions in the Government. However, the system is more complicated than just one vote per person. Instead, the Electoral College, a voting method based on states’ population, is used to decide the final result. I oppose the Electoral College because of its inefficiency to reflect …show more content…

In the presidential election in 2000, Bush become president despite the 500,000 votes that he lost to his opponent from Tennesee, Al Gore ("Bush v. gore," ). But that didn’t matter since he won the election based on the state's population. A candidate can still win the election without getting the popular votes. If a candidate wins by a small margin , he or she will still win all of the state’s electoral votes due to the winner-take-all mechanism. Additionally, the Electoral college does not always show a distribution of support. In the Electoral College system, different states have different numbers of votes. Big states like California and Texas’s votes outweigh less populated states like Rhode Island. A candidate may only wins in eleven states, but the electoral votes from those states can be enough for he or she to become the next president.Therefore, the electoral college can misinterpret the will of the …show more content…

Regardless of the states’ population, small states such as Vermont and Wyoming are automatically guaranteed to have two electoral votes . Even Though they have a smaller population, but individual votes in those states weigh more than those in large states like Florida. In addition to that, small states also have representatives. Some argue that the Electoral College will prevent reckless votes by giving the option to choose educated electors who are more likely to vote intelligently. Although it’s true that the people can be not well-informed about the matter and they can make bad decisions sometimes, but that should not take away their voice in electing the president. Isn’t the whole point of having a government is to protect the people and serve on their interests

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488 Words | 2 Pages

For example, Wyoming is the least populated state, and its electors represent the population in a ratio of one elector per roughly 189,000 voters. California, the most populated state, is represented in a ratio of one elector per around 677,000 voters. This means that the votes cast by states with smaller populations, such as Wyoming, hold more weight than the votes from larger states. The Electoral College also typically causes candidates to focus on “swing states” more heavily than other states. Candidates campaign primarily in states such as Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, because these states are not always preferential toward one political party.

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1821 Words | 8 Pages

Specifically, there have been four elections where a candidate who won the popular vote, did not win the presidency. This is controversial because the people who supported the losing candidate believe that candidate should have won because the greater population voted for him or her. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the election (by a margin of one electoral vote), but he lost the popular vote by more than 250,000 ballots to Samuel J. Tilden. Rutherford B Hayes was named president elect and served for one presidential term. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison received 233 electoral votes to Grover Cleveland’s 168, winning the presidency.

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Electoral College: For the Lose One view to consider that when voting for a president through the electoral college , voters are confused about the election process no more than they are unprepared of the consequences they ace of their votes not being counted. Voting by popular vote when electing a president is the best choice contrary to the electoral college; in favor of defying the people. Americans vote in order to elect a president of their preference to run our country. Voting by popular vote surpasses the whole electoral process by giving the people not just what they want, but what Americans need. Direct election of presidents remains solid as opposed to the “faithless” electoral college.

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To begin, the Electoral College takes into account the individual states that people live in. This is considered arbitrary since people now identify with the nation as a whole rather than their individual states. Since the Electoral College is “winner take all”, this renders certain sections of the country as “already decided”. People who choose to deviate from the

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1499 Words | 6 Pages

In the United States, there is a popular belief that the public decides presidential elections directly, as in a true democracy; however, this is only part of the truth, due to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is the system that the United States has in place to decide the president and vice-president, the way that it works is the United States people vote for electors who will represent them in a vote based on each states population (Jost & Giroux Sec. 1 Par. 6). The Electoral College is a widely debated topic among people in the United States, as stated in a document by Jost and Giroux “The Electoral has been controversial throughout U.S. history” (Jost & Giroux Sec. 1 Par.

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Several years after the United States came to be, the Constitutional Convention met to determine how the new nation should govern itself. The delegates saw that it was crucial to have a president and vice president, but the delegates did not want these offices to reflect how the colonies were treated under the British rule. The delegates believed that the president’s power should be limited, and that he should be chosen through the system known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. Many citizens feel that the Electoral College goes against our nation’s principle of representative democracy, while others

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1585 Words | 7 Pages

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December of a leap year, five hundred and thirty eight electors travel to their state capitol buildings to decide who is the next president of the United States of America. They take an oath, and cast the official ballots for the presidential election. The problem is that this system is not fair. So, which way of electoral college reform is the best? In this essay, some options for electoral college reform are introduced, and the best one is chosen.

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Although many have made their case against the Electoral College system, it is a necessary institution in the Presidential election because it preserves Federalism and encourages the two party system. One reason why the Electoral College is a necessary evil is because it secures the power of the states in the election, thereby upholding Federalism. As previously indicated, when citizens vote, they are voting for the amount of electors in their state to vote for their candidate of choice. The number of these electoral votes varies from state to state due to the fact that they are made up of the sum of its state’s Senators and House Representatives.

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612 Words | 3 Pages

The electoral college also helps the small states have an opinion that actually is heard in the presidential election. In class, it was discussed that Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota together, though their combined population is less than that of Oklahoma, each of those states has three electoral votes, whereas Oklahoma just has seven votes. Going by electoral votes, a candidate would have a better chance at winning the election if they won over Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota versus Oklahoma. With the electoral college, a candidate could win over all thirty-nine small states and win the entire election. Though the candidate could be supported by less than a quarter of the population,

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2123 Words | 9 Pages

The Electoral College is intended to work by equally distributing the electoral votes amongst the states, based on the state’s percentage of the total population. However, by law, each state will get at least three electoral votes regardless of population. Roughly, each electoral vote should speak for about five hundred and seventy thousand voters (“5 Reasons”). Many times, however, this is not the case. Megan Winkler, a historian and political writer used the state of Ohio as an example: “...the state of Ohio — with a population of 11,500,000 — should have 20 electoral votes.

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1026 Words | 5 Pages

In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. The delegates understood that the need for a leader was necessary but still bitterly remembered how Britain abused of its power. The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is defined as “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” Since 1787 the Electoral College has been the system for voting in the United States, but with our nation ever more changing and growing it

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837 Words | 4 Pages

First, with the specifications of the electoral college there only needs to be 270 electoral votes to a person for them to win. With this rule only 12 states need to be won CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, PA, OH, MI, GA, NC, and NJ(DOC A) and this is only a part of the overall population of America. While

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945 Words | 4 Pages

Yet, the electoral process as it is now violates this noble belief. Each state despite how small the population is guaranteed two electors, and many look at this requirement as offset to the inevitable influence of large states and assurance that each is considered equal (Posner). Although it is true that the Electoral College does give smaller states a bigger voice, the act is counterproductive; the more popular states now are less represented. Because of the certification of at least two electors from a total pool of 538, large states receive less than what they should when the rest of electors are divided based on population. California, for instance, has 55 electors representing 37,254,403 -each standing for 677,355 people- while Wyoming much smaller with a population of 563,767 has three electors -each standing for 187,973 people (Petrocelli).

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469 Words | 2 Pages

The Electoral College began with Article II of the Constitution, stating that each state will appoint as many electors as it is entitled senators and representatives. (Levin-Waldman, 2016) The president of the United States is elected by what is called the Electoral College. There are a total of 538 electoral votes cast, and all candidates elected to run for office from their respective party needs 270 in order to win. “For most states, the candidate who wins a majority of votes in that state takes all of its electors.

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975 Words | 4 Pages

The Electoral College system the founding fathers devised helps to balance out the power of the large, populous states. This system forces candidates to campaign in all states since they all carry some sway in the elections (“Understanding the Presidential Election”). However, other issues present themselves as well, like states with large independent voters that can be swayed and the issue that a candidate can lose the popular vote and win the election. The first issue is that states that are equally divided between democrats and republicans and hold a large number of electoral votes like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania are considered swing states. (“Understanding the Presidential Election”)

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