Issues With Electoral College

The Issues with the Electoral College and the Necessity of it
Intro: During the drafting of the Constitution in 1787 there was dispute over how the president of the nation should be elected. Many people believed that the president should be elected through a direct popular vote, while others believed the nation’s congress should decide on who becomes president. The framers of the Constitution believed a popular vote electing the president would make it too easy for tyranny of the majority, and they were worried that the American public was uneducated and a tyrant could sway public opinion. On the other hand, allowing congress to elect the president would take away a lot of the power of our nation’s checks and balances. Congress would choose

People’s largest complaint is that it is highly possible for a candidate to lose the popular vote but to still win the presidency. This has several times twice in the past two decades. In 1824 there were four candidates for president and Andrew Jackson received a plurality of the vote, more than anyone else, but not a majority. That meant the election went to the House and John Quincy Adams won the presidency. In 1876 Rutherford Hayes received less popular votes than Tilden, and only won the electoral race by one vote, due to three contested states all going to Hayes. Again in 1884 Benjamin Harrison received over 100,000 votes less than Grover Cleveland, but won the electoral vote by a hefty margin. In more recent times however the differences between the electoral and popular winner have been more defined. In the election of 2000 George W. Bush lost the popular vote by almost half a million votes, and Bush only winning the electoral race by 5 votes thanks to him narrowly securing the Florida electoral votes after disputes about who really won Florida. This election sparked many people into believing that the Electoral College system is not good for the nation because the candidate that most Americans are voting for is not winning the office. This issue was clearly shown again 2016 in the race now President Trump, and former Secretary of State Clinton. President

This would stand to reason that without the Electoral College a candidate would have to meet the same requirements with the popular vote. This presents a challenge because in both of the recent elections where the popular winner not winning electorally has been an issue neither candidate from the main two political parties won a majority of popular votes. In 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote and lost electorally he only had 48.85 percent of the popular vote which is not a majority which would’ve meant the election would’ve gone to the House of Representatives which at the time was controlled by the Republican Party. Again in 2016 when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote she only had 48.5 percent which again is not a majority which would’ve sent the election to the House of Representatives which again was still controlled by the Republican