Thomas Hastings PSC 1113 Miranda Canody November 21, 2014 Problems with American Democracy: The Electoral College No other institution of government has been at the center of controversy more than the Electoral College. The presidency, and therefore the direction of this country, has been decided by this institution, which was created by the Framers of this country. The history of the Electoral college has been marred by many flaws and mistakes, but these mistakes could be corrected by either heavily changing the College or by abolishing it completely. The Electoral College was founded in 1787 at the constitutional convention. The College was created by assigning each state a certain number of electors which are made up of the representatives …show more content…
For a presidential candidate to win in the College, the candidate must obtain 270 votes. According to Losco and Baker, the Framers devised the Electoral college stop political infighting that might ensue, but believed that it would be unimportant in presidential races. Under the original rules of the College, the winner in the College became president and the second place candidate became vice president. In the election of 1796, this resulted in a president from one party and a vice president from another party. Because of these and other problems, Congress passed the twelfth amendment. The twelfth amendment requires electors in the college to vote for the president and the vice president separately. So as you can see the Electoral College has been a flawed system since its inception. But the issues with the College run deeper than just having a president and vice president from opposing parties. In not one but in four different elections, candidates have won the popular vote, but have lost the election in the Electoral College. The most recent and most controversial example of this occurred in 2000 in the presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush. …show more content…
The first would be abolishing the winner-take-all system and assign votes on an individual basis, and to create an amendment requiring the voters in the College to vote based on the will of their constituency. With this requirement in place, there would be no risk of having faithless electors. While this may not completely fix the problem, it would certainly help. Our congressmen would be able to keep one of their powers, and the overall structure of government would not be changed. The second solution would be the complete abolishment of the college. This would remove one of the structures the Framers created, would remove a key power from our representatives and senators, would be the most drastic, but would have the greatest effect on the public. According to Losco and Baker, recent Gallup polls show that this solution is supported by about sixty percent of the population. By abolishing the Electoral College the election of the president would only be based upon the popular vote. This would likely result in a larger voter turnout. Because their vote for president would no longer be proxied by the College, they would be more likely to vote due to the fact their vote would matter more. This system would also likely change the result of future elections. It may also reduce some of the inter-party fighting. Instead of defining states as red or blue, candidates would have to fight for every