Because of the winner-takes-all system, some presidents have won the election without the majority of the popular vote. In the 48 states that use the winner-takes-all system, whichever candidate wins that state’s popular vote receives all of the electoral votes for that particular state. The data gathered from the 2000 election demonstrates that despite winning the popular vote by about 540,000 votes, Al Gore proceeded to lose the election to George W. Bush by only 5 electoral votes. Florida’s 29 electoral votes were the deciding factor in this election. Because of the winner-takes-all system, when Bush won the popular vote in Florida, he was awarded with these votes, costing Gore the election.
George Will quotes, “The winner-take-all electoral vote allocation tends to produce a winning margin that looks like national decisiveness (Document E).” Will is conveying that in appearance, the immense gap between the winning candidate and runner-up might give off the impression of a unanimous national acceptance. But, in reality that said candidate might not be the president the people really voted for. This infringes the citizen's right of choosing their own president, therefore the system is undemocratic. Additionally, Bradford Plumer quotes, “Perhaps the most worrying is the prospect of a tie.
The Electoral College system, in our government today, is made up of a winner-take-all system. The winner take all system demonstrates that whichever candidate that receives the most votes wins all of the electoral points and the other candidate receives nothing. The Electoral College system enacts the candidates of both parties to only visit the larger states, in which they know they will most likely receive the most electoral points. This is not technically fair because each state is not getting proper representation. When states disagree, with one candidate’s views on a particular issue, they can swing and vote for the other candidate causing the other candidate to alter their approach to win back the state.
The number of votes a state receives in the Electoral College is based on the state’s population. The presidential candidate who reaches 270 electoral votes is declared the winner. This system was designed in order to prevent large states from overpowering smaller states. However, there are many flaws that come with this unique system.
Those 538 votes are distributed throughout the states. The candidate with a majority is elected President of USA. The states themselves uses the system most political scientists call FPTP or first past the post. FPTP is a system where the candidate with the most votes wins. So if you win more votes than your candidate in a state, you get all the electoral votes of that state.
This problem was corrected by the 12th amendment, ratified in 1804. Now today the winner takes all system in effect in 48 states makes it possible for candidates to win at least 270 electoral votes without winning a majority of the popular vote. Today a candidate who carries the 10 largest states wins 256 electoral votes. But the Electoral College can also help small states. Most people want to abolish the Electoral College.
Historically, the United States uses a plurality voting system where the rule of the majority wins the election (Levine, 2004, p. 312). Citizens choose one preferred candidate out of many that are running on a particular ballot. In the general election for the President of the United States, an electoral system is also used to determine the winner. In an electoral system an Electoral College ensures that each state has the same number of electoral votes as they have represented in Congress (Schulman, 2017).
Further, through the Electoral college all votes from each state goes to a given candidate, it is a winner take all system. Also, if your state is not a battleground state it is largely ignored and the battleground states are shrinking Levinson states, “by 2004, only 13 states, with 159 electoral votes, were battleground states.” (88) This results in the majority of the population becoming irrelevant. This is yet again an example wherein a minority of the population exerts control over the majority. Levinson’s solution to the electoral college is a national vote with a runoff system to ensure a majority vote for the president.
What would you think if a presidential candidate got over 2 million more votes than the other candidate, but still lost? Does that seem fair to you? Well that sort of thing is exactly what the Electoral College does. The Electoral College is the unfair voting system America still uses to pick their president that needs to be abolished and changed to a popular vote system. The Electoral College is the current voting system used in America to elect their president.
"A candidate must win 270 electoral votes to be elected president. A state's electors are typically awarded to the party whose candidate wins the most popular votes in the state — so, in effect, when you vote, you are not voting as much for your candidate as you are your candidate’s party electors. In most presidential elections, the candidate that wins the popular vote, will receive the majority of electoral votes. However, that is not always the case. When the time comes, some electors
In terms of representation, this system is fair, but the delegates nominated by the people have a choice to vote for what their state or district has decided or not. There is also the popular vote which is the people’s direct vote for their choice. Even though there is a popular vote, it does not decide who gains presidency. Only the electoral college decides, which is by vote. This means that a candidate can be elected without the popular vote.
Through this method of choosing, the candidates with the most votes win, thus not equally representing a possible larger majority that could have been fragmentized by many candidates. It is possible that the candidate that wins just won because they are the larger of the minorities that ran in the election. Under this model, a majority of people could end up being represented by someone they did not vote for as their representative. A solution to this would be to incorporate proportional representation during elections to represent the composition of the public more accurately, but still apply a moderately high minimum percentage threshold in order to prevent extensive fragmentation and a massive amount of new parties. A truly proportional representation isn’t completely necessary, but can be incorporated more into state elections to form a more mixed system.
This way gives the states the ability to vote for different candidates according to the region the people that resided in it. The states are then not forced to give all their votes to just one candidate. This new system would be the best thing for the country to adopt to elect our next president with. If this system fails, then our country can go back to the original electoral college. For this to work both the Republicans and the Democrats need to come together to figure the best way to update our system.
Granted a candidate would almost never win all eleven states because the majority of these states tend to be predominantly democrat or republic, the fact that only eleven states alone can determine who 's the president puts to question the value of the remaining 39 states. Document B, explains the winner-take-all method and how unfair the method is to third party candidates. The chart shows how even though both third party candidates won about 7% and 19% of the popular vote but won 0% of the electoral vote. In Document E, Will states “the winner-take-all electoral vote allocation tends to produce a winning margin that looks like national decisiveness” There are over 300 million people in the United States, but just 538 people get to decide
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
