Pros And Cons Of Abolishing The Electoral College

Abolish the Electoral College or Not? The next election for president and vice president is in the year 2016. Starting now, people will start to gather information and facts about each candidate. Through this, political opinions will be formed about the candidates and their planned actions as president and vice president. Then, on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the public will vote for their favorite candidate. However, people will vote for the candidates indirectly through a buffer; the Electoral College. Concerns about the Electoral College will be raised once again, and the question of whether or not it should be abolished will need to be addressed. Initially, I thought the Electoral College was a group of people that

The electors do represent the states in that majority of them are affiliated with a state and the viewpoints. However, the electors additionally represent the candidates. In other words, the presidential candidate chooses it’s electors because evidently, the electors have a certain viewpoint that reflects that of the candidate. When people go to vote for the candidate, they are actually voting for the electors. That is where it is misleading. People vote for the candidates by voting for the electors that reflect the viewpoints of the particular candidate and their personal political opinion. With that said, the Electoral College is a winner take all system where the states have voted and the majority vote of the presidential candidate goes to the electors that then cast their votes for the states.  The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College in the Constitution for a couple of reasons. Schulman (n.d.) states the first reason it was fabricated “was to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President” (p. 1). Although, another significant reason that the Electoral College was created was for equal representation in voting

However, “71 of these votes were changed because the original candidate died before” voting day for the Electoral College, “three of the votes were not cast,” and “the other 82 electoral votes were changed” for personal reasons (“Faithless Electors,” n.d.). Despite the high number of electoral changes in the forty-four times for an election of the president and the lack of a federal law preventing an elector from changing, the states are allowed to require formal pledges of the electors; this power came from the Supreme Court ruling in Ray v. Blair, 343 US 214 (“Faithless Electors,” n.d.). After this ruling, “29 states (plus the District of Columbia)” require the electors of the state to vote for the candidate that won the majority (“Faithless Electors,” n.d.). For those 29 states and the District of Columbia, the fear of an elector changing candidates and not representing the population of the state is very small because there is faith and trust. This faith and trust between the states and the electors, transfers to the people of the state. This is why electors never really change candidates against the opinion of the people. Additionally, the other 21 states do not require formal pledges and that is why the fear of the peoples’ votes not being represented properly is in mind during presidential