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Pros And Cons Of Abolishing The Electoral College

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Bella Seedhouse Mrs. Sisamis CCP Government 3 May 2024 Abolition of the Electoral College The United States government is constantly changing and evolving to suit the needs of its citizens and to best represent the majority. Shifting from the Articles of Confederation to drafting the Constitution is just one example of the many times the United States has progressed towards the betterment of the nation. The ability of our government to change laws and our founding document allows our nation to move forward and continuously improve our system of democracy. Currently, there is an issue with the voting system and presidential election outcomes: the Electoral College. The Electoral College maintains the power to overrule the decision of the popular …show more content…

Pate claims that presidential candidates would ignore “issues Iowans care about, particularly rural matters” (Pate). He asserts that abolishing the electoral college would harm these smaller states. However, in a majority-wins-all election, every vote is equally important. This cannot be said for the Electoral College currently, as it favors smaller swing states and ignores bigger states. Pate argues for equality, but fails to recognize that the current system does not fairly represent the entire country. An article published by Brookings Institution counters Pate’s argument, and explains how the current Electoral College system is unrepresentative of the majority. Darrel West writes that “at a time of high income inequality and substantial geographic disparities across states, the Electoral College systematically over-represents the views of relatively small numbers of people” (West). These states have a smaller population, and “smaller economic activity [disproportionate to the] power to choose presidents and dictate public policy”

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Summary Of How Democratic Is The American Constitution By Robert Dahl

1393 Words | 6 Pages

According to Article II, Section I of the Constitution, the number of electors in each state will be “equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the state may be entitled in the congress.” Every state has 2 senators (an equal number), which means that states with lower population size are represented the same as states with higher population numbers. Robert Dahl explains this unequal representation as “a situation in which your vote for your representative is counted as one while the vote of a friend in a neighboring town is counted as seventeen” (Dahl 2003). Unequal representation is a “violation” of democracy, completely discounting political equality among all citizens. The author argues that the Electoral College contains additional inherent problems, for example, the fact that the winner of popular votes may not be chosen for President unless they win the electoral votes.

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The United States government is one of the most admired and complex in the world, On the contrary one of the fundamental components that has an extensive impression on the American People and the Election is the Electoral College. Our founding fathers created The Electoral College over two hundred years ago, and it is still in effect today. They feared that having just the Popular Vote would give too much power to one person. In this paper, we will be discussing what the Electoral College is, the benefits and disadvantages of the Electoral College as well as if the Electoral College should be abolished or reconstructed.

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Pros And Cons Of Favoring The Electoral College

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Additionally, larger states tend to get ignored on their issues during elections because they are expected to vote in a certain direction, thus, candidates won’t campaign there as much as in swing states. I think we should keep the Electoral College. This

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Though the Electoral College is a cornerstone of American government and politics from its conception in the early years of the United States to modern day, its time and purpose has come and gone and the Electoral College, as we know it, should be placed in the country’s rearview

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Though unlikely to be at the forefront of any 2016 presidential platforms, the Electoral College is a widely contested issue among partisans, many of who believe that a better method exists for selecting the President of the United States. This anti-Electoral College sentiment is also present among Americans nationwide, Republicans and Democrats alike. According to a 2013 Gallup poll, 61% of Republicans and 66% of Democrats would vote to do away with the Electoral College. In today’s contentious political atmosphere, in which Republicans and Democrats are constantly at odds with one another, any level of agreement between the parties clearly indicates that a change needs to be made. Changes are already starting to occur at the state level,

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Pros And Cons Of Abolishing The Electoral College

834 Words | 4 Pages

“The system would allow majorities to rule, but only while they were reasonable, broad-based, and not tyrannical”( Tara Ross "The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy" 2004). Historically speaking, the forefathers intended for the Electoral College to protect democracy in the U.S and for the most part, it has done a nice job, socially, people really only want to change it when it leads to a result that they don't agree with, for example, this past election. The Electoral College doesn't, or in better words can't protect democracy if people don't get out and vote, Gregory Wallace of CNN reports that “55% of voting age citizens cast ballots this year… the lowest turnout since 1996”. The opponents of the Electoral College instead of talking about of how it doesn't work need to take a step back and consider, how can the Electoral College work if people don't get out and vote, something that they need to solve in the

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The US’s Electoral College has always been a controversial topic. When it was written into the Constitution, it was meant as a compromise between the small and large states, and between Congress and the states (M. West). Since then, the Electoral College system has been how the United States elected its presidents. However, it continues to face criticism and many want the system to change, favoring systems such as a national popular vote instead (National Conference of State Legislatures). Despite how the US’s Electoral College effectively balances power between the states and the federal government, it is still a deeply flawed voting system due to it being based on unrealistic expectations and outdated ideals that should be changed to reflect

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Even today, the Electoral College ensures that “the preferences of minority voters count for almost nothing” (Hoffman). The popular “winner take all” system of distributing electoral votes at the state level fundamentally disenfranchises the conflicting opinions of minority votes (Hoffman). In alternative systems of distributing electors proportionally or using the national popular vote, the ballots cast by minority voters across the country would significantly add to one candidate’s total. In this manner, the effects of the Electoral College with regard to suppressing minority votes is appallingly similar to the types of political gerrymandering banned by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (Kelkar)

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In the debate over the existence and structure of the Electoral College two major camps have emerged, which I will term the “Federalist” and the “Populist” camps. There is a great deal of debate within these two camps on which is more in line with the “original intent” of the founding fathers. However,

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837 Words | 4 Pages

The Electoral College Needs to be Abolished Every four years, millions of Americans rush to the polls to vote for the next President of the United States of America. What many Americans voting today may not know is that they are participating in an unfair system; this system is taking power from a majority of Americans and placing an emphasis on the few. The best solution to this problem is the simplest one, abolish the Electoral College. The Electoral College should be abolished because of over-representation of small states. “The Electoral College violates political equality”.

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Therefore, the electoral college is an outdated practice containing discriminatory matters and numerous loop-holes; it is time for a change in our county. In order to create a system the states would agree to, the electoral

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965 Words | 4 Pages

The Electoral College was necessary when communications were poor, literacy was low and voters lacked information about out-of-state figures, which is clearly no longer the case.” As you can see the Electoral College is not trusted or wanted by many residents of America. The fact that the government isn’t listening to their citizen’s voices and even those within the government is dishonorable and this problem that is the Electoral College should be tended to, if not immediately, within the time span of the present to the 2020

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Being a person of politics yourself, you of all people should know that many compromises have been made over the course of the establishment of the United States. However, some of the compromises, like the electoral college, were made because of factors in the past and are now not needed in today’s modern democracy. While the electoral college once worked as a compromise in the past, it is an archaic system that unfairly represents the votes of citizens all across the nation. A popular vote should instead be utilized to fairly choose the people of power in this country and would better represent voters’ opinions. In implementing the electoral college, most states’ votes either go to one candidate or the other, leading to candidates to only campaign in swing states (Bradford Plumer 13).

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This is why I try to tell whoever I can about the Electoral College’s faults and what could replace it. Once the issues with the Electoral College are important to the populace they will elect representatives that share these ideas. These representatives will be pragmatic and most likely will begin at the state level, giving candidates an approximately equal percentage of electoral votes from the popular vote, i.e. if a candidate receives 50% of the popular vote, he or she will receive as close to 50% of the electoral votes. Once several states adopt this, others would fall in line

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