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Pros And Cons Of Keeping The Electoral College

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Emma Williams American Government 1A Mr. Baker 2 March 2023 The Positives of the Electoral College Once a teenager turns eighteen, they have the privilege to practice their right of voting for their local and federal government officials. Unlike voting for their mayor or House Representatives, the Presidential elections require the Electoral College. Established in Article II of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers decided the best way to elect the President was by both using congressional powers and equal representation. To explain, each state automatically gets two votes representing their Senators, then depending on the number of Representatives in the state, the number of Electoral votes a state gets are decided. Usually, when voting …show more content…

In the case of close voting results between two candidates, the Electoral College prohibits the recounting for the entire nation, all the while, still allowing states to recount if necessary. This will overall reduce legal challenges and the chaos of electing a new president. In Seymour Spilerman’s article, “The Case for Keeping the Electoral College”, he refers to the close election between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000 to further explain the positive solutions provided through the Electoral College. Spilerman shares, “Had the president been determined by the national popular vote, a nationwide recount would have been likely, requiring tabulation of the 101 million votes cast in the country, along with a consideration of the rejects,” (Spilerman). If the election were based on the population vote, it would have created more turmoil for the electorates and the candidates. Monitoring election problems will overall reduce the cost of presidential elections by limiting ballot locations and campaigns. The election between close candidates can be more efficiently solved with the enactment of the Electoral …show more content…

One of the United States’ fundamental beliefs is the idea that fair taxation with equal representation. Author of, “5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Electoral College”, Louise Gaille, elaborates, “In national representation, each state and population district receives equal representation, in either the house or the senate, and that allows individual voters to still have a say in what happens” (Gaille). The Electoral College was built on compromises the Founding Fathers made to ensure the equal ability for everyone to impact the decisions made in the country. Without national representation, states with smaller populations won’t have their votes as considered as the votes from larger states. For example, although Wyoming makes up about .18% of the population, they still control .56% of all electoral votes. If the electoral process aligned with the US population, then Wyoming would have only .18% of the 536 votes (usafacts.org). Based on the early compromises the Founding Fathers enacted, national representation still helps states that have smaller populations compared to the other states. Overall, the electoral college helped establish the US’s values of national representation in the voting

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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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The Framers of the Constitution created the Electoral College as a compromise between electing the President directly by popular vote and having Congress choose the President. At the time, there were concerns about electing the President directly, such as the lack of communication and travel infrastructure to facilitate a national election and the possibility of uneducated voters being easily swayed by popular demagogues. Additionally, the Framers were concerned that smaller states would be overshadowed by larger ones in a direct popular vote. The Electoral College has several pros and cons.

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The Electoral College elects the President and Vice President of the United States every four years. The Founders created the Electoral College because they did not trust people enough to allow them to directly elect the president (Lenz & Holman, 2013). Neither one of the candidates are elected from the popular vote. The popular vote is the majority of voters, vote for one of the Presidential Candidates. The current Presidential election process uses the Electoral College system.

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For example, Wyoming is the least populated state, and its electors represent the population in a ratio of one elector per roughly 189,000 voters. California, the most populated state, is represented in a ratio of one elector per around 677,000 voters. This means that the votes cast by states with smaller populations, such as Wyoming, hold more weight than the votes from larger states. The Electoral College also typically causes candidates to focus on “swing states” more heavily than other states. Candidates campaign primarily in states such as Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, because these states are not always preferential toward one political party.

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It was conceived in part as a firewall against majority will in case the mob ever elected someone grotesquely unqualified for the office. ”[3]But this is just one of many problems with the Electoral College, which a major problem being the fact of the Electoral College: It’s a winner-take-all system. a “feature that defines the character of American presidential elections. ”[4] Another one of these problems involves how some peoples votes are better than others, I found that a YouTuber by the name of CGP Grey put it the best, “If these votes were split evenly across the population, every 574,000 people would be represented by one

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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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One of Greatest aspects of the United States is it’s democracy. The government allows people to choose the next president every four years, Giving the power to the people. To electoral college was put in place to make sure everyone had a say in the election, not just the most populous states. In order to understand the electoral college, it is vital to see how it was created, why it was created, and what it is.

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As the mode in which electing a president needed to prevent the possibility of “cabal, intrigue, and corruption”, stated by Alexander Hamilton, and thus the Electoral College was born. Our current system follows the regulations dictated by the US Constitution and 12th amendment: each state is assigned a number of votes based off said state’s population and whomever receives the majority of the votes wins that year's election. The system was crafted in attempts to make sure bigger states did not hold an absurd amount of power over smaller states; it was crafted to serve the republic. The political and socio-economical climate is completely different than the one in which the Electoral College was created in. In fact, the original design was “supposed to work without political parties and without national campaigns”, giving more choice to the public.

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For example Puerto Rico has an estimated population of 4.4 million, but since Puerto Rico has no constitutional amendment to recognize them they are not allowed to vote even though, Puerto Rico is part of the United States territory and the people of Puerto Rico have US citizenships. If US citizens move to a foreign they are still allowed to vote by sending a post card with their vote to the last state they resigned from even US astronauts are allowed to vote from all the way from space making the US territories the only places that are not allowed to vote. Another argument would be that all votes aren't equal because the “electoral college makes some votes more equal than others” which gives the small states and states with low population more electoral votes then they should have.(Grey) If the population were divided by the number of electoral college votes every 574,000 people would be represent by one electoral vote, but since the electoral votes are distributed by state not people there are consequences that arise. Some of the larger states are ripped from their votes while the smaller states are given more votes do to the minimum 3 vote rule. With that being said the electoral college “pretend that few people live were they do and more people live where they don’t” giving states like California and Texas less votes then they deserve.

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The washingtonpost.com says, “Every state is guaranteed at least one seat in the House and two in the Senate.” This shows that the Electoral College gives each state a fair vote according to their size. It also keeps larger states from having too much of an advantage over smaller

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One reason that the framers of the constitution included the Electoral College is because they believed people will only vote for people in their own states and basically play favorites. However, in modern democracy it is evident that this system no longer benefits entirely the people of the states’. It must be modified because the restrictions that vary state to state through each election is now unnecessary in today’s society. In a presidential election an electoral vote should count the same as a popular vote no matter the circumstances. The states that remain mutual in a presidential candidacy election, where the populations are evenly divided causes an issue of winning the state

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The Electoral College: A Safeguard of Federalism or an Outdated Institution? Emily Gerard Professor Ethridge Government & Politics 27 June 2015 The Electoral College is a controversial institution and beginning with the 12th amendment there have been periodic attempts to reform it. In fact, “The provisions for electing the President and Vice President have been among the most amended in the Constitution.”

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Advocates of the presidential election have considered the idea of direct population as a tool for repairing the defects in the electoral system as it exists now. Consider the most recent election in 2000 where George W. Bush won the presidency by a recount of electoral votes, but lost in regards to the popular vote. With Florida being the key state as the election drew close, consisting of nearly 6 million voters, Florida was officially won by a margin of 537 votes (Unknown, 2002). But Florida felt betrayed, and complained about confusing ballots and accidently voting for the wrong candidate. In this essay, I will discuss the occurrences during the 2000 election, the deception felt by Florida voters, and the ways to avoid this reoccurrence in the

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This gives smaller states voting power proportionally greater compared to larger states. An example of this would be comparing Wyoming and California, where Wyoming has a population of about 578,000 people and has three electoral votes. California is a state with a population of over 39 million people and has 55 electoral votes. With math, Wyoming represents over three times the population with a single vote compared to

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But Alaska is a perfect example of why the Electoral College was created. Because it 's such a big state geographically, and because it is so far from the 48 contiguous states, Alaska has unique interests that, many would argue, deserve representation equal to the interests of New York or California. Other big western states with small populations, such as Montana and North Dakota, would make similar arguments. Of course, it 's hard to argue that Delaware, which had 3 electors and only 783,600 residents in 2000 (for a weight of vote of 2.00), really has unique interests that deserve special consideration. The fairness of the electoral system has been debated for more than 200 years, and it doesn 't appear that the debate is going to die down anytime soon.

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