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Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

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Ever since the election involving Bush and Gore, the viability of the Electoral College has become a heatedly debated topic. The question is whether the Electoral College is still an effective system considering the conditions the United States faces today as opposed to the conditions that the Founding Fathers faced when they created it. For over one hundred and fifty years, the United States has used this system, and controversy has followed it ever since. It was created in an effort to protect the people and institution of America by putting the final vote of the presidency in the hands of a trusted and respected few. These few have the power to disregard the popular vote due to the fact that there is still no federal law demanding electors …show more content…

They would ignore the less populated areas in between. They also argue that it would be dangerous and unnecessary to replace a system that has functioned for over 200 years. Proponents of the Electoral College system defend it because they believe that the Electoral College contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be President, enhances the status of minority interests, contributes to the political stability of the nation, and maintains a federal system of government. Proponents say that the voters of even small miniorties in a State may make the difference between winning all of the State’s electoral votes or none of the State’s electoral votes. They argue that the original design of the federal system was thought out and wisely debated. Proponents of the Electoral College argue that state viewpoints are more important than political minority viewpoints. We shouldn’t tamper with the careful balance of power between the national and state governments. Overall, they believe that the Electoral College has functioned for over 200 years and find the existing system extremely efficient because they feel that electors represent their constituents Proponents of the Electoral College believe that a popular vote would create numerous deficiencies in the system by making candidates too uniform and making them liable to deceptions of the truth (Pass or Fail, 2000). Why change a system that has functioned and elected a handful of respected and successful presidents? The real question though is, has this system truly worked flawlessly for over 200 years, or do we just think it has? Advocates of the Electoral College may think that if a popular vote was instated, candidates would just focus on the larger populated areas; however, don’t they

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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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There is more stability within the government, state, and country when there’s only two parties. This also helps the federal government focus on general The Electoral College is the current system of electing a president in America. The system consists of the selection of electors, which is where the electors get together to vote on the candidates, and also where they count the electoral votes. The Electoral College has 528 electors and to elect a candidate they have to get 270 of the electoral votes. Each state’s electoral votes represents how many members in its Congressional delegation, along with one for each member of the House of Representatives, and two for its Senators.

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Supporters of the Electoral College system normally promote it on the philosophical view that it contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president(which does not make any sense), it enhances the status of minority interests(which is not true), contributes to the political stability of the nation by encouraging a two-party system, and, maintains a federal system of government and representation (Bates, 2004). Under the proposed new electoral system, each candidate’s election showing would be a weighted average of his or her popular vote in 51 states , each state’s weight would be comprised of its proportion of total electoral votes as tallied by present conventions. The final score for candidates would be expressed as a

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There are many advantages to having an Electoral College. One of the few reasons it was established in the first place was to allow states

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As of recently a debate that has existed in American politics for centuries has flared up again. The debate in question is whether we should keep our Electoral College for the purpose of electing our President or abolish it and elect our Presidents through a popular vote. Those who seek to abolish the Electoral College cite instances -recent and past- in which Presidential Candidates have won the popular vote yet lost the majority of the Electoral College. They also argue that the undemocratic philosophy behind the Electoral College, the thought that the American people aren’t competent enough to choose their own Commander in Chief, is an outdated piece of a backwards past that has no place in modern society and law. Those who seek to preserve the Electoral College as it is state that the electoral system the framers of the Constitution created is as good as it can

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Do We Need the Electoral College? Following the 2016 election many individuals we shocked to find Donald Trump had won the Presidency while not having the popular vote. They were unaware of how the electoral college works and how the president is actually elected through the electoral college rather than the popular vote. But, before we find out if we need the electoral college, we must look into why it was created, and look at the pros and cons of the electoral college as well as the pros and cons of the proposed system to replace it.

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I must preface this discussion with the fact that I am anything but, pro Electoral College. Nonetheless, the Electoral College is a method of voting within our democracy, which each state is allocated a certain amount of “electors” who are sworn to vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote in their respective state. However, there are two exceptions to this rule, the states of Nebraska and Maine, which bifurcate their respective electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote. The quantity of electoral votes in any given state is grounded in the state’s congressional representation. Respectively, each state is afforded two votes for every Senator with an added vote for every member of the House of Representatives, which is in-turn grounded in volume of the state population.

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The recent presidential election has had a controversy on the abolishment of the Electoral College. With many citizens not understanding whether or not their vote is actually being counted during the election, more debates have risen on if popular vote should be the deciding factor of presidential determinations instead. Popular vote is an actual count of individual votes from all states in America while the Electoral College is a measure of the House of Representatives and Senators choosing directly who the president should be (Kimberling, 1992). The reasoning behind why the Electoral College was the determining factor for president was declared by the founding fathers decades ago to ensure equality (Pavia, 2011). Recently, critics have expressed that this system is not as equal as predetermined.

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The Electoral College is a system that has been used in the United States to choose its President and Vice President. It involves a group of electors chosen by each state who cast their votes on behalf of the citizens of their respective states. The candidate who receives a majority of the electoral votes, at least 270 out of 538, becomes the President of the United States. While some people argue that the Electoral College system is outdated and should be replaced with an alternative method, I firmly believe that it is the best system for our nation. My position statement is that the Electoral College system should be retained as it is the best way to elect the President and Vice President of the United States.

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In November of 2012, Donald Trump would tweet arguably one of the most ironically true statements he has ever articulated: “The electoral college is a disaster for democracy!” Although he didn’t know it then, Donald Trump’s position on the Electoral College would soon change. Following election day in November of 2016, Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States despite losing the general election to Hillary Clinton by over 2.8 million votes. He did, however, win the Electoral College by 74 votes; winning with a system he had once looked at with disdain. Trump’s presidential victory has reignited debate over whether the country should continue to utilize the Electoral College. This vexing system is not an easy one to change and erasing it completely from our political system has complex and serious consequences.

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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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While there are valid arguments against the Electoral College, it remains a vital component of the American political system. One significant criticism of the Electoral College is that it increases the likelihood of a political candidate securing the presidency without receiving a large majority of the vote. Given this, people must remember why the founding fathers proposed the Electoral College. It was a way to ensure that all states, not just the ones with the most people, have a say in the election (Kirch). Without the Electoral College, candidates will be slightly more motivated to run for office in less populated states because such states' challenges and needs will likely go unmet.

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As an excerpt from an original document about ‘The Pros and Cons of the Electoral College System’, by William C. Kimberling, states, “...the distribution of Electoral votes in the College tends to over-represent people in the rural states” (10). In 1988, people from less populated states combined had the same voting strength as a more populous state that had three times as many people (Kimberling 10). As a result, the more populous state’s potential votes held less weight than the potential votes in the other, less populated states. Many states’ votes are deemed less important than other states due to the Electoral

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The Electoral College, the system that elects our president in our people’s choice democracy. However, the thing is we do not choose our leader. The Electoral College is created in the Constitution of the United States Article II Section I and reformed in the 12 amendment. The Electoral College is a group of 538 electors who chose the president and vice president in separate votes since the passing of the 2nd amendment.

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One of the many benefits for having the electoral college is that the system provides the people with the minority interest most of the time. According to Breana Noble of NewsMax, she mentions that, “urban areas tend to be more populated, but the Electoral College saves the interests of farmers and those found in less bustling locations,” (Noble). Adding on to this, the electoral college also provides the smaller states with more power. For this reason, states are able to select their delegates for their parties to the Electoral College. Thus, the states take a part in electing the president, because ideally, the elected delegate is supposed to elect in favor for their political party.

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