Should Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq Essay

The year a new president must be chosen is always a time of tension in the United States. Hopeful candidates run for president, and citizens start swearing their allegiance to a candidate and party. The GOP and DNC start grooming the candidates they wish to have as president while independent candidates are just trying to get their names in the news. One of the topics that is always criticized and defended around the time of the presidential elections is always the Electoral College. One side say it is undemocratic and unfair, and the other side says that it is a pillar of the United States government. The truth is, both sides do have good arguments, but those that fight for the Electoral College understand what the system truly stands for.

Document B’s chart shows that during the 1992 Presidential Election, Bill Clinton did win the majority of the popular vote, but the win ratio was not large. The electoral votes showed a larger win ratio, causing Bill Clinton to be the definite President of the United States (Document B). In some cases, presidents that do not win the popular vote win the Electoral College. Although in some cases that is true, a majority of presidents have not been voted in that way. Document B demonstrates that by showing the percentage of votes for the popular and electorate votes for the 1980 and 1992 Presidential Elections. Based on the pie charts, the reader is shown that presidents that did win the popular vote, did not win by that large of a margin the Independent candidate and other major-party candidate split the votes. The Electoral College only shows a larger win ratio. Abolishing the electoral college would “...encourage single-issue ideologues and eccentric millionaires to just into presidential contests” (Document E). Although these people tend to run anyways, the electoral college is a way to ensure that the people with no political background or people that do not qualify as president will not win. The Electoral College was originally built for a world that did not have mass media and a way for people among the U.S. to communicate, but presently, the Electoral College serves as a way to ensure

“...the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters” (Document F). States with less population have more say than a state with a larger population. California’s population is 70 times larger than the state of Wyoming’s. A larger population should have more say. the idea should not be that smaller states should have more representation because they are smaller; it should be that a state with larger population should have more representation. When it comes to population, it is not about what is fair. It is about what is mathematically the most equal. Document D’s chart comparing population and electoral votes shows that a state with a larger population has less electoral votes than twelve states that have less population than the sum of those states (Document D). Not only is this demonstrating how the electoral college has unequal representation of states, but it also shows that smaller states have over representation. This is simply a numbers error that needs to be fixed. States with a larger population have a larger amount of people that will be affected by the changes in government. If a conservative were to become president, a liberal state would suffer and vice versa. The fact that the sum of the population of twelve smaller states is less than one larger