Should Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq Essay

The existence of the Electoral College has remained a source of debate for the population of the United States for centuries. Despite the evident discontent surrounding it, the United States is largely unaware of the disconnect between citizens’ voices and the Presidency. It can be said that popular sovereignty, no matter how pleasant a concept, has become little more than an illusion the people cling to. In short, the Electoral College is an institution that must be abolished, because it violates political equality, is unfair to third party candidates, and is not an accurate representation of the people’s votes. The Electoral College blatantly violates political equality within the United States. The distribution of electoral votes favors

By relying on this method of distribution, and capping the number of electors allowed, the Electoral College causes inaccurate representation. States that require more representatives to represent the votes of their larger populations cannot receive them due to smaller states taking up the minimum requirement of three votes, no matter how small their populations may be. Not only this, but a combinations of thirteen states and regions, whose combined population is only 12,500,722, receives 44 electoral votes, while a state like Illinois with a population of 12,830,632 receives only 20 (Document D). Thus the Electoral College gives more power to smaller states and less to larger states due to its requirements. This means that some citizens are favored over others in the electoral vote, based solely upon the population of the state in which they live. The “failsafe” put into place in the case of a tie

The distribution of electoral votes acts as though less people live where they do, and more people live where they don’t, meaning that in the vast majority of states citizens are either over- or underrepresented (Document A). By beginning to distribute electoral votes based on Congressional representatives, the Electoral College gives an unfair advantage in voting power to citizens of smaller states, and reduces the voting power held by larger states. In short, the Electoral College essentially deems that some residents are worth more than others. The elections of 1980 and 1992 must once again be taken into consideration as, between them, 25,463,258 votes, cast by citizens of the United States, were completely dismissed by the Electoral College (Document B). While neither of the candidates would have won, the fact that the votes of citizens can be so blatantly ignored is troubling. Obviously, if votes are not cast directly, they are not accurate representations of the wishes of the people. Once again, it must be seen that a group of thirteen states and regions with a combined population some 300,000 less than that of Illinois still receives more than twice the number of votes than that of the larger state (Document D). Therefore, in this example, the votes of people in Illinois count for much less than the