Should the Electoral College be Abolished? Who really votes for the President, population or state? When the Constitutional Convention, they agreed on the fact that the leader must be chosen by a system using an Electoral College because they did not believe that voters had enough information on the candidates to make a good decision. An Electoral College is a system in which the president and vice president are chosen indirectly. Each state and the District of Columbia get one electoral vote for each of their senators and representatives. A method is used, winner-take-all, where whichever candidate wins the most votes in the state wins all of the state’s electoral votes. For a candidate to be elected president he must receive a majority, …show more content…
Sometimes candidates win the popular vote but not the electoral vote. This has happened four times in American History, in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000. (Doc G). In 1876 Hayes was elected president by electoral votes, even though Tilden won in popular vote. (Doc G) This is undemocratic because Tilden won the popular vote with 245,448 more votes but Hayes won the electoral vote with 1 more vote. The people were more in favor of Tilden but Hayes won the electoral vote, therefore making him president even though the people did not choose him. The popular vote does not really matter because a candidate can win the popular vote and not the electoral, which is not fair, for the people and the candidate. Voting is more dependent on states than than what the people want. People argue that the Electoral College gives states an important role in choosing the president which supports democracy. (Doc C) But if a person lost by a couple of popular votes in California, which has 55 electoral votes, then they will receive no electoral votes to show for their efforts. (Doc A) Just because a candidate lost by a couple popular votes does not mean they should lose all of the electoral votes; people voted for the candidate so that should be taken into account. This shows that individuals do not really have a say in the …show more content…
The citizens in the 12 states and the District of Columbia have a louder voice in the election process than the citizens in Illinois. The 12 states and the District of Columbia have less population combined than Illinois but they have more electoral votes than Illinois. (Doc D) Citizens in Illinois or other large states have less say proportionally in the presidential election than citizens in small states, meaning their votes are not equal. The Electoral College depends only on states where voters vote for presidents, which is politically inequal. (Doc D) Also if there were to be a tie in electoral votes, it would go to the House of Representatives, so all states would have one vote, which would further violate political equality. (Doc F) This shows that voting power is not