ipl-logo

Should The Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq Analysis

635 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Explain why the electoral college must not be abolished

Time-out for the Electoral College Write thesis here. Write Background here. Write prompt/question here. The Electoral College is unfair and should be abolished because third party candidates are given no chance to win the election, voting isn’t distributed equally, and it is undemocratic and flawed. One reason why the Electoral College should be abolished is that it’s almost impossible for third party candidates to win. In the presidential election of 1922, the candidates were Clinton, Bush, and Perot. On the subject of popular vote, Clinton won 43%, Bush received 37.5%, and Perot received 18.9% (Document B). From this data, one can conclude that Perot had a smaller, but noteworthy amount of popular votes in comparison with the other contenders. …show more content…

A presidential candidate could win the Electoral College with merely eleven states total (Document A). If one were to deduct this number, then 39 states would remain without an appropriate say on who the next president is. This is unfair. Additionally, George C. Edwards quotes, “The Electoral College violates political equality. It is not a neutral counting device… It favors some citizens over others, depending solely upon the state in which voters cast their vote for president (Document D).” Edward’s point means that votes aren’t population-based and that an individual’s vote may outweigh another’s depending on the state. The Electoral College undercuts the principle of one person, one vote and therefore is anti-democratic and should be …show more content…

George Will quotes, “The winner-take-all electoral vote allocation tends to produce a winning margin that looks like national decisiveness (Document E).” Will is conveying that in appearance, the immense gap between the winning candidate and runner-up might give off the impression of a unanimous national acceptance. But, in reality that said candidate might not be the president the people really voted for. This infringes the citizen's right of choosing their own president, therefore the system is undemocratic. Additionally, Bradford Plumer quotes, “Perhaps the most worrying is the prospect of a tie. In that case, the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives.” And that, “...each state only casts one vote (Document F)…” Plumer expresses if the electoral votes are tied, then the voting will become more unfair because of the misrepresentation of state population in the House. Lastly, in the presidential election of 1876, the candidates were Hayes and Tilden. Tilden had won the popular vote with an advantage of 245,448 more than Hayes (Document G). On the other hand, Hayes was the winner for the electoral vote by a difference of one vote. This is evidence of how popular vote results differ from electoral votes. All of these examples further display of how the Electoral College does not reach the objective of reflecting the will of the voters, therefore is undemocratic and

Show More
Related
955 Words | 4 Pages

Because of the winner-takes-all system, some presidents have won the election without the majority of the popular vote. In the 48 states that use the winner-takes-all system, whichever candidate wins that state’s popular vote receives all of the electoral votes for that particular state. The data gathered from the 2000 election demonstrates that despite winning the popular vote by about 540,000 votes, Al Gore proceeded to lose the election to George W. Bush by only 5 electoral votes. Florida’s 29 electoral votes were the deciding factor in this election. Because of the winner-takes-all system, when Bush won the popular vote in Florida, he was awarded with these votes, costing Gore the election.

Read More
593 Words | 3 Pages

The way it’s set up makes the people think they’re choosing the president yet in reality it’s the slate of electors who are choosing who they want in office. They basically give the people that look up to the higher ups false hope by leading them on. “For example Hayes lost with popularity, yet won the election (popular vote-4, 036,572 and electoral vote- 185). How?

Read More
174 Words | 1 Pages

The electoral college is a process the founding fathers established in the constitution with the intent to create a safeguard between the population and the selection of a president, and to give extra power to smaller states. However, based on the information presented in the articles the electoral college should be abolished as it violates our right of political equality, and fails to represent a third, independent, party in any election. Although there are many reasons to abolish the electoral college, the principal reason to take action would be the result of an obvious violation of our right to be politically equal. As shown in the chart provided (Doc D) 12 of the lowest populated states and the District of Columbia have almost the

Read More
1603 Words | 7 Pages

Benjamin Bolinger, the author of, “Point: Abolishing the Electoral College,” believes that America was founded on the idea of majority rule. He asserts that the Electoral College defies these ideals through the winner-take-all system, which has allowed candidates to lose the popular vote but still earn a ticket to the white house. The author believes that the President should be chosen the same way as every other elected official, by a popular vote. In a popular vote, the majority would rule and every person’s voice would matter (179). In addition, the author points out that America was also founded on the phrase, “no taxation without representation,” and yet four million United States citizens are excluded entirely from voting in the election.

Read More
749 Words | 3 Pages

The electoral college can either be abolished or changed. With it being abolished all the power would go straight the American citizens, if changed it will allow the smaller states to have a say. By changing the electoral college system it will allow representatives of the people, smaller states

Read More
1221 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout American history, there were five cases where the electoral college votes did correspond with the popular vote during the elections of: Jackson, Tilden, Cleveland, Gore, and Clinton (Doc. G). When the founders gathered together in 1787 to write the Constitution, they were worried about many topics and did not want the Constitution to fail just as the Articles of Confederation. They considered many topics and thoroughly wrote a remarkable Constitution, excluding the slavery of African Americans, they did not want the government to be too strong and also did not want the people to have too much input. They greatly questioned: Who will choose the President? Therefore, they created the electoral college that is merely based on population

Read More
1278 Words | 6 Pages

The Electoral College has caused numerous problems in the past and have consequently changed the outcomes of numerous elections including the elections of 1800 (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Aaron Burr), 1824 (John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and William H. Crawford), 1876 (Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden), 1888, (Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison), and 2000 (George W. Bush and Al Gore). throughout these elections the same catastrophe has occurred; The winner of the popular vote did not receive the presidency due to the Electoral College votes. In addition to the problems, there have been multiple close calls, for the example the elections of 1968 and 1976. While many analysts of American politics have come to

Read More
1206 Words | 5 Pages

The 538 members in the electoral body who are supposed to represent their districts, are mostly biased when it comes to voting for the president of the United States. Typically when the whole group of electors gather to vote for president and vice president, they “are loyal to their political party and pledge to vote for their party’s nominees” (Source C). The fact that the decision of who becomes president is put in the hand of only several hundred electors who are biased is unjustified, as their votes are biased and not impartial. Since the electors pledge to vote for the party that elect them into that position and have laws where they can’t go against their pledge, this allows for a political party to rig the system to garner an outcome that only benefits themselves. This political feature in the United States disregards the opinions of hundreds of millions of citizen’s votes, and abides by the votes of 538 intransigent electors.

Read More
579 Words | 3 Pages

The Electoral College system should be abolished. It has been proven to be obsolete for many reasons. For example, a person could say that it presents a poor representation of the people of America. The Electoral College system also makes it so that candidates focus more on the “swing states” rather than all of the states. Additionally, the Electoral College system provides an unfair advantage to a winner-take-all system in 48 states.

Read More
1501 Words | 7 Pages

How does this make sense? Ross Perot, an eccentric billionaire, won nearly 19% of the vote, and added to Bush’s 37.5%, plus other unnamed candidates, makes up 57% of the population who didn’t want Clinton in office. This was with one eccentric billionaire. Imagine if four or five billionaires ran and got 10% of the vote. Someone might win, if it comes down to popular vote, with a range of 20-30% approval.

Read More
598 Words | 3 Pages

Electoral College: For the Lose One view to consider that when voting for a president through the electoral college , voters are confused about the election process no more than they are unprepared of the consequences they ace of their votes not being counted. Voting by popular vote when electing a president is the best choice contrary to the electoral college; in favor of defying the people. Americans vote in order to elect a president of their preference to run our country. Voting by popular vote surpasses the whole electoral process by giving the people not just what they want, but what Americans need. Direct election of presidents remains solid as opposed to the “faithless” electoral college.

Read More
904 Words | 4 Pages

The Electoral College system assures balanced power between the states, puts the independent parties under control, grants balanced voting, and supports the major political parties. The Electoral College has proven itself to be very sufficient in determining the president and the vice president of the United States. Since this system has been successful since our Founding Fathers created it, there should be no reason as to why we should get rid of the Electoral

Read More
1308 Words | 6 Pages

Primarily, the Electoral College promotes a racial bias and gives more electoral weight to the Southern Republican states. Moreover, the popular vote system would enable third-party candidates to have a higher probability of becoming the president. However, several misguided Americans believe that the popular vote would not protect small states, but small states actually become ignored during presidential campaigns. Hence, the federal government’s elimination of the Electoral College would strengthen the representative government and the chances of third-party candidates, giving states and American citizens the power to choose their president as they

Read More
837 Words | 4 Pages

This includes the popular vote not being taken seriously as the people's wishes, the need for only 12 states to win and become president, and the neglection of other states and the attention given to the swing states. All represents that the Electoral college is not what is limiting the power of the government and giving the people what they want, but instead is what truly empowers the government and takes away the choice we Americans should have and posses. While this is what the electoral college is doing now the abolishment of the electoral college should take place in order to give the power back to the people. Do you want to keep living your life truly powerless in the decision of our next leader? Or do you want to give the power back to the people of the USA, and take back our power to choose the right

Read More
1511 Words | 7 Pages

“Is it possible that this once-brilliant device has become a constitutional accident waiting to happen” (Congressional Digest 25). “The Electoral College has been said to be ‘archaic,’ ‘too complex,’ and even ‘dangerous,’ but the principle complaint has been that it is ‘undemocratic’” (Klinker, McClellan 1). The Electoral College violates the principle of one-person, one-vote (Congressional Digest 17). Klinker states that Wyoming’s 619,500 residents make up only .18 percent of the U.S. population, yet recieve three three electoral votes which is .56 percent of the electoral votes, while Texas has a population of 20,044,141 residents that make up 7.35 percent of the U.S. population, but Texas’ 32 electoral votes make up slightly less than 6 percent of the electoral votes, giving one voter in Wyoming nearly as much power as four voters in Texas (1).

Read More

More about Should The Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq Analysis

Open Document