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The Pros And Cons Of American Electoral College

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It can come as a surprise to many that it does not necessarily matter which candidate receives the most votes in an American presidential election. It is often taught in schools that the United States is based on democracy, where everyone has a voice and a vote in elections. While this is true, it can easily confuse many when it comes to the American Electoral College. The electoral college, founded along with many of the other building blocks of the United States in the Constitution, was a compromise between those who supported a complete democracy in the presidential election with each citizen contributing an equal vote to all other citizens and those who supported a system in which the legislators in Congress would elect a president. This …show more content…

In addition, this claim assumes that, if the Electoral College was eliminated, only focusing on large, urban population centers would guarantee a candidate victory. This ignores the fact that these large cities still only make up part of the population, and ignoring these populations would be a large mistake for a candidate looking to win. According to the United States Census Bureau, “one in five Americans live in rural areas” (America Counts Staff). If a candidate chose to campaign in only urban or suburban areas, they would never reach a fifth of the American population. Due to this, a candidate would not end up campaigning in cities as supporters of the Electoral College often claim, and to say they would is an underestimate of the strategy that goes into presidential campaigning. Though the Electoral College is a cornerstone of American government and politics from its conception in the early years of the United States to modern day, its time and purpose has come and gone and the Electoral College, as we know it, should be placed in the country’s rearview

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564 Words | 3 Pages

However, many states make a requirement for the electors to vote for the candidate with the most votes of that state. The Electoral College was originally created to prevent the people of the United States from having too much power. Mainly because the creators of the Constitution, were very wary of any one group acquiring too much power. Also, at the time of the creation of the Constitution, it was almost impossible for citizens to be able to go and cast

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351 Words | 2 Pages

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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587 Words | 3 Pages

The Electoral College is pretty much a process that was established in the Constitution by the founding fathers which was suppose to be a compromise between election of the President by a vote in congress and by the popular vote of citizens. This process consists of the selection of electors, the meeting of the electors is where they vote for the President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. In the Electoral College it contains 538 electors and to win the majority they need to have 270 electoral votes. As well as, the number of electors for every state is equal to the number of Representations that the state has in congress which is based on the population and there is also one vote for each Senator. So, each state has at least three electors and votes.

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1135 Words | 5 Pages

The number of votes a state receives in the Electoral College is based on the state’s population. The presidential candidate who reaches 270 electoral votes is declared the winner. This system was designed in order to prevent large states from overpowering smaller states. However, there are many flaws that come with this unique system.

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This can be supported by when pro 1 from the Pro and Cons of the Electoral College article, states that, “To win the election, presidential candidates need electoral votes from multiple regions and therefore they build campaign platforms with a national focus, meaning that the winner will actually be serving the needs of the entire country.” This evidence informs us that not only does the Electoral College allow and ensure multiple regions to be involved in the election, it also mentions that the presidential candidates require votes from multiple regions, thus requiring them to campaign with national focus if they want to win. This makes it so the presidential candidates have to appeal to an entire country, which benefits it as it makes it so they serve the entire country and its

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1100 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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When you go and vote for president, do you think your vote goes toward the decision of who becomes president? If you do, think again because the system is not as clear cut as it seems. In 1787 during the Constitutional Convention, the delegates discussed a way to vote for president without having the passions of the people and average voters getting in the way. The Electoral College has 538 members total which are divided among states, with each state receiving the amount of electoral votes that corresponds with their population. The outdated system known as the Electoral College, should officially be abolished from the process of the presidential election in the United States.

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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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876 Words | 4 Pages

Pate claims that presidential candidates would ignore “issues Iowans care about, particularly rural matters” (Pate). He asserts that abolishing the electoral college would harm these smaller states. However, in a majority-wins-all election, every vote is equally important. This cannot be said for the Electoral College currently, as it favors smaller swing states and ignores bigger states. Pate argues for equality, but fails to recognize that the current system does not fairly represent the entire country.

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Supporters of the Electoral College argue that if it were abolished then our elections would be flooded with candidates from every third and single-issue party imaginable resulting in presidents winning elections will well under half of the

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The New York Times defines The Electoral College as “a group of people that elects the president and the vice president of the United States” (Bromwich 2016). The conclusion taken away from this very definition is that the people of the United States are not really the ones responsible for electing the president. This is often a misconception of the election process. Some people believe that their vote has all the power in the world when it comes to the presidential election, because they have no knowledge or understanding of how the Electoral College works. Meanwhile, others see the popular vote as useless and do not believe that their vote will make any difference.

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In the current electoral college system, the value of one’s vote heavily depends on the state they reside in. For example, Document A shows that smaller states with fewer residents wield disproportionate influence in presidential elections due to the minimum of three electoral votes they hold, regardless of population size. By abolishing the electoral college, we can ensure that every individual’s vote is equal, no matter where they live, and that every voice is heard on a level playing field in deciding the nation's leader. Another problem with the Electoral College is that it almost always eliminates third-party candidates. In document B, the charts clearly state that no matter how many votes a third party candidate gets, they’re never going to win the electoral vote.

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965 Words | 4 Pages

What would you think if a presidential candidate got over 2 million more votes than the other candidate, but still lost? Does that seem fair to you? Well that sort of thing is exactly what the Electoral College does. The Electoral College is the unfair voting system America still uses to pick their president that needs to be abolished and changed to a popular vote system. The Electoral College is the current voting system used in America to elect their president.

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910 Words | 4 Pages

The reasoning behind the electoral college giving more voting power to those in smaller states is to protect the smaller states from the bigger states. The thought process goes like this: if we don’t give smaller states enough voting power, then no presidential candidates will pay these smaller states any attention in their campaign because the big city states capture enough majority to win the race. When applying the electoral voting system to fix this it causes other issues to arise. When looking at campaign data from the 2016 election, we can very quickly tell that campaigning is not spread evenly amongst the states. In fact, twelve states made up 94% of campaign events during the 2016 election (National Popular Vote, 2016).

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In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. The delegates understood that the need for a leader was necessary but still bitterly remembered how Britain abused of its power. The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is defined as “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” Since 1787 the Electoral College has been the system for voting in the United States, but with our nation ever more changing and growing it

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