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.
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.
The Electoral College is one of the most controversial features of the American political system. It has been around for many years and has played a significant role in politics. This complex system comes with many advantages and disadvantages. The Electoral College is a system that is used every 4 years when voters nominate a set of electors who are responsible for electing the President and Vice President.
The Electoral College system, written in the U.S. Constitution, holds each state entitled to some of its electors according to its representation in Congress. According to Fortier, the number of electors is similar to that of the congressional representation for the states (Fortier, p. 6). On the day of the election, the voters do not directly vote for the national presidential candidates but rather vote for an elector pledged to a particular candidate. Suppose the person who is a major popular vote in a state wins. In that case, all of that state's electoral votes are planned to go to the EM, except Maine and Nebraska, where the electors are allocated proportionately.
Every four years we hold an election to decide who will be hold the office for the President of the United States. The founding fathers established the Electoral College to keep a candidate from manipulating the publics opinion and keep them from gaining absolute power. It also was set up so that smaller states would be able to have same power or say as the bigger states (Why the Electoral College). Each state is giving “Electors” based on the number of members it has in the U.S. House of Representatives, and also gets a 2 Electors for the two members they have in the U.S. Senate. Washington D.C. however only has 3 Electors.
Supporters of the continuation of the Electoral College assert that this institution brings forth equal importance among all states and that the voting of the president is the hands of a well educated body who will choose what is best for the country. In a letter written by Alex Hamilton to the state of New York, he praises the Electoral College in that the electoral body is composed of “men most capable of analyzing the qualities needed to be president… [and] will most likely possess the information and judgment needed for such complicated investigations” (Source A). The modern era today leaves no one uninformed especially when it comes to politics. The fact that the Electoral College wants the decision to be made by credible officials is commendable, but in the current world any civilian can access the most up to date information about presidential candidates with a click of a button. This entails that there is in fact no need for a separate party to carry out a decision for the citizens of America.
For one to be elected as the President, the candidate needs to get the greatest number of votes. In order to evaluate whether this system is effective or not in the current situation of United States, we need to understand the goals of the setting up of the Electoral College to see if the system has served its purposes. In my opinion, I believe the Electoral College is not a good idea for the United States at the moment. The reasons will be discussed in the following passages.
It’s Election Season in some obscure year, no different than 4 years ago, or 4 years before that, still Republican v Democrat, maybe a 3rd Party mixed in there somewhere. Where are you right now? Sitting at your desk, or at your desk? Watching TV. Well, whatever it is you're doing, it can’t help but think about the election.
What is the Electoral College? The Electoral College is the voting system used by the United States and its citizens. In the Electoral College, you don’t vote for a specific candidate. Instead, you vote for a group of electors that represent your state and vote on your behalf. Per state via popular vote, electors are chosen.
Each state has different amount of Electoral College votes based on the number representatives it sends to the United States Congress. Each state has two Senators in the United States Senate. The number of members a state can send to the United States House of Representatives is determined by population which is measured by a census that will be conducted once in a decade. But each state send at least one congressperson to the lower house. So, a minimum of Electoral College vote a state can have is three.
As of last year’s election we all can say there were surely disputes, but who do we blame? Well, many articles have come out stating their opinions on the Electoral College whether it served its purpose or not. For example Corrie Goldman from The Humanities at Stanford say that “Why do we still let the Electoral college pick our president?” And his point of view clearly states he is strongly against the idea, he claims that “I could say fatal – flaws.
In the question of whether the Electoral College was or still is a good idea, I would have to say no. Why the Electoral College was made goes back to the Founding Fathers of America, who had been arguing for months on whether Congress or the majority vote should pick the next president. Their compromise led to the Electoral College. However, to me, it seems like a band-aid to an actual solution because they couldn't agree on anything else.
The electoral college - how can it be good? In a fair democracy everyone's vote should be counted equally, however the way that the United States elects its President violates this right by making sure some people have more voting power than others. The Electoral college is in fact the 538 votes that determines who wins the presidency.
Laid out in the 12th Amendment, the Founding Fathers structured a system of “electors” to represent American voters in presidential elections. This establishment of democracy is also known as the electoral college. Since assuming its constitutional form in 1804 with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the system has delivered results in 46 of 50 presidential elections. The so called “electors” are not expected to vote for the candidate that they represent. Only 270 out of 538 electoral votes are required to win the majority.
The Electoral College is a longstanding organization in place in the United States of America that was originally established by the Founding Fathers in create equality in presidential elections has become a topic of harsh criticism and controversy over the years. The Electoral College was established by the Founding Fathers of the United States at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in order ensure there was representation of the people while keeping the best interests of the nation in mind (“What is the Electoral College?”). At the time of the writing of the Constitution, there were two main ideas on how to elect a president. The first was that there should be a simple vote of all eligible people and who ever gets the most votes becomes
