There are many proposed plans to run the government and decide the next president. Ideas including the District Plan, the Proportional Plan, the Direct Popular Election, the National Bonus Plan, and the National Popular Vote plan are in mind to fix the current system yet none have been decided. Currently, the president is decided by a method known as the Electoral College; however, this method has many disadvantages. In the United States today, the government runs a system known as the Electoral College.
The Electoral College is a system that was established in Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution. It is a system that is used to elect the next President of the United States. The number of electors are based on the number of seats a state holds in the Senate and the House of Representatives. So, when a voter places his ballot. It cast a vow for the elector of that state to vote towards that voted candidate (1).
The 2017 election has chosen Donald j. trump as the president of the united states. Donald trump as the president, just think about how the election process really works and how its chooses our commander and chief of the military. The way the united states chooses who will be the next president is by the electoral college is a process when people vote for electors who then vote for the president or vice president of the united states. The electoral college was created by our founding fathers as a compromise between the “election of the president by a vote congress and the election of the president by popular vote if the qualified citizens.” (source1: what is the electoral college).
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.
It seems as though the government wanted every other form of electing a president to fail, because they just continued to go to the next solution without trying to understand the problem and fixing it. It almost seems as if win the electoral college came into the play they just knew that it would work somehow because they kept trying at it until it worked. The article How the Electoral College System Works states that “the Electoral college system almost never functioned as they intended, but, prescribed only the system’s basic elements, leaving ample room for development.” To sum up my beliefs on the topic, I believe as though the government should get rid of the Electoral College because it’s a scam on America.
This may have worked at the beginning when it was first created but, it hasn’t worked very well recently. Using the data from the past few presidential elections, we can find about the candidates’ visits to states. It has been shown that the presidential candidates haven’t paid attention to those smaller states 2-3 months before the election. Instead of paying attention to those small states, they typically pay attention to the swing states. This means that one of the reasons that the Electoral College was created for has been invalidated.
They would ignore the less populated areas in between. They also argue that it would be dangerous and unnecessary to replace a system that has functioned for over 200 years. Proponents of the Electoral College system defend it because they believe that the Electoral College contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be President, enhances the status of minority interests, contributes to the political stability of the nation, and maintains a federal system of government. Proponents say that the voters of even small miniorties in a State may make the difference between winning all of the State’s electoral votes or none of the State’s electoral votes. They argue that the original design of the federal system was thought out and wisely debated.
There is potential for complete breakdown in the election process if the Electoral votes would come to an even tie. Some might argue that the whole idea of the Electoral College should be scrapped all together for the national popular vote, however, there are problems with that idea. The election process needs to be altered to better reflect the will of the people. There was a lot of debate over how the president would be determined during the Constitutional Convention including the popular vote, which was ultimately rejected during compromise. (Miller, 2012)
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.
The Electoral College: A Safeguard of Federalism or an Outdated Institution? Emily Gerard Professor Ethridge Government & Politics 27 June 2015 The Electoral College is a controversial institution and beginning with the 12th amendment there have been periodic attempts to reform it. In fact, “The provisions for electing the President and Vice President have been among the most amended in the Constitution.”
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 system gives small states an unfair advantage in the election as it’s easier to win 2 states with a
Furthermore, this can lead to the complicated and confusing structure of the Electoral College being eliminated. The process would be easier and simpler with direct elections. “Critics of this system argue for the simplicity of direct election. You just count up the votes nationally, ignoring the votes total in individual states, and declare a winner.” This shows that with a direct election, the votes of the people are accurately reflected in the election result.
It is giving the smaller states equal power compared to the larger states. If it was based on popular votes, the people around the coasts would dominate and dictate the election. The constitution is big on giving states rights and power, so this helps give all states power. Getting rid of the popular vote would get rid of this idea that the peoples vote does actually impact the election. We get several voters who do really care about the election.
This is why I try to tell whoever I can about the Electoral College’s faults and what could replace it. Once the issues with the Electoral College are important to the populace they will elect representatives that share these ideas. These representatives will be pragmatic and most likely will begin at the state level, giving candidates an approximately equal percentage of electoral votes from the popular vote, i.e. if a candidate receives 50% of the popular vote, he or she will receive as close to 50% of the electoral votes. Once several states adopt this, others would fall in line
