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The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

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The electoral college has controlled the voting system within the United States since the writing of the United States Constitution. The system promises to fix problems that would otherwise exist in a popular vote system, but also exhibits many problems of its own that are often overlooked. In this essay, I will argue that the current model of the electoral college should no longer be in place in the United States of America. I will begin with the most common and obvious reason that the electoral college is criticized. The ideas that make up the electoral college directly conflict with those of a true democracy. Why does this matter? Well, our country subscribes to a democratic system, and while this wouldn’t be the first time our country has …show more content…

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). The reason this is occurring is because of the way the electoral college is designed. When a candidate gets a majority vote in a state, the candidate gets all of that state’s electoral votes. So, in order to effectively campaign under the electoral college system, presidential candidates don’t bother campaigning in states where they are winning by large margins or losing by large margins. They only care to campaign in states where the polls are close. In other words, the electoral college forces candidates to campaign towards states, not people. So as a side effect of protecting smaller states from larger states the electoral college

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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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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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Generations to come, ponder the ideology of: Should the Electoral College continue to hold the power of electing the President of the United States? The process of appointing electors varies by state, but generally, political parties nominate electors at their state conventions. Each state is allocated electoral votes equal to its total number of representatives in Congress. The Electoral College provides each state with a certain number of electors based on its representation in Congress, which combines the proportional representation of the House of Representatives with the equal representation of the Senate; Aiming to prevent the dominance of more populous states over smaller ones. The Electoral College is an effective form of campaigning for the next president as it’s consistent, balances regional interests, and it preserves federalism.

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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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For bigger states, they are seen in a more important light since they have more electors. Candidates should be strategic in planning what states they want to focus on and campaign in the most. This devalues the small states and do not enlist them as a priority. But then you have the flip side in which some smaller states are given more power than they should. Both larger and smaller states can argue their side the election and neither one are necessary more wrong than the other.

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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.

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Should the Electoral College Be Replaced by the Direct Election of the President? A Debate The presidency and election of the presidency is often viewed as the main focus of the American political system. In recent years the election process and Electoral College have come under scrutiny and reconsideration due to how important the election is. In this paper we will examine the two different arguments about whether or not the Electoral College is a democratic and useful system.

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This way many states get to see the candidate and get to hear from them. The Electoral College gives a balance between big states and small states.

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This can either be a great or a bad thing for many citizens who are not aware of how the Electoral College takes part in the presidential voting process. There are quite a few reasons why the process is ineffective, but there are three in particular. The first being there are no types of guarantees that the popular vote will win, because there is still the possibility that the defeated by popular vote can be elected for presidency. The second being it can often discourage citizens from voting because there is more to the process than meets the eye which creates the idea that there votes are unworthy. The third being it is harder for smaller states, because of the smaller population one citizens vote will not equal as one vote.

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Americans in schools, on TV and in newspapers, workers and the oppressed are constantly reminded how lucky they are to live in the “freest, most democratic nation on Earth.” Despite this their electorate system continues to fail them, continues to viciously deny millions of people a strong voice in elections,continues to distort the one-person, one-vote principle on which democracy stands. The American Electorate Collage does not belong in a country that is often perceived to be the greatest in the world, the system is inexcusably undemocratic. The electoral college is, essentially a constitutional relic of a fundamentally different nation, a leftover from a bygone era in which the founding fathers specifically did not want a nationwide vote of the American people to

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And it means the residents of the increasingly sparsely populated Southern and Midwestern states have Electoral College votes that are growing in power.” Because of this the Electoral College often neglects larger states, resulting in neglect from candidates when they campaign as they are trying to win swing states. Overall, this causes many states' concerns to not be heard, which leads to citizens believing their vote doesn't matter. Abolishing the Electoral College would resolve this issue as candidates would not feel the need to favor one state over another when campaigning. Candidates would be incentivized to campaign across the entire country, addressing the needs and concerns of all states and their citizens.

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Tyler Lewis says that one of the problems with the Electoral College is “The distribution of Electoral College votes per state is not equally dispersed.” Lewis is saying that the “playing field” is not equal when it comes to the vote. “It made the value of each citizens vote different from that of someone living in another state” (Lewis). States with a smaller population get more votes per person than a state with a larger population would. The article also addresses the fact that a presidential candidate can win the overall election even though they did not win the popular vote.

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Smaller states are greatly favored by The Electoral College which is unjust. It shows a clear amount of bias which goes against The Electoral College’s point of equality and correctness. It directly undermines bigger states and stops democracy from being fully

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The Electoral College system the founding fathers devised helps to balance out the power of the large, populous states. This system forces candidates to campaign in all states since they all carry some sway in the elections (“Understanding the Presidential Election”). However, other issues present themselves as well, like states with large independent voters that can be swayed and the issue that a candidate can lose the popular vote and win the election. The first issue is that states that are equally divided between democrats and republicans and hold a large number of electoral votes like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania are considered swing states. (“Understanding the Presidential Election”)

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Also I think that if the candidates are looking for the electotal votes; then the states with the most electoral votes gets the most attention. They need to concentrate on the states with the most electoral votes. The smaller states or states with lesser electoral votes gets little to no attention. One good aspect of the Electoral College is that it makes more sense to the smaller states to ensure they still have a voice in the elections. If the President were to be elected by popular demand; they would be from a highly populated state leaving less room for the smaller states to cast their votes.

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