One of Greatest aspects of the United States is it’s democracy. The government allows people to choose the next president every four years, Giving the power to the people. To electoral college was put in place to make sure everyone had a say in the election, not just the most populous states.
In order to understand the electoral college, it is vital to see how it was created, why it was created, and what it is. The electoral college is, “a body of people representing the states of the US, formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president” (Kimberling). Come election time, the states that make up the United States are worth a certain number of votes. That number depends on the population of the state. For example, California has 55 electoral votes, the most, because it is the most populous, and the District of Columbia is one of the smallest and has 3 electoral votes. In
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Specifically, there have been four elections where a candidate who won the popular vote, did not win the presidency. This is controversial because the people who supported the losing candidate believe that candidate should have won because the greater population voted for him or her. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the election (by a margin of one electoral vote), but he lost the popular vote by more than 250,000 ballots to Samuel J. Tilden. Rutherford B Hayes was named president elect and served for one presidential term. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison received 233 electoral votes to Grover Cleveland’s 168, winning the presidency. But Harrison lost the popular vote by more than 90,000 votes. Benjamin Harrison also served for one presidential term. There are two more times most recently where the candidate who won the popular vote lost the presidency. Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 were two democrats who did not give up without a hard