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The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

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America has come a long way since its establishment in 1776; two hundred and forty years has passed since then and the changes are quite notable. For instance, the fact that this country was built upon the backs of slaves who were stolen from their homeland, thankfully, laws that make slavery illegal exist now ("Congress Abolishes the African Slave Trade"). Same-sex marriage is legal, and anti-discrimination laws are trying to be put in place. All of these things are great for our country, but how long did it take to get to this point? 240 years? Doesn’t that seem a bit outrageous? It seems our government has been failing the diverse people of this country. As Americans, we should want to see positive change in this great country, but how can that happen when the system we put in place to make our elections fair betrays the vote of the people. The Electoral college is outdated and needs to be amended. The electoral college was established in 1787 when the constitution was made. The US had 13 states spread across the eastern coast of North America and only 4 million citizens. (1) Today the US is 37 states stronger and has a population of almost 324 million people. The old electoral college may have been an adequate process to elect the President 200 years ago, but, with such an …show more content…

For example, California has 53 representatives in the house and each state has 2 senators in the senate, in total, California has 55 electoral votes. It works like that for all states and there are 538 electors in all. However, the number of electors isn’t the problem; the problem lies in how the votes are cast. Every electoral vote per state goes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state, even if the candidate won the popular vote by 1%. This process makes for an inaccurate representation of the citizens

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The Electoral College has been our presidential election procedure since 1787. This system was created to indirectly choose the president in a way that fits the desire of the citizens, which also prevents uninformed voters from deciding upon the country’s leader. Each state receives one electoral vote for each member of Congress, which totals up to 538 electors.

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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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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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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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The existence of the Electoral College has remained a source of debate for the population of the United States for centuries. Despite the evident discontent surrounding it, the United States is largely unaware of the disconnect between citizens’ voices and the Presidency. It can be said that popular sovereignty, no matter how pleasant a concept, has become little more than an illusion the people cling to. In short, the Electoral College is an institution that must be abolished, because it violates political equality, is unfair to third party candidates, and is not an accurate representation of the people’s votes.

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331 Words | 2 Pages

The electoral college was defined in the book of Sidlow as the group of electors who are selected by the voters in each state to officially elect the president and vice president (2016, p. 194). This is the so-called "Committee of Eleven" in the Constitutional Convention proposed an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors.  Based from my readings, I think the founding fathers put the electoral college in our Constitution as the solution to the problem that they were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that was composed of thirteen large and small states. This is to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President.

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1206 Words | 5 Pages

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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It was conceived in part as a firewall against majority will in case the mob ever elected someone grotesquely unqualified for the office. ”[3]But this is just one of many problems with the Electoral College, which a major problem being the fact of the Electoral College: It’s a winner-take-all system. a “feature that defines the character of American presidential elections. ”[4] Another one of these problems involves how some peoples votes are better than others, I found that a YouTuber by the name of CGP Grey put it the best, “If these votes were split evenly across the population, every 574,000 people would be represented by one

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Indeed, 574 000 citizens equal one vote[1]. Nevertheless, each state must have at least three votes… In fact, some big states must give votes to little ones. For instance, Ohio has eighteen votes instead of twenty for Rhodes Island to have four[2]… Then, it seems that Electoral College’ members don’t reflect the national popular will.

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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.

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The Electoral College is a process. The Electoral College is a number of people from the United States representing the states, casting votes for the election of the president and vice president. The Electoral College has 538 electors, 435 representatives, 100 senators and 3 electors given to the District of Columbia. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. During the Electoral College each of the states would select electors.

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761 Words | 4 Pages

Many may believe that the Electoral College is a place but it is a process that is taken by Congress. “The Electoral College was established by the Founding Fathers as a compromise in the Constitution between elections of the President by votes in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens” ("U. S. Electoral College, Official - What Is The Electoral College?" 2017). “There are 538 electors in the Electoral College because the number of electors is based on the number of members of Congress---435 in the House of Representatives. , 100 in the Senate---plus 3 electors who represent the District of Columbia. A presidential candidate needs a simple majority of votes (270) to win” (Harrison, Harris and Deardorff).

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965 Words | 4 Pages

The Electoral College’s creation dates all the way back to 1877 when the Founding Fathers (George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson) decided this was how the country should pick their president. What they agreed on was

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796 Words | 4 Pages

Electoral college has been with us since the birth of the constitution, and to this day we are still using this type of system to this day. The Electoral College is a system that the United States uses to elect our upcoming presidents and vice presidents. Each state has electors equal to their senate member and house of representatives, however who ever gets the highest popular vote in the state gets the electoral vote. The issue is the Electoral College do not give votes to the people, but to the states. Which has some unfair consequences.

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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

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