The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

The Electoral College is the intuition that formally elects the president. Each state has a certain amount of electors assigned to it, that number is based on how many representative that states as in congress. It is made up of 538 members which is the sum of the 435representative, 100 senators, and 3 electors given to the District of Columbia. In order to win the election a presidential candidate needs to receive a majority of the votes (270). The topic of whether the Electoral College is still a necessary part of today’s election process is highly controversial. But before delving into the various different arguments it is important to understand the history surrounding the Electoral Colleges origins. The Electoral College was created not

There are several arguments both for and against whether or not the Electoral College should still be used today. Some of the key arguments against the Electoral College are as follows: the possibility of electing a minority president, the risk of faithless Electors, and that the Electoral College upholds the two party system. The arguments in support of the Electoral College are as follows: it contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president, it enhances the status of minority interests, and it maintains a federal system of government and

There are several ways to elect a president who received a minority of the votes. The main way to have this happen is to have three or more candidates split the electoral votes between themselves and then have the house of repersentives vote to determine the winner. This has occurred only one time history which was in 1824 in the presidential election between: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Henry Clay, with the winner being John Quincy Adams. Another issue people often have with the Electoral College is the risk of a faithless elector. A faithless elector is a member of the Electoral College whose state has pledged their vote to one candidate and then the elector then votes for another. This actually happens quite frequently with seven electors doing it this century and the most recent being in 1988. While this does happen more often than one would think it has never changed the outcome of an election. Perhaps the most interesting argument against the Electoral College is that it supports the two party system. This argument stems from the fact that all state but two states (Maine and Nebraska) have a winner take all system where the candidate who wins the populous vote wins all the electoral votes from that state. This makes it very hard for third