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What Are The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

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The Electoral College is “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” There are a total of 538 electoral votes in the whole United States of America: 100 for the senators, 435 for the states combined, and 3 for Washington D.C. Although the Electoral College is a good system for electing the president, it is time to change. There are many flaws for this system. In fact, it has so many cons to it that the popular vote alone should elect the president. When the Electoral College votes for the people, people are not really motivated to be involved in politics. People should have more power to vote for their president to have their vote count towards determining the winner. If the president was determined on popular vote, people would actually think more about their vote more because they know that their votes count …show more content…

The candidates running for president try to aim for the big states and the swing states, causing the swing states to have more power. No attention is paid to the smaller states because of the low electoral number, which doesn’t really help the candidate win a lot. Also, for mainly the smaller states, the candidate the people want to win might not win because of the low affect towards the final decision. Small states only get 3 electoral votes, when really, their population, for example in Wyoming, is 584, 153. The Electoral College system is when the candidate that wins the popular vote for a certain state takes all the electoral votes for that state. This is the “winner takes all” rule. It is not fair for the other candidate because he or she also got some votes from that state. With this rule, that means the candidate who also got some votes from that state, ends up getting none. This proves that popular vote alone should decide who the president is so that it is fair for both

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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 Electoral College elects the President and Vice President of the United States every four years. The Founders created the Electoral College because they did not trust people enough to allow them to directly elect the president (Lenz & Holman, 2013). Neither one of the candidates are elected from the popular vote. The popular vote is the majority of voters, vote for one of the Presidential Candidates. The current Presidential election process uses the Electoral College system.

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The Electoral College has a total of 538 electoral votes. Which means in the House there are 435 votes, 100 in the Senate, and not forgetting the three electoral votes Washington D.C. receives.   This mean that the number of electors could change according to how the population changes in number, by each decade according to the census.  Also for a voter to win they need to have 270 or more votes, to receive a majority rule.

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Throughout American history, there were five cases where the electoral college votes did correspond with the popular vote during the elections of: Jackson, Tilden, Cleveland, Gore, and Clinton (Doc. G). When the founders gathered together in 1787 to write the Constitution, they were worried about many topics and did not want the Constitution to fail just as the Articles of Confederation. They considered many topics and thoroughly wrote a remarkable Constitution, excluding the slavery of African Americans, they did not want the government to be too strong and also did not want the people to have too much input. They greatly questioned: Who will choose the President? Therefore, they created the electoral college that is merely based on population

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The recent presidential election has had a controversy on the abolishment of the Electoral College. With many citizens not understanding whether or not their vote is actually being counted during the election, more debates have risen on if popular vote should be the deciding factor of presidential determinations instead. Popular vote is an actual count of individual votes from all states in America while the Electoral College is a measure of the House of Representatives and Senators choosing directly who the president should be (Kimberling, 1992). The reasoning behind why the Electoral College was the determining factor for president was declared by the founding fathers decades ago to ensure equality (Pavia, 2011). Recently, critics have expressed that this system is not as equal as predetermined.

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Every great nation started with a great leader. A person that can provide and lead a nation to greatness and success. Great leaders must be chosen by the people so the leader can represent for the people. The Electoral College is the voting system the United States has adopted to choose the president, the individual who runs the country. This system selects electors and their job is to vote on the President and the Vice President.

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The Electoral College While some people believe their votes are contributing directly to the election of the President, most people are aware that their votes mean almost nothing compared to those of the Electoral College. The Electoral College consists of the electors who cast each state’s electoral votes. It is made up of 538 electors, each state having the same number of electors as Senate and House members combined, plus three votes from the District of Columbia. “To win the presidency, a candidate must receive at least 270 votes” and win the majority (Patterson 359).

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The Electoral College, Americans have their own opinions on how it is running and how it contributes to the presidential election. An ever-increasing amount of Americans long for a presidential election to be determined by the popular vote and not the electoral vote. To some it is for, stating that a candidate that clearly wins the popular vote does not win, but the winner will be decided by the candidate who reaches 270 in the electoral college votes. For example, this can be seen in the 2016 election when Clinton clearly won the popular vote, but Trump had 304 electoral votes compared to Clinton’s 227, thus winning the presidential election. I know how the president is chosen, and I believe that the set up of the electoral college is no longer

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Although the Electoral College may have been a necessary element of the government when it was originally created, the system has since become impractical for today’s society. The will of the people is now far better expressed through the resulting popular vote than the electorate of the Electoral College. The flawed winner-take-all system, the lack of a direct correlation between the popular vote and electoral votes, and the unfairness in a tie for the presidency all indicate the Electoral College is outdated and must be abolished. In the current electoral system, the slightest majority in a particular state means all of the votes in that state are given to the candidate that wins the majority.

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The Electoral College is the election of the president and vice president where for over a hundred years the electors were equired to be chosen by the voters with the exception of Members of Cogress. When each state votes, “the voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidates, they are actually voting for the slate of electors in their state pledged to those candidates” (Neale 2017, p.1) so the people have a voice, but their are knowledgeable electors who have the final say. It is also very possible with this set up that the winner of the electoral votes does not always get the popular vote (Posner, 2012). Madison believed that the Electoral College would “keep the states involved, but retain the role of the people” (Ornstein 2001,

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politics, while others want to abolish the institution.” (Josephson, 2016) There are both pros and cons to the Electoral College as established by the founders. One reason to keep the Electoral College is highly populated areas of the united states may be more enticing to a candidate to visit than small rural towns. The time given to acquire the votes of these larger areas may leave the values and needs of the voters in smaller states without consideration. “One reason that some analysts support the electoral college is that it encourages candidates to pay attention to small states and not just get out the vote in big, populous states and cities”.

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Several years after the United States came to be, the Constitutional Convention met to determine how the new nation should govern itself. The delegates saw that it was crucial to have a president and vice president, but the delegates did not want these offices to reflect how the colonies were treated under the British rule. The delegates believed that the president’s power should be limited, and that he should be chosen through the system known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. Many citizens feel that the Electoral College goes against our nation’s principle of representative democracy, while others

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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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In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. The delegates understood that the need for a leader was necessary but still bitterly remembered how Britain abused of its power. The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is defined as “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” Since 1787 the Electoral College has been the system for voting in the United States, but with our nation ever more changing and growing it

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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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