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What Are The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

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The Electoral College Emily Ballou Contrary to popular belief, America’s presidents are not elected by direct democratic vote of the people. Rather, the United States Constitution declares that they are to be elected by what is called the Electoral College. Established in 1787 during the Constitutional Convention, our Founding Fathers formed the Electoral College as a compromise between majority rule and congressional representative appointment. The Founders created the Electoral College for protection. A pure democracy has the power to become too dangerous by giving the majority all the power. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors from the various states who cast ballots for the candidate receiving majority support from their particular …show more content…

The process was never intended to be too democratic, per se. Originally designed to expedite the voting process, many people no longer see a need for it, especially since it is possible for a presidential candidate to lose the popular vote and still win the election. A recent example was in 2000 when George W. Bush and Al Gore ran for presidential election. Gore secured about 48.38 percent of the popular vote and Bush with 47.87 percent. It does not seem morally correct that in a democratic country, securing the majority vote can still result in losing the election. There are positive effects of the Electoral College though, especially for small states such as Vermont. The Electoral College weighs the votes from smaller states more than larger ones because each state's electoral votes are equivalent to the number of House and Senate seats it has, thus giving one of those smaller state’s votes the power to really make a difference. The Electoral College also only acknowledges the majority vote of states and ignores the minority votes. Those who do not agree with everyone else are not represented at all, which is not …show more content…

For example, if a presidential candidate wins the popular vote in California by 47 percent, the candidate gets all 55 of California's electoral votes. The other candidate could have 49 percent of the popular vote but lose all 55 electoral votes. However, if the candidate with 51 percent of the popular votes was given 51 percent of the electoral votes (about 28) and the other candidate received 49 percent (27), it would be much more representative of the voters. The same applies for Vermont: If a candidate receives 33 percent of the popular vote and the other receives 66 percent, the second candidate would garner all three of Vermont’s electoral votes and the first candidate would receive none. Even though the first candidate would still be behind, this would be more

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The Electoral College is a system that was established in Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution. It is a system that is used to elect the next President of the United States. The number of electors are based on the number of seats a state holds in the Senate and the House of Representatives. So, when a voter places his ballot. It cast a vow for the elector of that state to vote towards that voted candidate (1).

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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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Did you know that the Electoral College was created as a compromise between those Founding fathers who wanted the president elected by Congress and those who wanted direct election by the people? Presidents are elected by a group of 538 electors, acting on behalf of the states and not by the citizens. This arrangement is called the Electoral College. Every four years, millions of United States citizens vote for a president and a vice president of the United States.

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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.

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Thus, the Electoral College inhibits democracy by preventing the candidates who the American people want to win an election from actually winning said election. IV. The Electoral College undermines democracy by creating a system in which not all votes are equal. a. Under the Electoral College system, votes in small states are worth more than votes in large states. For example, the state with the largest number of electors, California, has 1 elector for every 680,000 people while the smallest state, Wyoming, has 1 elector for every 190,000 people.

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This also is one of the reasons why a candidate may win the popular vote but not the Electoral College. The votes add up in the popular vote but only the party that wins the majority, wins the Electoral College. A complicated explanation for a complex

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The textbook definition of the Electoral College is “a unique American institution, created by the constitution, providing for the selection of the president by electors chosen by the states parties. Although the Electoral College vote usually reflects a popular majority, less populated states are overrepresented and the winner-take-all rule concentrates campaigns on close states” (Edwards and Wattenberg 643). In the definition itself it notes disproportionate representation which is one of the many flaws within this system. The National Popular Vote Plan is an alternative system that would still use electors to cast their votes but instead it would give each state’s votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. This plan has

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The Electoral College, in states where they have the winner takes all system, make voters that are voting in states that are strongly controlled by the a certain political party feel like their votes aren’t really important considering that all the electoral votes will just go to the political party that wins. This feeling like out votes don’t count is the biggest argument against the Electoral College that it should’ve been for quite a while already a popular vote decision not an Electoral College decision (Davis). This argument also goes hand and hand where a president and vice president voted into office won because of the popular vote and received a majority of the support. Also removing the Electoral College would remove the power that only a certain states have, the swing states, but the downfall is swing states will just be replaced with high population states. Some people also view the Electoral College as being undemocratic especially in large population states where the votes of the losing political party, are a large number of voters, are essentially

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Emma Williams American Government 1A Mr. Baker 2 March 2023 The Positives of the Electoral College Once a teenager turns eighteen, they have the privilege to practice their right of voting for their local and federal government officials. Unlike voting for their mayor or House Representatives, the Presidential elections require the Electoral College. Established in Article II of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers decided the best way to elect the President was by both using congressional powers and equal representation. To explain, each state automatically gets two votes representing their Senators, then depending on the number of Representatives in the state, the number of Electoral votes a state gets are decided.

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According to the National Archives, the Electoral College is, “...a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.'' The Electoral College was created in the late 1700’s, and was used as a buffer between the voting population and the official selection of the president. For the founding fathers, this solved a wide array of problems: the possible risk of leaving the power of choosing who the leader of the country to ill -informed voters, unequal representation and distribution of votes between the North and South of the U.S., and supported the idea of separation between powers in the government. In this country, it has been believed that the government has been built off of popular sovereignty, the theory that the government is created by and is subject to the will of its citizens. But how is this concept valid when the people of the United States don’t directly vote and decide who will govern them?

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America's founding fathers were obviously incredibly intelligent. In addition to composing the masterful works of writing that sculpted The United States, they also planned and arranged a system to elect the president unlike any other on Earth. Wary of human nature, the Fathers avoided implementing a simple majority election, and instead developed the electoral college. This system of voting for the president has seen its share of disputes and critics, yet it remains relatively unchanged since its first uses. Those that oppose the electoral college do so because it represents the states unfairly, it has a negative effect on voter turnout, and it occasionally fails to elect a president that represents the majority.

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First of all, with the Electoral College system in play, small states are highly over-represented. “No matter how big or how small, each and every state in the US is allocated at a minimum, three electoral votes; two senators and one representative or more depending on the population of that particular state.” (Document A) In order to make this possible, bigger states must give away some of their electoral votes to the smaller states, making smaller states highly represented and bigger states not so highly represented. For further example, here is an excerpt taken from “The Indefensible Electoral College” written by Bradford Plumer, “Because each state casts only one

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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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Granted a candidate would almost never win all eleven states because the majority of these states tend to be predominantly democrat or republic, the fact that only eleven states alone can determine who 's the president puts to question the value of the remaining 39 states. Document B, explains the winner-take-all method and how unfair the method is to third party candidates. The chart shows how even though both third party candidates won about 7% and 19% of the popular vote but won 0% of the electoral vote. In Document E, Will states “the winner-take-all electoral vote allocation tends to produce a winning margin that looks like national decisiveness” There are over 300 million people in the United States, but just 538 people get to decide

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The Electoral College is the process to which the United States elects the President, and the Vice President. The founders of the Constitution came up with this process. This was done to give additional power to the small states, and it was done to satisfy them. It works by the citizens of the United States electing representatives called electors. Each state is given the same amount of electors, as they are members of congress.

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