ipl-logo

What Is The Value Of The Electoral College Essay

914 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on the electoral college

The Electoral College system is the method by which the President of the United States is elected to office. Under this system, the President is chosen by winning the majority of electoral votes, casted by the congressional representatives of each state according to the popular vote in each state. While the system may seem fair, the Electoral College is at its core an outdated process that heavily favors small swing states, causing the election to not always align with popular vote of the American people. The necessity of the Electoral College for the means of electing a President is no longer relevant in the United States, as the motivations for establishing the system were specific to the time of early America. One reason for instituting …show more content…

Each state’s electoral number is equal to its congressional delegation (Mov. 2), which is the number of members of Congress plus two for the senators. The addition of the two senators in electoral value causes the votes of a common person in different states to be unequal. In a state that has a large population, the senatorial value makes a minor difference, but in a small state such as South Dakota, this addition causes its electoral value to be tripled, as cited in Document 2, a description of the Electoral College system during the 2000 election by a Duke professor. Thus, a common vote in a smaller state is worth more electoral value—proportionally—than a common vote in a large state. Even as a supporter of the Electoral College, Document 3, an excerpt from a conservative magazine, admits this imbalance between states, citing that small states are the main advocates for the process. In a system designed to be an ideal democracy, the Electoral College fails to achieve a truly democratic decision by not allowing all citizens to have an equally weighted

Show More
Related
1241 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
1100 Words | 5 Pages

By relying on this method of distribution, and capping the number of electors allowed, the Electoral College causes inaccurate representation. States that require more representatives to represent the votes of their larger populations cannot receive them due to smaller states taking up the minimum requirement of three votes, no matter how small their populations may be. Not only this, but a combinations of thirteen states and regions, whose combined population is only 12,500,722, receives 44 electoral votes, while a state like Illinois with a population of 12,830,632 receives only 20 (Document D). Thus the Electoral College gives more power to smaller states and less to larger states due to its requirements. This means that some citizens are favored over others in the electoral vote, based solely upon the population of the state in which they live.

Read More
872 Words | 4 Pages

The Electoral College is a system of voting created by the writers of the Constitution. The main goal of the Electoral College was to ensure that the citizens of the United States could not elect the president directly. The writers of the Constitution believed that the voters would not be properly educated on who they were voting for and consequently make a poor choice. The Electoral College is no longer in need today given that the public is adequately educated on the candidates for elections as a result of the excess amount of communication today. The Electoral College should be abolished because small states are over represented, the system is unfair to third party candidates, and a tie leads to a vote in the House of Representatives.

Read More
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.

Read More
837 Words | 4 Pages

In the current electoral college system, the value of one’s vote heavily depends on the state they reside in. For example, Document A shows that smaller states with fewer residents wield disproportionate influence in presidential elections due to the minimum of three electoral votes they hold, regardless of population size. By abolishing the electoral college, we can ensure that every individual’s vote is equal, no matter where they live, and that every voice is heard on a level playing field in deciding the nation's leader. Another problem with the Electoral College is that it almost always eliminates third-party candidates. In document B, the charts clearly state that no matter how many votes a third party candidate gets, they’re never going to win the electoral vote.

Read More
904 Words | 4 Pages

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

Read More
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.

Read More
583 Words | 3 Pages

When the Great Compromise was drafted and reached at the constitutional convention of 1787 it was did make sense to allow each state, regardless of population, to have to have an equal number of senators, as this allowed each state to have a voice within the Senate. It also made sense for purpose of legislature that the number of delegates from each state within the House of Representatives was based on each state’s population as it allowed for a semi true representation of the populations within all states. The representation was only semi true as the states only counted select portions of the people within the state, omitting women, Native Americans and only counting 3/5ths of the slave population. As to whether this same calculation is fair for Electoral College purposes, I do not believe that it is.

Read More
612 Words | 3 Pages

The electoral college also helps the small states have an opinion that actually is heard in the presidential election. In class, it was discussed that Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota together, though their combined population is less than that of Oklahoma, each of those states has three electoral votes, whereas Oklahoma just has seven votes. Going by electoral votes, a candidate would have a better chance at winning the election if they won over Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota versus Oklahoma. With the electoral college, a candidate could win over all thirty-nine small states and win the entire election. Though the candidate could be supported by less than a quarter of the population,

Read More
1026 Words | 5 Pages

In Document D, we are shown an example in which we can visually see how one citizens vote weighs more heavily than others depending on the state. While Illinois has a larger population than all twelve states and D.C. depicted

Read More
503 Words | 3 Pages

In the United States during a presidential election the Electoral College is used to formally vote on who should be president and vice president. The United States uses the Electoral College was designed to prevent repetitions of inconclusive elections and was written in the Constitution under the Twelfth Amendment, in 1804 (Ginsberg 386). There has been controversy concerning the Electoral College however with some candidates winning the national vote but losing the Electoral College vote. The Electoral College is defined “the presidential electors from each state who meet after the popular election to cast ballots for president and vice president” (Ginsberg 386). The Electoral College is comprised of 538 electors that have been selected from their designated party.

Read More
1530 Words | 7 Pages

The Electoral College is an outdated system and should be abolished before it turns the tables of an election for the bad. This system of voting was developed in 1787 and has had a strong impact on American citizens for 230 years. The Electoral College was created to take power from over populated states and distribute it to the less populated states. It also serves a higher authority than the popular vote, which can alter the results of many elections. In the 230 years of this system being in action, 4 elections have been modified to set the victor as someone who the population did not want.

Read More
927 Words | 4 Pages

Along with that, why would a voter feel their vote matters when candidates barely campaign in their state? Presidential candidates tend to ignore states they know they either have no chance of winning or are guaranteed to win in. Another argument against the electoral college is that small states are overrepresented. For example, a voter in Wyoming has almost quadruple voting power than a voter in California. California has 1 electoral vote per 712,000 people while Wyoming has 1 electoral vote per 195,000 people.

Read More
975 Words | 4 Pages

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

Read More
975 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

More about What Is The Value Of The Electoral College Essay

Open Document