ipl-logo

Why Do We Elect The Electoral System

543 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Electoral vote vs popular vote

The United States of America is known as the most free and democratic nation around the world. Our nation has anti-discrimination laws, a strict rule of law, and an even playing field for everyone who resides here. However, most people aren't aware that the US is not truly a democracy, but rather a representative democracy. So when it comes to electing the President of the United States, some would be shocked to find out that that the citizens living here don’t actually elect the “leader of the free world.” That’s the Electoral College.

The Electoral College is a group of people that cast votes for the presidential election, every 4 years, on behalf of the states. This means that the US is not really an absolute democracy, as frequently believed. The president isn't chosen through the popular vote, but rather through individual representatives who cast votes on behalf of the citizens. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, and this way of doing things does not need to be put to an end. …show more content…

First, this creates an imbalance of how much each citizens votes really counts. Such as California, which has 55 electoral votes and 13 million people who vote in the presidential election, while Wyoming has 3 electoral votes, but only 249,000 voters. This different ratio of votes to voters results in the Wyoming voters being counted as much as 2.87 voters in California (Rudalevige). Another downfall of the Electoral College is that it restricts voters choices. If the US was an absolute democracy there could be 7 candidates running at the same time and the people of the nation would be able to truly find the candidate that represented their believes the

Show More
Related

What Are The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College System

181 Words | 1 Pages

The current system is undemocratic. The electorate does not officially elect the president, those who are apart of the electorate college elected the president. No other country holds their election in such a convoluted manner.” “Our nation witnessed the result of allowing the Electoral College to determine the

Read More

Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq

491 Words | 2 Pages

Again in Document D, George Edwards says about the Electoral College system, “(I)t favors some citizens over others, depending solely upon that state in which voters cast their votes for president.” Though candidate must have 270 of the electoral votes to become president, if there is a tie than the top three candidates are taken to the House of Representatives where each state has only one vote, and they select the president. This particular part of the Electoral College shows absolutely no political equality. In Document F, Bradford Plumer says, “Because each state cast only one vote, the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters.” The fact that one representative has as much power 55 representatives is just one example of the inequality and how the power in the Electoral College system is not divided correctly.

Read More

Should Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq Essay

797 Words | 4 Pages

A country in which someone is democratically voted Comander in Chief.. Not because the voters of the country picked them, but because of an old, unfair method that brought the person into power.   The electoral college is a method in which representatives from states vote on a presidential candidate, not the state as a whole. This method has failed multiple times, as can be seen when the electoral college votes are compared to the popular vote.  Instead of using the electoral college to pick the president, the United States should instead move to using the popular vote to pick the president.  Using the popular vote would insure that who is picked for president is who the people wanted.

Read More

What Are The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

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

Should Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq Essay

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

The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

1821 Words | 8 Pages

The electoral college is, “a body of people representing the states of the US, formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president” (Kimberling). Come election time, the states that make up the United States are worth a certain number of votes. That number depends on the population of the state. For example, California has 55 electoral votes, the most, because it is the most populous, and the District of Columbia is one of the smallest and has 3 electoral votes. In

Read More

Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq

1501 Words | 7 Pages

This is where opponents of the College find fault. The prime example is a comparison of Alaska, Delaware, D.C., Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, North and South Dakota, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wyoming to the single state of Illinois. These twelve states and the district account for forty-four electoral votes, and 12,500,000 people live there. Illinois, with a population of 12,830,000, only gets twenty electoral votes (Document D). Here, it seems as if the 12,500,000 people of the District and the twelve states are essentially getting over double the representation than the people of Illinois.

Read More

Pros And Cons Of Abolishing The Electoral College

976 Words | 4 Pages

But frankly, the founding fathers are dead. They may not have wanted to have a full democracy, but as time goes on things change. Democracy is a system of government for the whole population. The Electoral College is similar to a republic, leaving the ultimate decision in the hands of representatives. Some say the Electoral College provides certainty to the outcome of an election, but when it comes to the popular vote, a tie would be more than unlikely.

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

753 Words | 4 Pages

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?

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College

903 Words | 4 Pages

The Electoral College is the system that determines who our next president and vice president will be. The Electoral College is currently made up of 538 electors, with a majority of 270 votes to win the election. Each state gets electors based on how many people in the House of Representatives plus two for each state’s senators. ("U. S. Electoral College, Official - What Is the Electoral College?" National Archives and Records Administration.

Read More

Should Electoral College Be Changed

1338 Words | 6 Pages

If we somehow happened to be a capable vote, then we ought to have the capacity to really pick who might be president. The Electoral College removes that from us. The Electoral College is not by any stretch of the imagination reasonable for our rights and our opportunity. It, for the most part, takes away the ability to vote the president. The Electoral College was made in a period when votes were harder to gather and number.

Read More

Dbq Essay On The Electoral College

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

Should Electoral College Be Abolished Essay

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

Electoral College Dbq Analysis

1026 Words | 5 Pages

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

Read More

Persuasive Essay On The Electoral College

529 Words | 3 Pages

Therefore the U.S. democracy is not truly democracy because its basically a representative type of government. The electoral college has had the final decisions in who becomes president and crucial rulings have been made in since the beginning of the electoral college. Why vote for the president you want if your vote won’t truly make a difference. Controversial ruling have been made to the point that people have began to question why vote if

Read More

More about Why Do We Elect The Electoral System

Related Topics

Open Document