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Winner-Take-All System Analysis

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In 1787, between the months of May and September, the Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia to address the problems that the central government had under the Articles of Confederation. At this convention, state delegates discussed how to strengthen the federal government while at the same time guarantee rights for the people. They also discussed ideas that dealt with the process of electing the president and vice president of the country. As a result of this convention, the Constitution and the electoral college emerged. The electoral college was proposed near the end of the Constitutional Convention by the Committee on Unfinished Parts, chaired by David Brearley of New Jersey, to provide a system that would select the most qualified …show more content…

According to Britannica 's definition the winner-take-all system, means that the candidate with the most votes wins that state’s electoral votes. Under winner-take-all systems, a slim majority of voters can control 100% of seats, leaving everyone else effectively without representation. Winner-take-all election systems do nothing to provide representation to any group making up less than half of the population and the high percentage of the vote needed to win the election can be a severe barrier to minority candidates. Since many areas are dominated by a single political viewpoint, winner-take-all voting systems will often result in elections where one party has a stronger influence than another party does. The state of Texas, where the majority is Republican, and the state of New York, where the majority is Democratic, are two examples that represent this …show more content…

Many people choose not to vote in an election due to the fact that their vote is not effective in influencing the outcome of an election. This system of voting within the electoral college also generally favours large states over small states, meaning that they also do not have much influence in an election turnout. This problem requires reform because not only does it underrepresent the minority opinion, there is also a possibility that the winner might not be the candidate with the most popular votes. In fact three U.S Presidents, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and George W. Bush in 2000, were elected with fewer popular votes, only winning the election because of the electoral votes they received. In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush’s 271 electoral college victory over Al Gore’s 266, prompted renewed calls for reforming the electoral college. Al Gore had won the nationwide popular vote by more than 500,000 votes over Bush, yet he still lost in the electoral college. Several reforms were called during this time period, all different methods that would benefit the country. One of these reforms included a district plan, which would give electoral votes by legislative district rather than at the statewide level. This reform is similar to the current system in Maine and

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398 Words | 2 Pages

The Constitutional Convention took place from May 25th, 1787 to September 17th, 1787 in the city of Philadelphia. The official purpose of the convention was to amend the articles of Confederation/ how the country was going to be governed. Although the convention had been called for revising the Articles of Confederation, two delegates (James Madison and Alexander Hamilton) wanted to make a totally new government. Seventy delegates from each original state were supposed to come to the Constitutional Convention, but only 55 out of the 70 arrived. The first two months of debating were only about the 15 points of the “Virginia Plan” that James Madison thought of to replace the Articles of Confederation.

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This is one of the many reasons why the Electoral College is unfair, past elections have shown that bigger populations have more electoral votes, concluding that smaller states’ votes become insignificant. This leaves people in question, is the Electoral College now based on where you live? Even though the purpose of the electoral college is to ultimately decide who will occupy the position of the president, there was an Electoral Commision of elite representatives, established to determine the 19th President, because of the situation the electoral college caused. The commission included five representatives from the House, another five associates from the  Senate and five justices from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Justices in the Electoral Commission were David Dias

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543 Words | 3 Pages

The Constitutional Convention, a meeting of state delegates from May of 1787 to September 1787, resulted in the creation of a new constitution and therefore a new government for the United States of America. While representation was debated over at the Constitutional Convention, issues that created much more controversy were the distribution of power between branches, and between state and federal governments. Under the Articles of Confederation, representation in the national government was satisfactory, however the creation of a national government that welded a significant amount of power changed how each state wanted to be represented in the national government. Delegates, mainly from the larger New England states, at the Constitutional Convention were concerned over the matter of how small states were represented when compared with large states. As many plans suggested, representation based on population favored the larger states, and also the states with a higher percentage of

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786 Words | 4 Pages

With the unpopular winners, it makes it seem that the Electoral College does not truly have the people’s choice heard. The president just needs to win the Electoral College but not the national election. This makes it possible for the president to win without the public opinion in his or her favor. In fact, an unpopular president has been elected five times, in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 with George W. Bush and 2016 with Donald Trump(Ballaro and Bourassa). This creates an 11% or 5/45th false-positive rate for the presidential election.

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A growing number of Americans would rather have a direct popular vote than the Electoral College. This disparity comes from believing that the current system is not democratic and prevents each vote from being viewed equally. The Electoral College needs to be changed because it misrepresents the opinions of the people, dismisses

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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

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Since the inception of our constitution in 1787, there has only been 4 elections where the Electoral College has allowed the future president-elect candidate to win the election, despite losing the popular vote. 4/57 elections is probably something that political scientists don’t lose sleep over, but it is a topic that is worth mentioning and discussing, especially after the controversial presidential election in 2000. From my point of view, I believe that the method we use in selecting our presidents is flawed and ineffective for a couple of reasons. First, the Electoral College has far fewer votes than the American people, yet their vote has a lot more meaning. With 538 delegates representing the Electoral College, it is unfair and inequitable to the millions of people who devote their time and energy to stand in long

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233 Words | 1 Pages

Did you know that on election day you do not vote directly for president. Many people don’t like that they don’t ultimintly decide for president. They however don’t understant that it is there for a quite a few reasons. The first is that the founding fathers created the electoral college, second that it ensures that every state gets a say in who the president is, and number three is that it makes sure that the president is chosen by a majority vote and not a popular vote. When the founding fathers built this country they made the electoral college so that the presadent could be picked by an educated population.

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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.

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The Constitutional convention that met in Philadelphia started off as a goal to amend the articles of confederation it rapidly turned into constitutional convention. The convention would let each member to speak his mind without fear of political retribution. One of the main agreements completed in the convention was that George Washington should be president of the convention, Washington’s reputation protected the convention from accusations. The division that had the most importance in the convention were the northern states versus southern, and merchants versus farmers. The major accomplishment of the Convention began four days later when Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia presented and defended a plan for new structure of government called

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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,

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695 Words | 3 Pages

Most voters are faithful individuals from the gathering that has chosen them, and in 26 states, in addition to Washington, D.C., voters are bound by laws or gathering vows to vote as per the prominent vote. In spite of the fact that a balloter could, on a fundamental level, change his or her vote (and a couple of really have throughout the years), doing as such is uncommon. As the 2000 decision reminded us, the Electoral College makes it feasible for a contender to win the well-known vote and still not move toward becoming president. Yet, that is less a result of the Electoral College and increasingly a result of the way states allot voters. In each state yet Maine and Nebraska, balloters are granted on a champ take-all premise.

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1026 Words | 5 Pages

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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975 Words | 4 Pages

The Electoral College system the founding fathers devised helps to balance out the power of the large, populous states. This system forces candidates to campaign in all states since they all carry some sway in the elections (“Understanding the Presidential Election”). However, other issues present themselves as well, like states with large independent voters that can be swayed and the issue that a candidate can lose the popular vote and win the election. The first issue is that states that are equally divided between democrats and republicans and hold a large number of electoral votes like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania are considered swing states. (“Understanding the Presidential Election”)

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373 Words | 2 Pages

The Electoral College system is confusing. I'm ashamed to say that when I was casting my vote for a certain person; I had no clue all of the behind the scenes action. I'm actually voting for someone else(electors) who will vote for the same candidate as I have chosen but whose name doesn't appear anywhere on the ballot. . I heard of the Electoral College and Popular votes before but never really understand what it entailed. Voting is a process not just a checkmark to a name on a ballot.

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