The United States is considered to have the world's greatest democracy, however, every four years when Americans go to the voting polls to select a presidential candidate, the controversy of our voting system arises. The United States voting system consists of many components and is referred to as Electoral College. The Electoral College has remained in place for the past two centuries after our founding fathers created it. Fundamentally, the Electoral College consists of 538 electors. This specific number is made up of 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and 3 electors from the District of Columbia, who are responsible to vote for a specific presidential candidate. According to the 23rd Amendment, the District of Columbia is referred to as …show more content…
The presidential candidate who receives the majority of electoral votes, which is 270 out of 538, wins the presidency. Many American's are surprised to learn that when they step into a ballot box and vote for a specific candidate, they are essentially voting for an elector appointed by states, not the actual presidential candidate. These electors cast a vote for the presidential candidate that the voters have supported. The purpose of the Electoral College is to provide a sense of stability for electing a chief executive, however, this system has been the subject of criticism for many years, as it has occasionally maligned. Many critics have attempted to reform the system, especially when apparent discrepancies occurred after the election results.
Similar to any other bureaucratic system, the Electoral College has multiple pros and cons. The entirety of the Electoral College is based on fairness, as “The Founding Fathers enshrined the Electoral College in the US Constitution because they thought it was the best method to choose the president”
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Although it seems otherwise, it is important to remember that the population of this nation is foremost and the political agendas should not be employed unless supported by the nation’s people. Donald Trump is the 45th president of the United States and the fifth president to enter office, even though he lost the national popular vote. The only way the people’s choice will prevail in the presidential elections is to employ a popular vote. Essentially, abolishing the Electoral College system is the most effective and efficient way to enact change. According to sources, “By overwhelming majorities, Americans would prefer to elect the president by direct popular vote, not filtered through the antiquated mechanism of the Electoral College” (Vespa, 2016). The Electoral College system is obviously faulty, “Because almost all states use a winner-take-all system, the election ends up being fought in just a dozen or so “battleground” states, leaving tens of millions of Americans on the sidelines” (Vesper, 2016). According to Stanford professors, the national popular vote is much more beneficial for choosing presidents compared to the Electoral College system thus, needs to be abolished. Stanford professors claim that, “Four out of five Americans exercised no real electoral voice in the 2012 presidential election due to the winner-take-all
After researching and learning about the Electoral College I have noticed some pros and cons of it. Manly I have found pros to why we need the Electoral College, but there are still cons to it. One of the biggest pros is that it promotes a two-party system. Once we try to get a third or fourth party into mix it just makes it harder to maintain and chose a side. Looking at the con side though, some will say that the Electoral College makes it hard for these independent parties’ voices to get heard and that they don’t have even have chance to Presidency. I don’t think that the intent was to not give voices to other parties, it is just less complicated to deal with just a two-party system. The intent of our Founding Fathers was to have a check
The Electoral College is the “body that votes to select the president and vice president based on the popular vote in each state.” A person’s vote is not a direct vote for the president. Instead, their vote goes toward an elector who was nominated by their respective political party. These electors have to pledge their support to whichever candidate is in their party. By tallying up the votes for However, not all states have the same system. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, have proportional representation.
There are many arguments as to why using the process of Electoral College is beneficial and non-beneficial. Many arguments break down into 3 major pros and 3 major cons. People
The voting process in America appears straightforward, but it is a very complex, complicated system. The Electoral College is America’s current voting system. The Electoral College still serves its intended purpose, but with increasing political activity among Americans it has caused a need to reform this process. Research suggests that the Electoral College system should be amended because it poorly illustrates democracy, is outdated and the majority of Americans are in favor of abolishing the system.
The Electoral College helps maintain the two party system. The Electoral College has a negative effect on 3rd parties. Many people view this as a good thing because it maintains the two party system the United States is used to.
The electoral college is an institution that every four years is in charge of electing our President, and Vice President. In school we are always taught that its the right and fair way to elect our president, but why? When the Founding Fathers created the process in 1787 along with the constitution certain founders such as James Madison thought the process would hurt the south and under a prior agreement set by southern slave states allowed states to count slaves as votes. This gave Southern States the majority of the electoral votes. In the first distribution of electoral votes Virginia(a heavy slave state) came out the big winner with over a quarter of the US votes where a state like Pennsylvania(a free state) had far less. The pro-Southern
The electoral college is the system constructed to select the president of the U.S. The founding fathers established this process as a compromise between the popular vote and the states. Electoral College consists of 538 electors (Eric). The majority of 270 out of the 538 electoral votes are required for the running candidate to win the presidency (History staff). As dictated by the 23rd Amendment (National archive), the District of Columbia has 3 votes and California with 55 votes has the most between the states, each state has at least 3 votes no matter what the population is. One of the issues seen in the electoral college is the fact that the candidate with the popular vote does not always win the presidency (Eric). For example, in 2016
The Electoral College is a constitutional system written in 1787, in this system “each state selects as many electors as it has representatives in Congress”, members of the college casts ballots for individuals, the individual with the most electoral votes becomes the President of the United States (Shelley 80). It is
The electoral college is a method for choosing the president. The system was created by the founding fathers to help choose the president in a time when many people were far less educated than people today. The electoral college is an outdated for selecting the president that needs to be abolished in favor of a popular vote from citizens.
Today the Electoral College is used to find out who becomes president. The Electoral College system is used in most states and this means that everyone who is eligible to vote can go vote in the state that they live in and then the majority vote for that certain state gets all the electoral college votes which is what counts more. Different states have a different number of electoral votes depending on the state’s population. The system that is being used is unfair to the independent candidate and bigger states, therefore the Electoral College should be abolished.
The electoral college has been used for more than two centuries and over that time period, it has “established itself as a remarkably stable, adaptable, and successful method of selecting Presidents.” (Vile) The electoral college gives both parties a chance at winning the election. According to the article “Electoral College: Pros & Cons” written by John Vile, there are “more” democrats is the US, making it harder for the Republicans to win the elections. But with the electoral college it evens out the odds of each party winning. The electoral college has also “provided peaceful inaugurations of new administrations.” (Vile) As the US continues to grow in naturalization and centralization the “electoral college reminds us that America is one nation.” (Vile) The electoral college gives electors from both small and large states the opportunity of becoming President. When becoming President the electoral college prevents any President from becoming too dependent on political issues “like the Congress, and promotes separation of powers, which facilitates liberty.” (Vile) The electoral college continues to show everyone that abolishing it would
The Electoral College in the United States picks electors lawfully inside every state to choose the president after a presidential decision by the general population. Each state has numerous presidential voters, and the same number of as the delegates in both houses and congress. In total, there are 538 members of the Electoral College. The different states have various numbers of representatives. California has the largest number of electors, 54. This is because there are 54 members in the congress who represent the people in the state. New York has 33 electors, Texas has 32, and Florida has 25, Pennsylvania with 23, and Ohio with 21. There are advantages as well as disadvantages to the Electoral College, depending on how you look at the situation;
The method that the United States uses to elect its President and Vice President is known as the Electoral College. Contrary to popular belief, the citizens of the United States do not vote directly for the President. Rather, they vote for designated “electors” who have (usually) pledged to vote for a specific candidate. There are 538 electors because this is the number of seats in the U.S Senate plus the seats in the U.S House of Representatives. Each state receives a number of votes equal to the number of seats it holds in Congress. This leads to a great deal of unnecessary problems. When the Founding Fathers designed the Electoral College, they did so because it was the most efficient system at that time for electing the President. Because
What is the Electoral College? The Electoral College is a system that our Founding Fathers established in the Constitution in which representatives from the 50 states elect the President of the United States. The system begins with the people electing representatives to represent them, and then the representatives meet so they can vote for the next President and Vice President. The votes from each representative are then counted by Congress and are able to elect the candidate that has the most votes. According to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (2013), “The Electoral College consists of 538 electors…270 electoral votes is required to elect the President.” Every state has an
The Electoral College is our voting system based off of 538 votes dispersed over the span of all 50 states. It is based off of population rather than size; a state with a massive population like New York gets twenty-nine votes while a more scarce state like Montana only gets three votes. If a majority of the previously elected voters vote for a particular candidate, then all of the votes for that state is delegated to said candidate.