Electoral College
A major conflict concerning the electoral college lingers in America. The
Constitutional Convention created the college in 1789 in hopes that it would be an adequate system (MacBride 29). The electoral college consists of senators and representatives who cast their votes for the state they represent. Those who feel that the college should remain as it is believe that the American people are too uninformed about election issues to vote. The argument for the modification of the college maintains that the people are not actually electing the president, but the larger states are. Ultimately, the majority of the United States citizens support the elimination of an electoral college that serves no purpose in the
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First of all, the present format of the electoral college manifests the colleges’ insufficient qualities. The current format of the college, giving the edge to the larger states, exhibits the inadequacies of it (Polsby 32).
“The electoral college system, it is claimed, does not guarantee that the candidate with the most popular votes will win, produces great inequalities in voting power among the national electorate, contains a contingency election provision that is not only unrepresentative but that could also result in an impasse or in political duels, permits the will of the majority voters in a state or even in the nation to be thwarted through the constitutional independence of the electors, and permits the electoral decision to turn on fraud or chance in key states” (Best 22). A study conducted by John F. Banzhaf, III revealed that “states like New York and California have over two and one half times as much chance to effect the election of the president as residents of the smaller states”
(Bickel 6). Furthermore, causing confusion amongst the political system, the electoral college raised a question mark in Congress. Passed by more than the mandatory two-thirds vote in 1969, the House called for a constitutional amendment to change the election of presidents and vice-presidents be by nation a wide popular vote rather than the electoral college (Bickel 10). However, the amendment failed to
The Electoral College is an excuse of the electoral process, proving itself to be undemocratic, false in representation, and harmful to third-parties. Although the Electoral College may keep the peace between states and their representatives, the Electoral College makes it so that the winner of the presidential election is not what the nation truly
The 12th Amendment changed the rules of the electoral process by having electors make separate votes for president and vice president. It goes on to say that if no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives would select a president from the top three candidates. The Amendment also stipulates that the Senate would choose a vice-president from the top two candidates in the event of a tie for that office. This second design of the Electoral College provides for the workings of a two-party system in America and is still in effect today.
Established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Electoral College is a system utilized in The United States of America to select the President and Vice President. This process was established by the Founding Fathers in 1787, when the Constitution was written. The original purpose of the electoral system was to ensure that those who select the leaders of this nation were the most knowledgeable and informed people that America had to offer. The electors - the elected officials that make up the Electoral College - are elected to office through a general election wherein the entire national population has the right to vote. The President of the United States, however, is actually elected to office by the Electoral College only, regardless of the popular vote of the citizens in general. Thus, the Presidential election is the only federal election in our nation where the vote of the citizenry does not directly determine the victor. Despite the fact that this electoral system has been in place and operational for over two hundred years, the Electoral College is looked upon by some as an honorable system, whereas others view it as faulty. The Electoral College is not fair and equitable because it is based on population, it is not trusted by the people, and it is unjust to the wishes of the citizens.
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 outcome of the 2016 election left many Americans feeling confused, angry, cheated, and terrified of the future. Somehow, the sexist, racist, homophobic candidate Donald Trump had become the nation’s president, though Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received the majority of popular vote. This raised many questions over the constitutionality of the Electoral College system, and whether it was unfair to the people of the United States. In the electoral system, created by the Founding Fathers due to their lack of trust in the people, the constituents of each state vote for their preferred candidate, and all of the state’s electoral votes go to the candidate with a majority. Clearly, the Electoral
The Electoral College is the system established by the Founding Fathers to select the President of the United States. It is important that Americans have a fundamental knowledge of this system, and the obstacles overcame in its development. There were many obstacles faced by the Founding Fathers while constructing the government. America was comprised of 13 states that wanted to protect their individual rights and leery of a strong centralized government. The nation’s population lay across a vast area with limited communication capabilities. In addition, the Founders believed that a true gentleman should not campaign for office. “The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office” was the saying. They challenged themselves
Rhetorical Analysis: The primary audience for this paper includes every citizen aged eighteen and above eligible to vote in the United States. The proposed topic mostly concerns these individuals due to the fact, they are affected by presidential voting institutions. Throughout this paper, I will be arguing in favor of the Electoral College, with an end goal of persuading my audience of the benefits of the system.
The Electoral College is, perhaps, the most traditional aspect of the U.S. However, as structured as it is, there are major complications occurring because of it. Even though the Electoral College is tradition and serves as a structured way to vote, it should be abolished because it is undemocratic, it can allow the loser of the popular vote to win the nomination, and third party candidates have a major impact in the winner-take-all system. First, the Electoral College should be abolished because it is undemocratic. “The Electoral College was created by the Founders because they did not trust people enough to allow them to directly elect the president.”
The electoral college should be abolished. The electoral college should be discontinued because “not all votes are created equal or even count at all.” The electoral college consists of the 538 votes that determine who the President of the United Sates will be. The 538 votes consist of the Senators of each state and the Representatives. When you vote for who should be elected it tells the Senators for each state who they should vote for.
If a candidate wins the popular vote but not the electoral, then they do not win the election. This is unfair. If the people want a certain person for their leader
The Electoral College: a system that the U.S. has used over the years to choose representatives and is a compromise between election by a vote. The Electoral College should not be abolished for three reasons. These reasons are: The system helps candidates who struggle with winning the Popular Vote; with Electoral Votes, it gives the little states enough power and votes, and if we abolish The Electoral College, we weaken the Political Two-Party-System. And if not weakened, then destroyed. These reasons will show that the Electoral College should not be abolished, and should be kept.
Beginning in America in 1787, the Electoral College was originally created during the Constitutional Convention to help make a fair way for the president to be elected without giving too much power to either the national government or individual states. Over the years, the Electoral College has undergone a few changes in attempt to make it more fair, but there is still much debate about whether or not the Electoral College is the most effective way to elect a president. Some people believe that the Electoral College does an excellent job of creating an equal distribution of votes across all ethnicities and social classes of America. In contrast, others think that the Electoral College does not give an accurate portrayal of the popular
As a faithless elector, the big bad college acts independently by voting for a presidential contender other than the winner of states’ elections. Taking this argument seriously, suppose a voter holds the legal mandate to vote successfully for a preferred presidential candidate, an elector casting a ballot contrary to the mandate of the voter appears to act under the color of the state of law. In the end, the Electoral College remains a huge bad elector that deprives the citizens of their democratic right as entrenched in the constitution. As Tara asserts, since the endorsement of Electoral College, electors have turned into party mannequins, with their roles reduced to registering preference of state voting (n.p). As a point of departure, the Electoral College stages an unfaithful electoral predicament usually called a phantom over the origin of College. Reports indicate that since the inception of Electoral College, the statistical prospect that a disloyal voter could front an influential vote in the presidential polls remains
In June of 1804 the states had ratified the Twelfth Amendment which enacted the Electoral College in time for the 1804 election. When election time comes, Americans vote for the President and Vice President who are chosen by Presidential electors, who as a whole are known as the Electoral College. As a decision was needed for a method of choosing candidates, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 contemplated many different ways of electing the President, but toward the end of the proposals and ideas the matter had to be taken to the Committee of Eleven on Postponed Matters which is the committee who conceived the original Electoral College. In recent years, much debate has been stirring regarding whether or not the Electoral College has a place within this country's elections. For many states this method of tallying and casting votes is great because every state receives a minimum of three electoral votes considering each state has two senators and at least one representative (Lewis). However, these minimum electoral votes make the distribution of electoral college votes uneven throughout the fifty states, making each American citizen's vote count less or much more which is cause for change. If the information on these weighted votes is analyzed it can be concluded that states with a population similar to Wyoming has one “elector” for every 177, 556 persons while Texas has one “elector” for every 715,499 persons. While the Electoral College has worked for generations, there are some negative factors that give cause to abolish this practice, such that are; faithless electors, the winner take all system, and finally, safe and swing states.
The arguments to modify or eliminate the Electoral College system are all derived from the notion that it is outdated. Under the current system if a candidate wins a large states like California, then they win twenty percent of the needed votes even though California only accounts for eleven percent of the U.S. population. What's more is a president can be elected without winning a majority of the popular vote. This has happened 15 times in U.S. history. The