The electoral college is the process to elect a president by a votes from states. (American Government: Institutions & Policies.) Each state is given the amount of votes, to an elector, based off the number of representatives in Congress. The minimum amount of votes are three, while the maximum amount of votes are fifty-five.(The Founding Fathers; a Reform Caucus in Action) States are allowed to choose the electors in the method they see best. Most states, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, use a ‘winner takes all’ system.("The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy.") In this process, the candidate who won the popular election is given all of the electors of that state. Unlike the popular vote, a candidate must gain the majority …show more content…
Fear of tyranny and fear of hurting the South all were factors into the making of the electoral college. The way government in The United States is set to avoid any potential tyranny of the majority, “ Such a form of government, the Founders believed, would allow them to achieve two potentially conflicting objectives: avoiding the "tyranny of the majority" inherent in pure democratic systems, while allowing the "sense of the people" to be reflected in the new American government.”("The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy.") The electoral college was crafted to stop the majority from ruling America. The Founders wanted democracy, but not at the cost of letting the majority rule this country. Heretofore, the idea of the electoral college and a popular vote would make all happy, people who believed in the popular vote, and people who believed letting only a certain group of people choose the president and vice president. Additionally, the electoral college was manifested out of fear of hurting the South. It was believed, especially by James Madison, that a direct vote would hurt the South: “James Madison of Virginia worried that such a system would hurt the South, which would have been outnumbered by the North in a direct election system” ("The Electoral College, Unfair From Day One.") The South would have been facing tyranny of the majority, and could not happen. The direct vote meant more votes for the North, and less for …show more content…
The process to create an amendment to repeal the Electoral College will take too long to create change, as the most common way to change the Constitution is to have two-thirds of the House to pass the proposal, and then have the Senate approve the proposal. Afterwards, it would be sent to the states for a vote, in which it must be approved by three-fourths of the states. (Some Thoughts on the Electoral College: Past, Present, and Future) This process will take too much time. Additionally, those who oppose abolishing the Electoral College will try to stop the proposal from advancing. Many politicians, believe that the Electoral College is very important to the way the leader of the country is chosen, and that it has barely any faults. In this fashion, representatives who believe in the Electoral College will not let it be destroyed. The Electoral College will never be abolished, even though it should, because the process to remove it is too time consuming, and many believe that it is an crucial part of American
Though our founding fathers created the Electoral College over 200 years ago, it has been changed with time to accommodate modern needs and is still an important and necessary part of our electoral system. The Electoral College ensures political stability in our nation by encouraging the two-party system and also protects the interests of minorities. Furthermore, the Electoral College helps maintain a united country by requiring widespread popular support of a candidate in order for him or her to become president.
Discuss the history of the Electoral College of the United States. Also, explain how it works: The United States Electoral College was created when the Constitution was ratified. The method was determined by a compromise between the Framers who wanted Congress to choose the president, and those who wanted citizens to pick (O’Connor & Sabato 276). Today, the minimum number of electoral votes is 3, because each state has 2 senators represented and at least one representative. If a candidate wins the majority of votes in that state (as in, 51% or more of the voters chose them), the candidate wins all of the votes for that state. If 60% of the voters in Florida choose a certain candidate, he or she would win all 29 of the votes. This is generally known as the “winner take all” system. A candidate needs to win
The Electoral College should be abolished because it overpowers the people’s vote. As stated in the Document G in the presidential election in 1876, 1888, and 2000 the winner of the election didn’t actually win the popular vote. For example, in the presidential election in 1888, Hayes got 5,443,892 popular votes and 233 electoral votes. Tilden got 5, 534,488 electoral votes and 168 electoral votes. Given this evidence, the popular vote (the people’s votes) doesn’t actually count towards the actual election. The Electoral College is what actually decides the election. Therefore, if the majority of the people vote for a president, the president might not be chosen all because only the Electoral College votes count not the people’s. Furthermore, the population of Illinois was more than the population of the 12 states and the District of Columbia combined, yet Illinios only had 20 Electoral votes while those 12 states and the District of Columbia had 44 electoral votes, according to Document D. This proves that the Electoral College doesn’t make everyone’s vote equal. The votes of the people who live in the 12 states and
Because of all this problems and how it effects to the election, I am writing this on the side of this claim- The Electoral College should be abolished in favor of a direct majority vote for president resulting in a better outcome of the election.
An electoral college is a group of people who represent the United States, who send out votes for the election of the President and Vice President of the United States. It has a total of 538 electors.
When the Founding Father first wrote the Constitution the only way news got around were the newspaper and written works or word of mouth. In the 1700s most Americans were illiterate and only learned about candidates for president by word of mouth which isn’t the most reliable source of information. So they created the Electoral college to “protect” the American public from their own ignorance. This is an outdated notion for the modern American citizen and the Electoral College should be removed from the constitution in favor of the popular vote because the Electoral College is not the Democracy the framers worked so hard to create, it creates disparency in representation, and voter decisions ultimately don’t matter.
How does Hillary Clinton have more people that voted for her but Donald Trump is our president?. It doesn't make sense does it this happened because this idea called the electoral college system. The electoral college system is in the US a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president. The person that gets the most votes does not necessarily always win. All the votes are not equal and fair depending on the states candidates. Most largely states are ignored even in close presidential races. I think we should get rid of the electoral college system
If the electoral college was abolished, then America would have a more pure vote. The electoral college delegates how much say a state has in government and limits some states while promoting the powers of others. The electoral college also has many deformities, including the winner take all system, a less pure vote, and a more concentrated support for a candidate from certain states that make it perfectly reasonable to abolish it.
The Electoral College was established for minority votes to be heard, otherwise largely populated cities would overrule any votes for small towns. By abolishing The Electoral College we would no longer have a Republic Nation, and would be throwing away everything our forefathers stood for and become a Democratic Nation. The Electoral College is used to have minority votes have a second chance to be heard. By abolishing the Electoral College we are giving into dismantling federalism. By dismantling, and abolishing the Electoral College it will not only be a grave mistake, but also undermined the freedom of the minority.
538 is the sum of the nation’s 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and 3 electors given to the District of Columbia.
Last week, my most intriguing aspect of Ben's guide was about the Gettysburg address by Abraham Lincoln and the different wars we've fought as a nation since we receive our freedom from the Great Britain. Today, my second most intriguing aspect of US Government would be the the electoral college. Yes, the electoral college. Being that i am originally from Nigeria (born and raise) before moving over to United States back in the year 1999, i have always wonder what electoral college is and how in the world would we elect the president and vice president to be based on that and not the majority votes known as the popular votes as usual in almost all of the countries around the globe. Though I didn't go to high school here in the US, but I at
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
Third, there was always a large portion of society that opposed the electoral voting system and took actions to abolish the Electoral College. Instead amendments were made to offset complaints.
In order to fully understand the underlying problems of the Electoral College we have to look back at the time that the idea of the Electoral College itself was proposed and see how the culture of the time and the ideologies of the people involved helped shaped the final outcome. Life today is much different than it was two hundred odd something years ago, and it’s fair to say that the political ideals and social norms around our society have changed drastically.
The electoral college is a relic from days gone by, and like those days, it’s time for it to retire. The college, in all it’s promotes the blatant distrust of the will of the majority, has a sub-par backup plan in the event of an electoral tie, and violates political equality.