Over The Course Of American History, The Electoral College

The Electoral College is an excuse of the electoral process, proving itself to be undemocratic, false in representation, and harmful to third-parties. Therefore, the Electoral College should be abolished, and the process should rely on the popular vote to have the leading judgement in the election procedure for a new president. The Electoral College has proven that a candidate may not need to win the popular vote of the people of the nation in order to win the presidential election. But first, beforehand, let me introduce the system in which the Electoral Process is based upon. The Electoral Process is the government’s created system of indirect voting in order to elect the nation’s president.

The distinguished contributors to this instructive volume - including Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Michael Barone, and Walter Berns- show why it would be foolish to abolish the Electoral College by explaining not only its historical and cultural significance, but also its present role in instilling a measure of stability and sanity to our electoral and party systems. This is the definitive volume for all those interested in the logic, and continuing importance of this unique American political institution.

In 1787, the framers of the constitution assembled and decided how the new nation would elect its president. It took the framers little less than a month to accomplish this task. During that month they considered various methods ranging from direct election of the president, to selection by legislators, to selection by electors. Finally, they settled on selection by electors, most commonly known as Electoral College. There were various reasons why Electoral College ultimately won out. We will explore some of the reason later in this essay. I believe that the reasons which were legitimate at the time are no longer valid and the time has come for us to replace the Electoral College with a system

Many people hail the Electoral College as democratic, but the 2016 Presidential Election was anything except democratic. The highly scrutinized leader, Donald J. Trump, won a majority of the Electoral College, sealing his place as the Forty-Fifth President of the United States, but did not receive the majority of votes, as the popular vote went to Hillary Clinton. The results of previous elections have not reflected the people’s opinions, and it disenfranchised millions of Americans. Although the Electoral College is outlined in the United States Constitution, it reflects the needs of an eighteenth century society (Amar, 2016). Because the Electoral College does not meet the needs of a twenty-first century society, it should be replaced by a national popular vote where voter registration is based on a test regarding basic knowledge of the United States government.

In the “Point: Abolishing the Electoral College,” Benjamin Bolinger, a licensed lawyer who can practice law in Colorado and Pennsylvania, argues that the Electoral College needs to be abolished for the American democracy. Bolinger examines that some states with a little population have large number of electoral college compare to those states with larger populations. He believes that the Electoral College damages the value of democratic government by leaving

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 was created in 1787 to protect this country’s voting system. It is a group of 538 members that directly cast the votes to determine who the next president will be. (Green) However, the issues of the present day can’t help but wonder, is the Electoral College’s system outdated and corrupt? My dialogue’s purpose is to defend the Electoral College and show how it still protects us to this day by using evidence from the most recent 2016 election, and prove that it gave us the best candidate suited for the role of the President of the United States.

Most states are always republican or democratic in the way they vote. So the amount of votes is already in favor of one candidate or another before voting actually arrives.(Document 7). Since the candidates are always insured a certain number of votes, the candidates only have to worry about “swing states” or states that change their decisions every election. Since the non-swing states never decide in favor of one candidate or the other by themselves the power to elect a new president resides with whom the citizens of swing states vote for. Without an electoral college, each citizen's vote would be worth more and everyone could help determine a new president instead of the select few who are living in “swing states.” All of these reasons help to make it clear that the electoral college is a corrupt

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.”

Most Americans think the Electoral College is a nuanced and complex system designed to safeguard democracy. It seems that dividing electoral votes among states and awarding each state's electors to one of the primary candidates would be an effective system and one that would preserve our nation’s freedom. And so society blissfully forges on believing our current system of election is both impartial and up to date. But little do most American citizens know that they are lacking the knowledge and context to understand how malignant the Electoral College is. The Electoral College needs to be abolished because it ignores the popular vote and what most citizens want, it causes candidates to focus too much on swing states, and the old reasons for using are now irrelevant.

The Electoral College has long been controversial, and is subject to both criticism and defense. To understand why either side is valid we must look at its values and its weaknesses, its pros and cons. The Electoral College was devised to proportionally dole out the power of selecting our executives geographically. In doing so the Electoral College gives otherwise marginalized portions of the U.S. population a voice. Adversely the Electoral College can be seen as an obstruction to democracy and the will of the people. Whether or not the Electoral College serves the best interests of all the people in United States is up to debate. This paper functions to reveal what validities either argument may include.

The Electoral College, a hot topic these days, is subject to both criticism and defense. To understand why either side is valid we must look at its values and its weaknesses, its pros and cons. In defense of the Electoral College we can see that it in its roots the Electoral College was devised to dole out the power of selecting our executives geographically, and to give otherwise marginalized portions of the U.S. population a voice. Adversely the Electoral College can be seen as an obstruction to democracy and the will of the people. Whether or not the Electoral College serves the best interest of all the people in United States is up to debate. Whether or not the Electoral College serves the best interests of all the people in United States is up to debate, and this paper functions to expose what validities either argument may include.

While he agreed that “the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the [president],” he made clear the importance of “afford[ing] as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder.” This would require the will of the people to be tempered by “an intermediate body of electors.” Not only would this be a compromise between the competing ideas in the Constitutional Convention, it would prevent any one group from having undue discretion when it came to electing the most powerful person in government. Of these competing ideas, two are prominently reflected in the Electoral College. The first is democracy, an idea largely advanced by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America. Democracy, loosely defined as the direct representation of people in government, seems the most logical way to conduct an election. The second is federalism. Understanding how this could become problematic, the founders decided to include states in the election process. According to Federalist 68, this would allow “the people of each State [to] choose a number of persons as electors…who shall assemble…and vote for some fit person as President.” This balance of individual and state discretion would soon be codified in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution.

The original framers of the constitution obviously preferred the electoral system to a direct popular election. The argument that historians give for this is that they preferred this system

Two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, our founding fathers had debated on which route to take when electing our President. In 1787, the “Committee of Eleven” had come to a compromise, and created the Electoral College, which is a group of individuals elected by the people to cast votes for the presidency. The Electoral College is described as “a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote” (Price). The reason behind the Electoral College was to preserve “the sense of the people,” while ensuring that our president is chosen “by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under