The Electoral College
Peter I. Chacko
The American Electoral College is the most confusing part of the American government. In addition, Kenneth Davis, author of Don’t Know Much About History, noted, “Grown men turn weak and stammer when asked who makes up the Electoral College.” However, there will be an effort to clear this enigma up for those who “turn weak and stammer” (2011, p. 653). America’s election system is important because their citizens need to know what they are doing on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The Electoral College has an interesting structure, procedure, and history, while also serving America well.
The Electoral College is a voting method used by the United States of America. On the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November on a leap year, eligible American citizens go to a
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They did not want the people to decide because they were not informed. They believed this because much of the U.S. was rural in 1789. Others considered Congress picking the president as an erosion of the separation of powers. The Convention compromised. The people would elect their party's electors, and then vote (Davis, 2011, p. 653). However, there have been a few unexpected results of this system. Four times in history, presidential candidates lost the popular vote, but won the Electoral College and the election.
Although controversial, the Electoral College has both advantages and disadvantages. In his series on Exploring Constitutional Law, Douglas O. Linder, explains the Electoral College protects minorities from the majority. He shows that the states are important in electing our president. However, he states that most Americans think that the popular vote makes more sense (n.d). A president can lose the popular vote and win the election, which some people think is unfair. Still, as the adage goes, "You don't fix what ain't
In my opinion the Electoral College is very misunderstood. The Electoral College is a group of officials who elect the president every four years. It is the indirect method of elections. Many people think that they would be voting directly for a presidential candidate when voting, but it is not that simple.
“The Electoral College in the US is a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and the vice president.” The Electoral College has been the system of voting in the US since 1787, but with the growing and changing of our country, it has been a very controversial topic whether or not to keep the system in place. On five separate occasions in the history of our country, the Electoral College has voted against majority rules for the nation’s president. Many may say that this is an infringement on the rights of the people themselves to vote for their own president, because in these five instances, it truly was left to a small group of people
We can trace back the Electoral College to the 18th century when the United States was first founded by our Founding Fathers, when after our independence, we created a democracy that will give equal opportunities for the people and not give too much power to one person; therefore the Electoral College holds a great importance in our country’s political history. Located in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, this document states, “The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves…The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President…” Despite the importance of this process, many start to debate whether we should abolish the Electoral College or keep it. Some claim that, this process takes away the choice of an individual that votes for its candidate. While others claim that the Electoral College gives a fair chance to the voters that live in smaller states with less population. In order to make a clear decision. To make a clear judgment, one needs to go back and inform themselves on what is an Electoral College, understand why our Founding Fathers created this political role, know of their advantages and disadvantages as well to analyses wheatear this process is still necessary now in days.
Every cheerful running for President in your state has his or her own specific social occasion of voters. The voters are generally picked by the confident 's political social event, yet state laws change on how the voters are picked and what their commitments are. The Electoral College technique embodies the determination of the balloters, the meeting of the voters where they vote for President and Vice President, and
The validity and necessity of the Electoral College has been questioned approximately since it was formed in the Constitution. Many different events in history, such as the president having a vice president from the opposite party, and the electoral college electing a president that didn’t win the popular vote has caused this to be an area of controversy. After looking into the origin of this system, how it works, and societal and technological changes that have occurred in the past 200 years, one can see why the Electoral College isn’t needed in this day and age.
Electing government officials is a major part of being an American. The citizens of the United States have the privilege of voting for their officials , representing America’s democracy. Although a big misconception on this is that the people actually do not vote directly for who becomes elected president but rather who gets to elect the next president. The Electoral College has been in place since 1804 and continues to be the system the United States uses to elect the president. The Electoral College is filled with history, a lengthy process , and questionable arguments on its validity.
The Founding Fathers were afraid if they gave unlimited power to elect the president to some politically uninformed people it could lead to a tyranny of the majority. To keep this from happening, they formed the Electoral College system that would be used to elect the president. They felt the Electoral College system would keep the election of the president from the politically
The Electoral College is the system the United States have used to elect the President for the past two hundred years. In this essay, the reader will see that although it did the best way to represent the will of the American people, and in this essay a better alternative will be proposed to the reader. The Electoral college was created in September sixth, nineteen-eighty-seven, and was described as (founder definition) and was meant to allow a stronger South, who by using the three-fifths compromise of 1787 to allow themselves more votes and ensure they are given the most federal power (Amar). This paper will show the reader that the Electoral College is flawed in the way that minority candidates can be elected, less populated states are overrepresented, and swing states are given the most attention.
The Electoral College has always been a topic up for debate. From the very beginning, its method for electing a president was criticized. Even now, well over two-hundred years after the idea was first introduced, people are still questioning whether or not it is our best option. There have been a very large number of proposals suggested to change the ways of the Electoral College, but all of them have failed. Regardless of the views that it is outdated, or your vote doesn’t matter with the current system, the Electoral College has stood the test of time. “It is an institution that has survived as part of the democratic process, but its relevancy to current political realities has been questioned time and time again”(McCollester). People still wonder why the system is invincible. Why, in the face of so many attempts to reform or destroy it, is the Electoral College still in place?
The Electoral College is one of those things that differentiate the American electoral process from the rest of the world. It is an old institution that has been fundamental to the American political system ever since the Declaration of Independence. There have been calls to disband this way of voting to join the rest of the world with the ordinary populace voting. During the month of November in a presidential election year, every state holds an election in which all citizens who qualify may participate. They cast a ticket for president and his vice president. After this voting, the winning party is allowed to choose a slate of
The Electoral College is the way the United States chooses a president and it has a rich and interesting history. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, who are selected by the political parties in each state and voted for in the general election. “When the voters in each state cast votes for the Presidential candidate of their choice,
The Electoral College is a group of people who are “appointed by a larger group” of people to represent each state in the U.S. who then vote for the presidential elections (Dictionary.com 2015). The founding fathers created the Electoral College so that qualified citizens could vote for the president. They believed that the average American is uniformed, so they decided that a few educated people would make the correct choice for the entire population. The founding fathers also thought the Electoral College would be effective because at that time the only way of communication was through word of mouth and through letters. With the Electoral College, it was a more simple way to get the votes to one place and count them. A major criticism of the Electoral College is the popular candidate may lose to the electoral vote. This means that if majority of the population voted for candidate A, but majority of the electoral votes were for candidate B, the president of the nation would become candidate B. This situation has occurred four out of the fifty-six presidential elections that have been held in the United States. I believe that the Electoral College should be abolished so that the popular candidate would win the election, people would feel that they are making a difference in the society they live in, and we should replace the Electoral College with popular choice or allow our house of representatives to vote for the presidents instead.
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
When Americans vote for president, they are actually voting for presidential electors, who are known as a whole to be the electoral college. These electors, who are elected by citizens of the United States, are the ones that elect the chief executive. The electoral college has shaped the past, present, and future of the United States ever since it was constructed by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The electoral college was created with fair and good intentions.
The second idea was for the state legislatures to select the president, this option was denied because it raised concerns that the President may drawback to heavily on federal authority because it would be at the hand of the states, which were not huge supporters at the time of centralized government. Finally they proposed that a direct popular vote be held, but this was denied for multiple reasons. One reason being that the states would not have the communication tools to be sufficiently informed on the candidates overall and would just choose the favorite from their own state or region, without a factual base for doing so, another being that the large states would have a significant advantage over small states.