...The Electoral College has been an efficient way to select the president for a very long time now. It has clearly proven itself an equally effective and sufficient way to run elections. But with all of these factors, there are still some revisions that could be made to the system to make it even better. While giving smaller states a bigger voice, increasing the certainty of the results, and preventing runoff elections are three reason the Electoral College is good way to elect the president, having each state distribute electoral votes using congressional districts would be a better and less complicated system. One of the best features of the Electoral College is that it allows smaller states to have a bigger voice. The amount of votes is determined by the number of electors which is based on population so a small state with a large population and a large state with a small population could have the same amount of electoral votes. In the states that do votes “Winner Takes All”, each vote in that state goes towards the decision on who gets the electoral votes for the state, being a major factor in who becomes President. It is more likely for the vote of an individual to be apart of the the final decision, made by electors, so each vote in the states truly matters. The Electoral College is clearly a smaller states best friend....
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...Relevancy of the Electoral College The President is defined as the elected head, or leader, of a republican state. A republic a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives. The United States of America has proficiently based their processes on electing these officials, known as a President, on this basis. Their process included the voting of citizens in the United States for their [the people's] preferred delegate. The Founding Fathers of the United States developed a system where for the votes of the people to be counted for at a higher rate. This system is known as the Electoral College. The United States’ electoral college system throughout the years have been seen to work exceptionally well but many perceive the Electoral College to be both unfair and controversial. The Electoral College's role throughout the years of elections was ultimately against the true morals of the election process. To identify the controversial issue brought upon by the...
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...“The Electoral College is a process, not a place (What is the).” The Electoral College has been around since the Constitution, but the reason for its existence is strange. When the Constitution was being created the Founding Fathers believed that the new found American citizens would be too stupid to govern themselves, and thus, The Electoral College was born. The Electoral College functions by giving each state a select number of votes based on population (What is the). Once each state gets their Electoral votes they must choose Electors; this is a two part process. First, Political Parties from the state chose potential electors, and then the people of the state vote on which electors they see fit (Electoral College Fast). Since its creation, The Electoral College has gone unquestioned, and we’ve never stopped to ask ourselves if it should still be in place. People are in opposition to The Electoral College because they believe it creates a sense of inequality, and lack of voice in vital elections. On the other hand, some people believe that The Electoral College gives states with smaller populations a voice, and is helping stupid people from making the wrong choice in elections. To some, The Electoral College has a magnitude of flaws perpetuating a unfair social hierarchy; to others, it is a system that is preventing inequality and anarchy to flourish in the United States. People believe that the The Electoral College is an unfair process created to silence the...
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...Christian Llerena BUS 200 Dr. Lasher 3/19/12 The Electoral College is defined as “a body of electors chosen by the voters of each state to elect the President and Vice President of the United States”. The Electoral College system has been a staple in the United States since the ratification of The Constitution, however there is much debate on whether it should remain or be done away with completely. In this essay, I will give a brief history on the Electoral College, how it works, and why it was created in the first place. Despite the shortcomings and limitations of the Electoral College I believe that it should not be abolished because it contributes to the cohesiveness of the country, it maintains a federal system of government, and it maintains the interests of minority groups. To begin with, I will discuss how the Electoral College works. The Electoral College operates by having each state allocate a number of electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) along with the number of its U.S. Representatives (varies from state to state depending on its population). Next, after all their caucuses and primaries, each party nominates their candidates for president and vice president. After that, the people from each state vote for a party’s slate of electors. Whichever party slate gains the most popular votes becomes the slate of electors for that state. Then, the electors meet in their respective state’s capitol and cast their votes for president and vice...
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...The Electoral College: How Our System of Elections Needs to be Changed Richard Brookman Metropolitan State University of Denver Author Note This paper was prepared for ENG 1020, Section 031, taught by Professor Clark. Abstract Article two, section one of the Constitution details the creation and operation of the Electoral College. Each representative of each state, both senators and representatives, cast a vote for the President based on the wants of their constituents. This is the basis for the Electoral College; however our forefathers had little insight into the problems that can arise from crafting a quick solution to the problem of electing the commander-in-chief. Over the past 200 years, many changes have been made to the Electoral College when a problem has risen to give us the Electoral College of today. The people of the United States have seen what the Electoral College has become and want the election process to change into a popular vote system. The popular vote system isn’t the answer. Only a combination of the two systems will help to give fair representation to all of the states, while keeping the essence of majority rule that the people desire. This system includes a single vote for districts that are won by popular vote, getting rid of the human form of electors, and using today’s technology to make it easier to maneuver through the complexities of the voting process. The Electoral College: How Our System of Elections Needs...
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... Today’s century, the United States will not allow the people to vote for president and Vice President directly, but they utilize Electoral College to represent voter’s choice. In the Constitution article 2, section 1, clause 2 it states in specific detail how many electors each state is entitled to have. The...
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...The Electoral College and the Popular vote have been a part of U.S. history since the founding of our country itself even though the actually process of both systems have changed since the late 1700’s and early 1800’s when they were first implemented. The debate on these two-unique systems have been brought to light due to the recent 2016 Presidential Election between the Presidential Candidates, Senator Hilary Clinton(D) and Donald Trump(R), when Donald Trump(R) won the 2016 Presidential Election by winning the Electoral College vote, even though he lost the popular vote. The purpose of this essay is to explain both voting systems and explain both in the best and most detail possible, as well as my personal opinion on the two, and if the current...
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...The Electoral College: Misleading, Inaccurate, and Undemocratic Electing a president is one of the most important duties of an American citizen. The president embodies the morals and beliefs of the people, and he or she is responsible for many of the elements that hold this country together. Therefore, the system by which the president is elected should be efficient, accurate, and most importantly, democratic. However, the current Electoral College system is anything but that. It was established in the constitution in 1789, and was created as a compromise between election by vote of congress and popular vote of citizens. Out of the 538 electors assigned to states across the country, 270 of their votes are needed for a presidential candidate...
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...THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC Office of Election Administration (The views expressed here are solely those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Federal Election Commission or any division thereof.) In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that: • was composed of thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government contained only 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable) believed, under the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry St John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil, and felt that gentlemen should not campaign for public office (The saying was "The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office."). • • • How, then, to choose a president without political parties, without national campaigns, and without upsetting the carefully designed balance between the presidency and the Congress on one hand and between the States and the federal government on the other? Origins of the Electoral College The...
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...The factors that influence the founders in creating the Electoral College were brought on by lessons learned in the early elections the result of those factors are still used to this day, two centuries later. The founding fathers had a lot to consider when it came to selecting how they would choose the leader for their newly formed government. The first president was chosen by the founding fathers before the election of 1800 in which the candidate with the most votes was elected president and the runner up was to be the vice president. This was proven to be a problem due to the different views of the parties that were running against one another. Having just won its independence from Great Britain and only having the Monarchy as a model to obtain guidance it was very important that the founding fathers looked at every angle of picking the person to lead the country at the time. The wrong type of man at the helm of the country could be devastating to what the founding fathers had worked on establishing. If the people were to have a say in who was to be president the electoral college could be seen as a way to protect them from a person that could persuade them with words but truly have a hidden agenda or not have the best interest of the country in mind a “demigod “. Adolf Hitler is a good example of this type of person becoming a leader that was able to persuade an entire country into trying to take over the world and this kind of person was exactly what our founding fathers...
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...is the Electoral College – an indirect voting system and not a national popular vote. This system was implemented by the Founding Fathers about 200 years ago (Shea 2005, 4-6) In recent times the debate about whether the Electoral College is still an effective system considering the circumstances the United States has to face now, is arising more and more. “American society is highly polarized in its perception of the existing election system” (Belenky 2012, ix). This paper has the aim to contrast the arguments against and in favor of the Electoral College and to demonstrate possible alternatives. In the conclusion an answer to the question “Should the Electoral College be reformed?” will be given. 2. How it works The Electoral College, as it is outlined in the 12th Amendment, is a body of electors chosen to elect the President and Vice President of the United States. In Article II of the Constitution the electing procedure is written down. Each state delegates a specific number of electors to the Electoral College, dependent on its representation in Congress (House of Representatives & Senate). According to the fact that each state has two Senators and at least one Representative (dependent on the size of the population in the state), each state has three electors at the minimum (for example Alaska). With 55 electors, California has the largest number at the moment (see illustration 1) (Electoral-vote.com 2013). Figure 1: Blank map of the U.S. with electoral vote ...
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...The Electoral College (EC) was established in Article II of the Constitution and amended by the 12th Amendment in 1804. Each state gets a number of electors equal to its number of members in the U.S. House of Representatives plus one for each of its two U.S. Senators creating a total of 538 electoral votes. A majority winner must receive 270 votes to be elected. With a few minor exceptions, the Electoral College gives all of the electoral votes for each state to the plurality winner in that state, regardless of the margin of victory. This "winner takes all" arrangement at the state level can elect a President who loses the popular vote, as was the case in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000. Firstly, one reason supporting the abolishment of the EC is that it suppresses the popular will. This is because it may allow a candidate to win despite only receiving a minority of votes across the country as a whole. For example, in the 2000 elections Gore received approximately 500,000 more of the popular vote than Bush winning in most major cities and urban counties. However, Bush received more electoral votes throughout the rest of the nation winning more than three times the amount of counties than Gore. It also suppresses the popular will through faithless electors. These are members of the House of Representatives who were chosen to vote for a party but do not vote for their state’s preferred candidate. For example, in the 2000 election, Barbara Simmons abstained voting for Al Gore to protest...
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...The Electoral College: The Fear of Mobocracy Katherine Kinert Olympic College, Bremerton Abstract The Electoral College is a very important part of the United States Electoral System. However, very few Americans actually understand how it works. The lack of political efficacy in this country is a large reason of why some people do not think the Electoral College should be abolished. However, as Eric Black (2012) stated in an article on PBS News Hour, “Polls for many years have reliably shown that a majority of Americans would prefer a straightforward popular vote for the presidency.” Originally the Electoral College was established to prevent majority factions from having too much power causing mobocracy to occur. However, this system is outdated and the conditions that prompted the founding fathers to institute this precaution no longer exist today. Also, the fact that almost all the states use a winner-take-all system to determine which candidate gets all of the electoral votes for the state. Will abolishing the Electoral College rid the United States from mobocracy? Introduction The Electoral College is outdated and does not follow the true spirit of American Democracy. David Stewart (2013), a lawyer in Washington, D.C., states that, “Because most people knew little about public events or leaders from distant states, the convention delegates reasoned, they would not make a wise choice between presidential candidates.” Today, people have access to information through TV...
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...A lot of people are writing now about why Kerry lost. Here I want to examine a more specific question: why were the exit polls so wrong? In Ohio, which Kerry ultimately lost 49-51, exit polls gave him a 52-48 victory. And this wasn't just random error. In every swing state they overestimated the Kerry vote. In Florida, which Bush ultimately won 52-47, exit polls predicted a dead heat. (These are not early numbers. They're from about midnight eastern time, long after polls closed in Ohio and Florida. And yet by the next afternoon the exit poll numbers online corresponded to the returns. The only way I can imagine this happening is if those in charge of the exit polls cooked the books after seeing the actual returns. But that's another issue.) What happened? The source of the problem may be a variant of the Bradley Effect. This term was invented after Tom Bradley, the black mayor of Los Angeles, lost an election for governor of California despite a comfortable lead in the polls. Apparently voters were afraid to say they planned to vote against him, lest their motives be (perhaps correctly) suspected. It seems likely that something similar happened in exit polls this year. In theory, exit polls ought to be very accurate. You're not asking people what they would do. You're asking what they just did. How can you get errors asking that? Because some people don't respond. To get a truly random sample, pollsters ask, say, every 20th person leaving the polling place who they voted...
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...Electoral College Debate Introduction As said by Juan Williams, a journalist for FOX News, “In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush, but still lost the election. The Supreme Court's ruling in Florida gave Bush that pivotal state, and doomed Gore to lose the Electoral College. That odd scenario - where the candidate with the most votes loses - has happened three times in U.S. history.” Although forty-five U.S. presidents have been elected and this scenario has only happened three times, it still leads to scrutiny, questions, and arguments about the effectiveness of the Electoral College. These disputes have gone on for quite a while as to which method of choosing the president is the best option. The electoral...
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