...Abolishing the Electoral College Outline: I. Introduction A. Background information---When Americans vote for a President and Vice President, they actually vote for presidential electors, known as the Electoral College. Under this system, each state gets electoral votes equal to the number of its senators and representatives. The number of electoral votes per state ranges from 3 to 55, for a total of 538. To win, a candidate must receive at least half, or 270. 48 states and the District of Columbia currently use “winner-take-all” system, while Maine and Nebraska adopt the district system. B. Thesis statement---Nowadays, the Electoral College betrays American values of majority rule: a candidate can win the election without a majority of popular votes; some states are overrepresented; and a large number of citizens get left out, thus, the Electoral College should be abolished. II. First point---lose vote, but win election A. Transition---why a candidate can win the election without a majority of popular votes. B. Evidence---This can create a situation which has happened four times in American history, most recently in 2000, where a candidate wins the presidential election by close margins in enough states to win the Electoral College, but loses by large margins in other states and thus gets elected with fewer popular votes than his rival, such as George W. Bush. (Abolishing the Electoral College) C. Analysis---the Electoral College was established...
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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 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 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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...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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...Electoral College is a group of citizens that is representing all of the United States that is voting for only the United States president. The electoral college votes is not considered the same as the popular votes whereas majority rules with popular votes. Electoral votes has a maximum of 270 votes that is necessary to elect the President of our country. There has been many situations where citizens thought that Electoral College votes should be stop; and that the United Stated should go on to popular votes. During my research on electoral college there was many facts that I gained knowledge from. How was the electoral college structured and the different functions of the electoral college? Comparison between the Electoral College and the popular vote. The value of an individual vote under the electoral college system when it comes to...
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...The year 2000 election between Presidential candidate George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore will forever be remembered in history as one of the most widely debated elections of all time. Not only was it controversial, but it gave great insight as to exactly how a presidential race can be ran and lost as well. The Presidential election of 2000 sets itself apart from any other election because of the controversy surrounding the outcome. Even though Al Gore won the election based on popular vote, George Bush came out on top with winning the electoral vote over Gore, 271 to Gore’s 266. Although both sides fought a good fight, only one came out on top, the Bush campaign. Many were left wondering exactly why Vice President Al Gore lost. Research shows that the reasons as to why Vice President Al Gore lost the presidential election of 2000 to presidential candidate George W. Bush are due to, the inability to During the beginning of the 2000 campaign almost everyone believed that the outcome and win of the election was to lay rest with Vice President Al Gore. Having being Vice President during the successful Clinton administration in the 1990’s, analysts believed that a win was almost inevitable. According to the readings in Pomper, the question was not if Gore was going to win but by how much. The United States at that time had been used to a period of prosperity and had been living in an economy that was doing quite well. The only problem was that people were not entirely convinced...
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...The electoral college system, what the United States of America uses to elect the President ever four years, is an outdated system that is not needed and does not make the election process any easier. We have had two instances where the popular vote has been different than the electoral college numbers. In an effort to keep the President of the United States of America popular, we must start off with electing someone who earned the majority of votes in the first place. To do this, we must use the popular vote. Accordingly, this paper will be directed toward the general audience of all voters and will discuss how the electoral college system is a bad idea to continue using and why the popular vote is the correct way to go. So, what is the “electoral college”...
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...Electoral College Alan A. Garcia GCC On the first Tuesday of November, the US citizens cast their ballots for the upcoming president. All of the votes go towards a state elector which then casts the vote for the state. There is a total of 538 electoral votes and in order for a presidential candidate to win the election, they must gain majority of the votes, at least 270 electoral votes. “A state's number of electoral votes equals the number of the state's Congressional delegation (2 Senators + the number of Representatives)” (Vote Smart, Paragraph 5). The ballots go to a block of electors, which pledge to vote for what the majority chooses. There are many flaws to the Electoral College, as well as positives. The Electoral College is used to distribute power from heavily populated states, which helps out small states such as Wyoming, a small state that only counts as 3 electoral votes, compared to...
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...what is known as electoral votes. When you vote you are voting for electors that then elect the president based on the states votes instead of just electing the president by popular demand. This can be a problem because the people in the electoral college can go against their party. In the chances of a tie then the choice of president is given to the House of Representatives and that might not always give the people a fair vote. The electoral college is not necessary anymore and the President should be nominated through popular vote. To begin, some electors might not even vote for their party's candidate. Bradford Plumer writes, “In the same vein, faithless electors have occasionally refused to vote for their party's candidate and cast a deciding vote for whomever they please…” (Source 2). This shows that even when we vote in electors they may not always vote for the candidate that is in their party. This can make the voting process unfair because people will vote in electors to vote for someone and then they go against it and for for another person. This is just one way that electoral votes are unfair....
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...MacBride attended Princeton and Harvard University achieving his law degree. His diverse careers include writing history books, co-founder of a successful television series, and failed run for the U.S. Presidency in 1976 under the Libertarian Party. Before 1972, MacBride favored the Republican Party until he exchanged his views for the Libertarians. Even in his mid-twenties, when the author wrote, The American Electoral College his viewpoint skewed towards a conservative/libertarian viewpoint. This book elucidates the founding fathers of the United States political viewpoints in framing the Electoral College in 1787. As these scholars embark in creating, an architectural conception that determines how to select the President of the United...
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