...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...
Words: 4853 - Pages: 20
...Elector | The Electoral College | Should it be done away with? | Presidential election seasons tend to be an exciting and volatile time within the United States. This is made ever more true by the existence of the Electoral College. When brought up in everyday conversation, the phrase Electoral College gets danced around and avoided. That is because it is such a difficult concept to get a grasp on. Not many people exactly know how our election system works due to the cryptic language that it normally is defined with. It is safe to assume that the uneducated voter believes that whichever candidate wins the most votes nationwide is the winner, and that is sound logic. However in the case of the Electoral College, that sound logic doesn’t hold true; one of the commonly disputed deficiencies of the electoral system. Are these criticisms justified or are they merely just complaints? Another important question to ask is why this system was put into place by our Founding Fathers; there must be a logical explanation, right? In order to begin to understand the system that is currently in place, it is best to look at why it was seen as a necessary measure and some of the history surrounding it. Our Founding Fathers thought it was important that the States and the citizens residing in them should have a say in the appointment of our nation’s leader. The last thing they wanted was to have Congress deciding who would become president. They feared this for several...
Words: 2483 - Pages: 10
...The Electoral College Andie Downs ENG 105 Research Paper Final Every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November, the election for the next President and Vice President of the United States takes place. Although thousands of individuals cast their vote for their candidate of choice on this day, it is really Electors that they are voting for. The electors that are selected will go on to choose the next President and Vice President of the United States. For example, the candidate that could win the popular vote of a state is not guaranteed because election is actually decided by the group of electors, called the Electoral College. The U.S Electoral College is the division of the government that selects the President and Vice President of the United States. It consists of 538 electors, where the amount from each state equals its number of members in its congressional delegation. In two states, Nebraska and Maine, the candidate is determined by majority vote and the winner of the popular vote receives 2 electoral votes (“What is the Electoral College?”). Allotting a number of votes to each state in this way is inaccurate and doesn’t properly represent the vastly larger or smaller states. Although the use of an Electoral College during a presidential election is considered a key element to democracy, its application to the process makes it unrepresentative of the voters and elections should instead be based on the popular vote of the people. When the constitution...
Words: 1695 - Pages: 7
...The Electoral College The Electoral College is a highly outdated system that needs to be removed from our presidential elections. Without the electoral college presidential candidates would be have to campaign nationwide instead of focusing on a few battleground states that hold key electoral votes. This scenario would ultimately lead to the best man standing as our next president. In today’s society the Electoral College is unnecessary and unwanted. This system was introduced in 1787 because delegates were unsure if the general public would have the knowledge to make an informed decision in a presidential election. 228 years later with the inventions of the television and the Internet it would be hard to argue that the public is no longer informed on the candidates and their positions. The Electoral College is discouraging to many and therefore causes countless people to not vote. For example, in Texas many democrats will not cast a vote because they deem it useless in a Republican dominated state. The removal of the Electoral College would encourage every voter to cast a ballot and those votes would actually mean something. The removal of the Electoral College will cause presidential candidates to take notice of the entire United States. “For example a full 99% of all advertising by the two major candidates were concentrated in only 17 of the states.” (Source D) Presidential candidates tend to focus all of their attention on those states considered battleground...
Words: 443 - Pages: 2
...Electoral College POS 2050 Electoral College In 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention decided on this particular system for electing the president. The Electoral College is still in effect today, but some adjustments have been made over the years. The electors voted for two candidates at first. The one with the highest number of votes became president. The one with the second-highest number became vice president. In 1796, political foes were chosen for the two posts -- Federalist John Adams for president and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson for vice president. There was a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in the next election. The House of Representatives had to decide who would be president. The fact that the system needed to be adjusted was clear. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1804. Candidates are now nominated to run only for president or only for vice president. Electors vote for president and vice president separately. How the states elect electors has changed, too. Some states held direct popular elections for the electors in the beginning. The state legislatures made the choice in other states. All the states gradually adopted direct popular elections for electors. There were no political parties when the Constitution was written. They soon developed, and the party organizations in each state began proposing a slate, or list, of electors who were pledged to vote for their party's nominee. Voters no longer choose...
Words: 392 - Pages: 2
...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...
Words: 2029 - Pages: 9
...In 1787, the Constitutional Convention were trying to devise a method for electing the President. This method included selecting congress, state governors, state legislators, and other high political people to represent each state and ultimately help in choosing the President. This would later be known as the Electoral College. The only people allowed to be an elector are, Representatives, Senators, and a person who holds an office of trust in the United States. According to my textbook American Democracy Now, The Electoral College by definition is “a group of people elected by voters in each state to elect the president as well as the vice president”(Harrison Harris Deardorff 3rd Edition, 285) . But looking into the historical origins of the Electoral College, I realize that there is more to it than just that....
Words: 651 - Pages: 3
...4th, 2015 Government and Economics Previte The Electoral College Representation is the action of speaking or acting on behalf of someone or the state of being so represented. When we vote for President, we are not the ones voting for our President, but rather, we vote for electors that submit the vote for us. Every year in the first days of November, we all get off from school so that adults 18 and older can go vote for not the next President of the United States but the person who we want to represent us in the Electoral College, who then takes the majority vote of our state and votes for that candidate when the electors meet for the final ballot count. The Electoral College consists of the people...
Words: 981 - Pages: 4
...The electoral college is a system that directly choose the president and vice president.The electoral college is first created by the delegates to avoid the abusive rule of king George.The electors are decided by how many representative one state have and an equal amount of 2 senate per state.Then if there is no one gets the majority electoral votes the house of representatives will select the president from the top three contenders and each state will get one vote.The electoral college is an unfair system that citizens don’t get their votes to the right results. The electoral college shouldn’t be abolished because it does not always match the popular vote which is what the people vote.In 1876, Candidate Tilden has a popular vote of...
Words: 427 - Pages: 2
...Twain is often credited with saying, “If voting made and difference, they wouldn’t let us do it”. The Electoral College is the current system for electing the president of the United States. The History Channel states, Americans do not actually directly vote for the president of the United States, when Americans vote, they are actually voting for the candidate for which their state's electors are expected to vote for. States are given the number of electors that they have representatives in congress. The number of electors that a state receives is determined proportionately, but a state must have a minimum of three electors with a total number of electors at 538. William C. Kimberly, Deputy Director FEC National Clearinghouse on Election...
Words: 1339 - Pages: 6
...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...
Words: 550 - Pages: 3
...The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President (“What is the Electoral College”, 2016). The election is solely based on the electoral college vote. The popular votes are gathered by each state in the country. Once this is done, each state will submit all electoral votes for the candidate with the most popular votes in the state. The size of the state does not affect electoral votes. Each state is allowed as many electoral votes as it has Senators and Representatives of Congress. Thus, all states, no matter how small, have at least three electoral votes (Polsby & Wildavsky, 1968, p.32). In simpler terms, the candidate who wins the state’s majority votes wins the state's electoral...
Words: 534 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 2333 - Pages: 10
...“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...
Words: 999 - Pages: 4
...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 ...
Words: 2453 - Pages: 10
