Benefits Of The Electoral College

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In the United States during a presidential election the Electoral College is used to formally vote on who should be president and vice president. The United States uses the Electoral College was designed to prevent repetitions of inconclusive elections and was written in the Constitution under the Twelfth Amendment, in 1804 (Ginsberg 386). There has been controversy concerning the Electoral College however with some candidates winning the national vote but losing the Electoral College vote. The Electoral College is defined “the presidential electors from each state who meet after the popular election to cast ballots for president and vice president” (Ginsberg 386). The Electoral College is comprised of 538 electors that have been selected from their designated party. The reason why there are 538 electors is that each state has votes equal to their congressional delegation, which is their members of the House of Representatives plus the Senate. The way the voting works is that within each state the Electoral …show more content…

Also we use this system to make sure that no election or that very few election come back inconclusive. There has been much criticism of the Electoral College system in the past due to a candidate receiving the national vote but losing due to not enough electoral votes. Some examples of this are; in 1876, Ruther B. Hayes won the Electoral College vote but lost the national popular vote to Samuel Tilden, in 1888, Grover Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison due to Harrison having more electoral votes (Ginsberg 387). However, the most recent criticism has come from the 2000 presidential election George W. Bush vs Al Gore. In the election Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 votes but Bush won by four Electoral College votes (Ginsberg

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