The United States has benefited from the Electoral College for hundreds of years. This essay will discuss the presidential voting process and the merits of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a more effective method of choosing the president than the general election. This is due to the fact that it greatly improves efficiency and ensures the integrity of the election. There would be a huge number of candidates to pick from if the Electoral College did not exist and we had a public vote instead. Real Clear Politics asserts that there would be an abundance of candidates if the Electoral College were abolished in favor of a system in which a candidate needed a majority of the popular vote to win the presidency. This demonstrates
Did you know that in two out of the last five U.S. presidential elections, the candidate who won the popular vote did not win the presidency? Now, to explore the question, Should We Abolish the Electoral College? The very system that defies the will of the majority. This question is often being thought about as the Electoral College has what some may argue advantages and perks, but it does have its downsides and what some may argue flaws. We will be exploring on why the current Electoral College should be left alone, as it does not allow the majority to always get their way, it ensures that all parts of a country is involved in the election and that candidates will serve the entire country, and lastly, the Electoral College creates a compromise between popular vote and congressional choice.
This shows that many voters feel that it is time for a change in the United State’s voting system. The Electoral College only reflects the candidate that wins the most votes per state (Kimberling). With a direct popular vote, it will reflect each voter’s opinion. The article, “Origins of the Electoral College, this states that, "the Electoral College was designed by men who did not want the election of the president to be left to the people…” (Holcombe).
The US’s Electoral College has always been a controversial topic. When it was written into the Constitution, it was meant as a compromise between the small and large states, and between Congress and the states (M. West). Since then, the Electoral College system has been how the United States elected its presidents. However, it continues to face criticism and many want the system to change, favoring systems such as a national popular vote instead (National Conference of State Legislatures). Despite how the US’s Electoral College effectively balances power between the states and the federal government, it is still a deeply flawed voting system due to it being based on unrealistic expectations and outdated ideals that should be changed to reflect
Emma Williams American Government 1A Mr. Baker 2 March 2023 The Positives of the Electoral College Once a teenager turns eighteen, they have the privilege to practice their right of voting for their local and federal government officials. Unlike voting for their mayor or House Representatives, the Presidential elections require the Electoral College. Established in Article II of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers decided the best way to elect the President was by both using congressional powers and equal representation. To explain, each state automatically gets two votes representing their Senators, then depending on the number of Representatives in the state, the number of Electoral votes a state gets are decided.
If the Electoral College did not exist, the presidential candidates would feel more obligated to visit every state, or at least more than they do now. However, I do think the Electoral College does a respectable job at representing minority states, so I don’t think it should be completely abolished. Instead, it needs to be
After performing their civic duty and voting for a candidate, Americans feel disappointed if their candidate wins the popular vote while failing to be appointed to office(Drew Desilver, Pew Research Center). Disappointment equates to a feeling of hopelessness which, in turn, deters Americans from voting in future elections. If a candidate can win without the popular vote, then does their vote even matter?(Drew Desilver, “Pew Research Center) Discouragement has even been shown by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who stated “it’s time to move away from the electoral college and move to the popular election of our president”(Mahler and Eder, “The electoral college is Hated by so many. So why does it endure?”).
The Electoral College: An Ineffective Method of Selecting a President The Electoral College has been a topic of debate in the United States for quite some time, forming a fissure between citizens, especially being fomented given recent and imminent elections (list 6, 11, 15). There have been elections where the winner of the Electoral College did not win the popular vote: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and most recently 2016 (pattern 10). While rare, this can be significant, with the winning candidate losing popular vote margins by as high as 3,000,000 votes, a situation that is often recondite and redoubtable to the average American (list 8, 21). These situations raise concerns (pattern 20).
Due to the past election there has been several protests and opposing opinions thrown from both the Democratic and Republican parties. One particular article, “Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College”, suggests the idea that our society should abolish the electoral college, due to it’s “unequal distributed [voting power] across our nation”, and switch to the popular vote, when voting during a presidential election. At first this idea may seem sensible to those who do not understand how the electoral college works, the demand is in fact, senseless and will only lead to unproportioned voting amongst all states. However, it is easy to understand why this article is depicting that the electoral college needs adjustments, and to view the main
The decision to abolish the electoral college is not a new one. Ever since the introduction of the Constitution, with the electoral college being introduced in the second article and reaffirmed in the Twelfth Amendment, over seven hundred propositions have been made to modify or abolish the electoral college. Even though these attempts have all failed, it is important to note that there are major flaws in this system, and the decision to abolish, or discontinue, this way of life should be reevaluated. The first and largest flaw of this presidential college is its potential for corruption and misrepresentation.
The electoral college is the system that has been used to elect Presidents in the United States since the Constitution was established. However, there has been a debate that the electoral college should be abolished. (Claim) The Electoral College should be abolished and replaced with a direct popular vote. This system goes against the Constitution by undermining democracy, and the distribution of voting weight in states is extremely uneven.
Primarily, the Electoral College promotes a racial bias and gives more electoral weight to the Southern Republican states. Moreover, the popular vote system would enable third-party candidates to have a higher probability of becoming the president. However, several misguided Americans believe that the popular vote would not protect small states, but small states actually become ignored during presidential campaigns. Hence, the federal government’s elimination of the Electoral College would strengthen the representative government and the chances of third-party candidates, giving states and American citizens the power to choose their president as they
The United States hinges on the statues of a democracy, right? At least that is what the founding fathers envisioned. However, the Electoral College, the United States presidential voting system, has made various notable figures and scholars question its use in modern day society. I strongly contend that the Electoral College is not a legitimate and effective vehicle for electing presidents. Although the Electoral College is a foundational aspect of the US government, it needs to be reexamined, amended, or replaced with, perhaps, a direct voting system, in spite of those that argue that a direct voting system would allow too much large power to the states (Limbaugh, 2000).
A sad truth comes to light as the results of a tight race for the next president starts to roll in. The truth is that the dysfunctional system that demonstrates the whole voting process takes the future of America 's leader, the one who will set many precedents and lessons for future generations to come, into the hands of former politicians and notable political figures, who take on the careless and unnecessary role of an elector. These electors are part of a voting system called the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a group of 538 people that are elected at state conventions to officially vote for the next presidential candidate based on each state 's popular vote. This structure is old and should be banned for several reasons.
Electoral College has maintained for hundreds of years and it’s time for a change because of the more and more serious problems it is causing. These are some reasons why we should consider replacing this system with a new more efficient one. Firstly, Electoral College creates the possibility for the candidate who loses the popular vote but wins the electoral vote to become president. In the much-publicized election of 2000, Vice President Al Gore beat Governor George W. Bush by more than 500,000 votes in the national popular tally but lost in the Electoral College because of a last-minute, 537-vote margin in Florida .
On balance, direct popular vote should replace the Electoral College when electing the President and Vice President of the United States. My team and I negates this resolution. In my following statement, I will outline three main contentions from my group’s research to demonstrate the efficiency and reliability of the Electoral College. One, the electoral college can show changing opinion towards a candidate. Two, the reliability of the Electoral College it only ever questioned around an election.