The Electoral College is “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” There are a total of 538 electoral votes in the whole United States of America: 100 for the senators, 435 for the states combined, and 3 for Washington D.C. Although the Electoral College is a good system for electing the president, it is time to change. There are many flaws for this system. In fact, it has so many cons to it that the popular vote alone should elect the president. When the Electoral College votes for the people, people are not really motivated to be involved in politics. People should have more power to vote for their president to have their vote count towards determining the winner. If the president was determined on popular vote, people would actually think more about their vote more because they know that their votes count …show more content…
The candidates running for president try to aim for the big states and the swing states, causing the swing states to have more power. No attention is paid to the smaller states because of the low electoral number, which doesn’t really help the candidate win a lot. Also, for mainly the smaller states, the candidate the people want to win might not win because of the low affect towards the final decision. Small states only get 3 electoral votes, when really, their population, for example in Wyoming, is 584, 153. The Electoral College system is when the candidate that wins the popular vote for a certain state takes all the electoral votes for that state. This is the “winner takes all” rule. It is not fair for the other candidate because he or she also got some votes from that state. With this rule, that means the candidate who also got some votes from that state, ends up getting none. This proves that popular vote alone should decide who the president is so that it is fair for both
In Doc 4 the map shows how many votes each state gets and the Electoral College helps give the smaller sized states more power in the
Throughout American history, there were five cases where the electoral college votes did correspond with the popular vote during the elections of: Jackson, Tilden, Cleveland, Gore, and Clinton (Doc. G). When the founders gathered together in 1787 to write the Constitution, they were worried about many topics and did not want the Constitution to fail just as the Articles of Confederation. They considered many topics and thoroughly wrote a remarkable Constitution, excluding the slavery of African Americans, they did not want the government to be too strong and also did not want the people to have too much input. They greatly questioned: Who will choose the President? Therefore, they created the electoral college that is merely based on population
The Electoral College, Americans have their own opinions on how it is running and how it contributes to the presidential election. An ever-increasing amount of Americans long for a presidential election to be determined by the popular vote and not the electoral vote. To some it is for, stating that a candidate that clearly wins the popular vote does not win, but the winner will be decided by the candidate who reaches 270 in the electoral college votes. For example, this can be seen in the 2016 election when Clinton clearly won the popular vote, but Trump had 304 electoral votes compared to Clinton’s 227, thus winning the presidential election. I know how the president is chosen, and I believe that the set up of the electoral college is no longer
The recent presidential election has had a controversy on the abolishment of the Electoral College. With many citizens not understanding whether or not their vote is actually being counted during the election, more debates have risen on if popular vote should be the deciding factor of presidential determinations instead. Popular vote is an actual count of individual votes from all states in America while the Electoral College is a measure of the House of Representatives and Senators choosing directly who the president should be (Kimberling, 1992). The reasoning behind why the Electoral College was the determining factor for president was declared by the founding fathers decades ago to ensure equality (Pavia, 2011). Recently, critics have expressed that this system is not as equal as predetermined.
The Electoral College While some people believe their votes are contributing directly to the election of the President, most people are aware that their votes mean almost nothing compared to those of the Electoral College. The Electoral College consists of the electors who cast each state’s electoral votes. It is made up of 538 electors, each state having the same number of electors as Senate and House members combined, plus three votes from the District of Columbia. “To win the presidency, a candidate must receive at least 270 votes” and win the majority (Patterson 359).
Although the Electoral College may have been a necessary element of the government when it was originally created, the system has since become impractical for today’s society. The will of the people is now far better expressed through the resulting popular vote than the electorate of the Electoral College. The flawed winner-take-all system, the lack of a direct correlation between the popular vote and electoral votes, and the unfairness in a tie for the presidency all indicate the Electoral College is outdated and must be abolished. In the current electoral system, the slightest majority in a particular state means all of the votes in that state are given to the candidate that wins the majority.
Every great nation started with a great leader. A person that can provide and lead a nation to greatness and success. Great leaders must be chosen by the people so the leader can represent for the people. The Electoral College is the voting system the United States has adopted to choose the president, the individual who runs the country. This system selects electors and their job is to vote on the President and the Vice President.
The Electoral College was a part of the federal plan that our forefathers set for the American people. While it made a place for the stars, as well as the people living in them, by giving them a say in the Federal process and preventing bigger cities from taking over in the presidential election, opponents believe that this is not the case. Even after difficulties that the United States has been through, the states have control over a large number of laws, management, and finance which impact the lives of citizens. Each and every state has their own political cultures, ways of behaving and traditions that continue regardless of our short-term population, a connected economy and news media. The Electoral College was meant to be a way to solve the problems with one large state dominating over another small state based on the population.
Electoral College is the United State’s democratic voting system of determining the next president. However, it poses a problem on how the United States chooses the next president. The Electoral College is a problem because electoral votes are the real determiners of the presidential election, states with more people have more electoral votes, and popular votes do not affect anything. Many politicians, people, etc. have gave their opinions on how to change the electoral college but the best way is to have popular carry significance and to allow each electoral voters to vote individually instead of losing their vote to majority. This way, choosing the president can be improved
The Electoral College is a system established by the United States Constitution to elect our country's President and Vice President. Although often viewed as one national election, it is a series of state elections. As originally designed, each state would choose a slate of electors that would then select the President and Vice President. This means that rather than voting directly for the President, people vote for certain electors who choose the President. This process has largely been sidelined and people today vote for a presidential candidate of a certain party rather than an elector.
In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. The delegates understood that the need for a leader was necessary but still bitterly remembered how Britain abused of its power. The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is defined as “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” Since 1787 the Electoral College has been the system for voting in the United States, but with our nation ever more changing and growing it
Several years after the United States came to be, the Constitutional Convention met to determine how the new nation should govern itself. The delegates saw that it was crucial to have a president and vice president, but the delegates did not want these offices to reflect how the colonies were treated under the British rule. The delegates believed that the president’s power should be limited, and that he should be chosen through the system known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. Many citizens feel that the Electoral College goes against our nation’s principle of representative democracy, while others
Also I think that if the candidates are looking for the electotal votes; then the states with the most electoral votes gets the most attention. They need to concentrate on the states with the most electoral votes. The smaller states or states with lesser electoral votes gets little to no attention. One good aspect of the Electoral College is that it makes more sense to the smaller states to ensure they still have a voice in the elections. If the President were to be elected by popular demand; they would be from a highly populated state leaving less room for the smaller states to cast their votes.
Electoral college has been with us since the birth of the constitution, and to this day we are still using this type of system to this day. The Electoral College is a system that the United States uses to elect our upcoming presidents and vice presidents. Each state has electors equal to their senate member and house of representatives, however who ever gets the highest popular vote in the state gets the electoral vote. The issue is the Electoral College do not give votes to the people, but to the states. Which has some unfair consequences.
For example, Colorado has 7 House of Representatives and 2 Senators which means each Congress person represents around 883,300 and each of our senators represent approximately 2,650,000 people. Wyoming on the other hand has 1 House of Representative and 2 Senators meaning their congress person represents around 600,000 people and their Senators represent around 300,000 people each. There is a clear difference here when it comes to how representation is distributed into the states. Apart from this uneven distribution the system of “winner takes all” also discourages people from going out to vote. For example, some Republican lives in a Democratic state that always goes Democratic when it comes to elections, they tend to not go out and vote because they know their vote won’t make a difference because of this “winner takes all” system.