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DBQ Essay: The Electoral College

967 Words4 Pages

As one of the most hotly debated areas of the US government, the Electoral College deserves to be given a more in-depth look. It was originally founded as a way to prevent a lack of informed voters from electing an unqualified president. Now, it still serves its original purpose, but has become far less necessary in an age of easily accessible information. Despite having some positive points, the Electoral College is too overburdened by issues like unfair vote distribution and a high failure rate to be an effective system. The way the Electoral College distributes votes is overtly favorable to less populated states. As shown in Document A, these states have far too many votes. A state like Wyoming, which has a population of around 500,000 …show more content…

According to Document C, it protects the rights of states with smaller populations. Many states, like Montana and Wyoming, would never have had enough representation to have any power, but with the Electoral College, they have a say in the election of the president. This follows the same idea as the reason to divide Congress into two houses. The Electoral College also prevents unqualified people from becoming president. As described by Document E, using the winner-take-all method doesn’t give any votes to candidates who are not given the majority of votes, the ones most likely to be candidates for splinter parties. Not having a radical or eccentric people in office prevents large divisions in the US government. This leads into the third main positive aspect of the Electoral College: it presents a more unified nation. The second half of Document E, written by George Will, describes how the Electoral College is important to keeping the appearance of a unified nation. It makes any winning candidate seem like they have the support of most of the US population. This discourages splinter parties from making runs for office. It also makes political parties favored over larger areas because the candidates must get the votes of less populated states, which tend to have much more area in

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