Electoral College Argumentative The Electoral College was a compromise between the national and state governments in the United States back when the Constitution was still a new governmental document. In its time the Electoral College served to make sure that the President was chosen by the most qualified people from each state. Nowadays things have changed, the Electoral College’s original purpose has been perverted into a tool used by politicians to win the presidency unfairly. The Electoral College is an outdated piece of legislation that favors votes from swing states rather than the popular vote and should be abolished.
Although some believe that the Electoral College is an integral part of our election system they would be shocked
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This points to a severe sign that the Electoral College is being used by politicians to win the Presidency without actually being the people's candidate. For example, the 2016 election was the most recent election where this occurred. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over 2.8 million votes. Despite this, Republican candidate Donald Trump won the presidency because he had received more electoral votes than Hillary had. Frustratingly, this is one of the most extreme examples of the Electoral College being used to win a Presidential election over the actual votes of the people. A country where a candidate can receive 2.8 million votes more than their opponent and still lose is inherently undemocratic. The legislation that allows for this to occur should be immediately abolished because it challenges the fundamental right to “One Person One …show more content…
In fact, this is what the Electoral College was initially intended to be. It was made to be a compromise between the smaller states and the larger ones back when it was first written. In theory this wouldn’t be an incredibly bad idea, however in practice the Electoral College has been exploited. Malicious parties have used the Electoral College to win the presidency without winning the popular vote. While it is true that the Electoral College gives small states more power during the elections it takes away from other voters, for example look at Texas and Wyoming. Texas has a population of around 30 million people while Wyoming has closer to 500 thousand. According to the Electoral College Texas has around 40 electoral votes due to its population, Wyoming has 3. This seems good on paper, that is until you do the math for how many people each representative covers. A representative in Texas represents around 750 thousand people but a representative in Wyoming represents 166 thousand people. That means the individual voting power of someone in Texas is worth less than a vote from a citizen in Wyoming. This is clear grounds for the abolishment of the Electoral College as it goes against what the founding fathers initially wanted for the country, “All Men Created Equal” and
The Electoral College does not accurately align with the ways of a Democratic society. The idea of ‘Democracy’ was different when the Constitution was created and as an ever-changing country, we must establish laws that fit our time period and put an end to the ones that don’t. Presidents being elected despite losing the popular vote goes against the definition of democracy according to Oxford Languages, “Control
Also, a lot of people don’t completely understand the Electoral College process. During the election, you will see sometimes that the popular vote leans in the opposite direction of the Electoral College votes. That can be very
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.
There has been one time, in 1824 with John Quincy Adams vs Andrew Jackson, that neither got the needed number of electoral votes to win. While Jackson, had a greater popular vote, since neither won the electoral college, it was sent to the House of Representatives, who voted Adams as president. These errors are not what a national population should want to see in their government; a system whose errors can be exposed extremely quickly, plus taken advantage of. This prompts candidates every election year to play to the system, which should not be
In fact, in ‘Why the Electoral College Should be Abolished’, the author argues how the Electoral College doesn’t isolate “...the effects of illegal voting (or unfair vote counting) to the state in which it occurs”, but instead, “...the “winner take all” arrangement of the Electoral College actually magnifies the effect of the voting fraud tremendously” (8). Fraudulent voters would completely overtake all the legitimate voters in the whole state if they tipped an election (“Why the Electoral” 8). Therefore, the “winner take all” arrangement isn’t the most reliable, due to how it could be influenced by dishonest voters who could tip the scales in their favor, and would completely undermine the legitimacy of the election. Voters in certain political parties might go as far as to manipulate the Electoral College in order to have their candidate win the
The electors are far from a majority, they should not have the say over thousands of people. A few state state electors should not have the right to have the candidate who lost the popular vote win the election. If there was no electoral college, every citizen's vote would count, they would all have the ability to make a difference. If the electoral college was first established to protect the people from a tyrant, the electoral college should only do that, not interfere with the outcome of an election where no threat is proposed. Currently, people are quite aware and familiar of the presidential candidates, have a general understanding of what's best for the nation, and can make their own intelligent votes.
Abolishing the electoral college will better the chances of voters having an equal say in who becomes
A+faithless elector is an elector who doesn’t vote for the candidate they pledge to vote. They never made a majority change with any election. Currently, Clinton supporters are trying to make a change by persuading faithless electors to switch to Hillary which can get Hillary to be president. The Electoral College does have it’s benefits and deceptions but abolishing/modifying it would be rigorous. For the Electoral College to be abolished, it would have to take a two-thirds majority of House and Senate to approve and after that, three-fourths of the states must ratify the amendment.
Thus hindering our nation 's democracy even more. For even the constitution states "we the people" rather than "we the government". Another issue is "since the birth of the electors college, 157 electors have not casted their votes to the candidate 's they represent". Shockingly enough, this issue has been allowed to be proceeded since the birth of the electoral college. Providing Americans with no true democracy
Well I think that, that is a bunch of boloney. You know what I think I think that the electoral college is an unfair system that can’t be trusted and needs to be changed. The Electoral College was a good system for the time it was founded. But in today’s world, where the presidency influenced the rest of the world, we cannot afford to keep using this unfair voting method and should instead use popular voting as well as the instant-runoff vote.
The electoral college has always successfully chosen a president and benefited small states. However, in the more recent years there has been much debate as to whether or not this system works for our country. There have been five times when the winner of the popular vote loses the election leaving citizens wondering
“Now consider a world without the Electoral College. Suddenly, the situation is reversed. Any vote stolen in any part of the country can change the outcome of an election.” (The Daily Signal). Also, in the US anyone that attempts to commit fraud in the Electoral College may be imprisoned for up to 5
The electoral college also helps the small states have an opinion that actually is heard in the presidential election. In class, it was discussed that Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota together, though their combined population is less than that of Oklahoma, each of those states has three electoral votes, whereas Oklahoma just has seven votes. Going by electoral votes, a candidate would have a better chance at winning the election if they won over Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota versus Oklahoma. With the electoral college, a candidate could win over all thirty-nine small states and win the entire election. Though the candidate could be supported by less than a quarter of the population,
He recommends switching our current system to a direct election from the people, thus the popular vote wins. The issue of electoral reform is a continuous debate, and the author strongly encourages public discussion on the
This is strictly why the Electoral College should be taken off the amendments and if not abolished. The Electoral College has failed three times in history, and the loser ended up winning because of state votes and not popularity votes. If we get rid of the Electoral College we will be able to vote directly, and citizens votes will be equal without having to worry about candidates cheating any kind of system for personal gain. Getting rid of the twelfth amendment will solve this issue like I have stated above, If we do not act; candidates will keep on deceiving the system. We’ve been trying to get rid of the Electoral College for the past couple years now, but we as the people have failed to act and therefore they will put it to the side and say “Don't worry, we will get to it”.