Patricia Totman Briefly explain how the Electoral College works. Do the most "popular" votes always decide the presidency? Do you think the Electoral College is the best way to elect the president? Discuss some alternatives to it (based on your research). The Electoral College
Many people believe that when they go to vote on Election Day that their vote is going directly towards their preferred presidential candidate. In actuality their votes are counting towards electors that are chosen by each state that pledge to vote for one of the perspective presidential candidates (Neale, 2012). When citizens go and vote, they are deciding which of the candidates receives their states electors. The electors in each state then vote to decide
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More populated states, like California, have more congressional representatives and less populated states have less. For instance, California has fifty-five and Alaska has three (Gallopade, 2012). The President and Vice-President are then elected after all 538 electoral votes are totaled in all of the states.
It is the writers opinion that the Electoral College is flawed and therefore not the best way to elect the President and Vice-President. The principal of “One Person, One vote” becomes meaningless, when the people do not in actuality, have the power to elect their nations leaders.
It is also the author of this papers opinion then the Electoral College was founded, there was not much interest in the people’s opinion. When the system was founded neither black, women, nor people who did not own property could vote (Jefferson-Jenkins, 2001). In this citizen’s opinion the Electoral College system is seemingly outdated for the following reasons. First, a candidate who loses the popular vote may still be voted in by the Electoral College. This has happened at least, four out of the fifty-six presidential elections (Black,
In its favor, one may argue that it supports smaller states, creates more stability within the election due to the two-party system, and prevents the chances of recounting votes. However, the Electoral College is also believed to be “complicated” by cause of its unique representative system, persuade candidates into giving more attention to the smaller states, and be a magnet for faithless Electors, or Electors who decide to not vote for their party’s candidate (Veracity
Most of the time the electors vote for the candidate of their state, but 87 times in the past, electors have voted for the other candidate. Another problem with the electoral college is that some states have different population to elector ratios. Each state has a minimum of three electoral college votes because each state has two senators and at least one representative. Because of this, it may take three Californians votes to be equal to one person in Wyoming's
What is the electoral college? It is the system that the United States of America uses to elect its president and vice president, and while many argue about its effectiveness, its disadvantages are alarming. It was outlined and created in the Constitution in Article II, Section I, Clause II, because the framers of the Constitution feared democracy. This system allows for a group of people to formally cast their respective state’s vote for the election of the president and vice president every four years, on the basis of who wins the majority in the General Election in their state. Although it was created with the best intentions by the writers of the Constitution, we now believe that this system, the electoral college, is not the most fair
The electors for each state are the number of House of Representatives Members and plus two for the Senators. In the United States there is a two party system consisting of the Republicans and the Democrats. The race between the two candidates is the first one to 270 electors because this is almost half of the total
Many may believe that the Electoral College is a place but it is a process that is taken by Congress. “The Electoral College was established by the Founding Fathers as a compromise in the Constitution between elections of the President by votes in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens” ("U. S. Electoral College, Official - What Is The Electoral College?" 2017). “There are 538 electors in the Electoral College because the number of electors is based on the number of members of Congress---435 in the House of Representatives. , 100 in the Senate---plus 3 electors who represent the District of Columbia. A presidential candidate needs a simple majority of votes (270) to win” (Harrison, Harris and Deardorff).
The Electoral College was made because the first leaders did not want a government where only the majority of its people ruled. They thought that it would be unfair. They believed that a pure democracy would destroy the country. There are two parts in the voting process. The first part is democratic.
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
Elections for President and Vice President in the United States of America are determined and voted on by an electoral college. With five hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes, a presidential candidate must get a majority win amongst the electoral college, which is at least two hundred and seventy votes, to win the presidency. The electoral college in the United States is made up of a group of electors, whose only role is to elect the president and vice-president. They elect both positions with one vote for a presidential candidate and another for a vice presidential candidate. Electors do not work as electors year-round because the presidential elections are once every four years, and they only vote for presidential and vice presidential
t 's said we all have one vote no matter how rich, poor, tall, short, smart, or uninformed, we get one vote and elections are the great equalizer as everybody is reduced to "one vote." (Wrong) When it comes to the US presidential elections, some voters have more influence than others. When we vote, we aren’t voting for the President. We are voting to encourage our state’s Electoral College members to vote a certain way. And if the past and current elections hold, it looks like one candidate will win the electoral vote while another wins the popular vote as we saw in the 2017 election.
Each candidate 's party goes to each state and signs up a slate of electors who are then pledged to vote for that candidate” (Levin-Waldman, 2016). Although, the Electoral College Voting system has faced a lot of scrutiny over
The Electoral College is the process to which the United States elects the President, and the Vice President. The founders of the Constitution came up with this process. This was done to give additional power to the small states, and it was done to satisfy them. It works by the citizens of the United States electing representatives called electors. Each state is given the same amount of electors, as they are members of congress.
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
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.
To be eligible to vote a person must meet three qualifications: they must be at least 35 years old, be a natural-born citizen of the United States, and have been a resident for 14 years. The process for electing a president begins with primary elections and caucuses, where voters pick a candidate they support. The next step is nominating conventions where political parties choose who they want to represent their party in the presidential race. After they are nominated the candidates travel across the country campaigning to outline their views and plans to voters as well as debate with fellow candidates. After the campaign tours the next step is to hold the election, where the next president is determined by the candidate with the most electoral