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. Firstly, the Electoral college should be left alone and not altered or completely scrapped as it protects the voices of the minorities and does not allow the majority to always get their way. This can be seen from …show more content…
This can be supported by when pro 1 from the Pro and Cons of the Electoral College article, states that, “To win the election, presidential candidates need electoral votes from multiple regions and therefore they build campaign platforms with a national focus, meaning that the winner will actually be serving the needs of the entire country.” This evidence informs us that not only does the Electoral College allow and ensure multiple regions to be involved in the election, it also mentions that the presidential candidates require votes from multiple regions, thus requiring them to campaign with national focus if they want to win. This makes it so the presidential candidates have to appeal to an entire country, which benefits it as it makes it so they serve the entire country and its
Abrogate the Electoral College immediately. The Electoral College is a formal body of 538 electors who determine the President and Vice President of the United States of America. The system was established in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution for the reason of keeping a balance between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and a popular vote of citizenry. Copious amounts of controversy have been surrounding the subject ever since its date of inauguration. The Electoral College should be abolished because it does not serve democracy, the presidential outcome is able to be altered by just the Electoral College–not the majority–and an appreciable amount of the U.S. population believes the Electoral College should be terminated.
This article provides some options for Electoral College reforming, and how they operate. One is direct voting from instant runoff voting, which is were voters would rank their candidates from favorite to least favorite instead of choosing just one candidate, then when the votes are counted, if no single candidate has a majority, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated, and then the process continues. So basically they would win the presidency by process of elimination, and this allows voters to pick their favorite candidate without giving a vote for their least favorite directly. This proposal would also not have and negative backfire if only adopted by a few states. All of the other proposals in this article had many negative
Under this system, every state is given a certain number of electoral votes based on its population. While this means that larger states have more electoral votes, smaller states are not completely ignored. In fact, small states are overrepresented in the Electoral College, as they have more electoral votes per capita than larger states. This means that the presidential candidates must consider the interests of small states while campaigning, which helps to prevent them from focusing solely on the issues that affect large urban areas.
Though this is a system that has been in place for a long time in the country, the Electoral College system needs to be removed because it has many flaws within it. One
The washingtonpost.com says, “Every state is guaranteed at least one seat in the House and two in the Senate.” This shows that the Electoral College gives each state a fair vote according to their size. It also keeps larger states from having too much of an advantage over smaller
This is certainly a valid argument that has merit. Harvard University political scientist Gautam Mukuna states, "[t]he fact that in presidential elections people in Wyoming have [nearly four] times the power of people in California is antithetical at the most basic level to what we say we stand for as a democracy" (qtd. in Liasson). This aspect of the electoral college is illogical as in a democracy, such as the United States, every citizen should get an equal say in determining presidential elections. By allowing the Electoral College to exist, we are going against the basic principles of our democracy. One adverse effect due to this system is that there have been cases where a winner of a presidential election did not receive the majority of votes: “[t]he Electoral College [often] produces results counter to the majority: The winner takes all within most states.
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.
As it currently stands, the presidential democracy of the United States government is one where the people’s beliefs are generally well represented. All members of Congress are elected by the people along with the two people at the head of the executive branch. This way, the people have a lot of control over what takes place in their country. If the Constitution of the United States were to be rewritten, the removal of the electoral college should be seriously considered.
Every state has a different population per electoral based on the state’s population. For example Wyoming’s population is 563,626 and every 187,875 is another electoral vote, therefore they have 3 electoral votes. While California’s population is 37,253,956 and every 677,345 is another electoral vote, which means that California has 55 electoral votes (Document #2). This is unfair because Wyoming gets more votes from every 187,875 people while California receives a vote from every 677,345. Therefore the Electoral College favors smaller states rather than bigger and more populated
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.
Around 6-in-10 U.S. adults (63%) say that the electoral college should be abolished and that the popular vote should be the deciding factor to see who wins the presidential election. The Electoral College should be abolished because the system itself is outdated and it would allow voters to have an equal voice in the presidential election. The electoral college should be abolished because the system itself is outdated. In 1787, the electoral college proposal was written by the founding fathers.
Div Dasani Mrs. Stauffer AP Lang- 4 17 October 2014 Government Should the Electoral College be preserved? Four presidential elections in the United States have resulted in a candidate winning the presidential elections without actually managing to acquire a plurality of the popular vote. Normally this is not justifiable in any democracy; however it has happened numerous times in America due to the Electoral College.
The Federalist system of our government requires there be a sharing of power between branches, which is very much enforced with the Electoral College. There are speculations that with the abolishment of the Electoral College, the Federalist system would be lost with it. The Electoral college also helps to promote the two party system, and while some people may take issue with this, it is a way of creating stability in our government. With the distribution of power the Electoral College promotes, this allows the minority to be represented. However, there is a big issue in that the majority vote is not properly reflected by the Electoral College.
If the U.S. got rid of the Electoral college, it could cause even more problems than the ones people had with it. How would we elect a president? how would we vote for one otherwise? Without the system that kept elections fair, the U.S. would have more problems than they have with it now. If the U.S. were to abolish the Electoral college and replace it with a different system or by popular vote, “To do so would require amendments to the U.S. Constitution” (‘NCSL.”
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