Since 1800 there have been over 700 proposals to either revise or eliminate the electoral college. The electoral college was added to the Constitution in 1787 to guarantee the best candidate was elected. The electoral college consists of electors who officially cast their votes for President. The number of electors for each state is determined by the number of congress members each state has. While there are no qualifications to become an elector, electors must follow the people's directive. So whichever candidate wins the most popular votes will receive that state's electoral vote. Ultimately, delegates at this time did not believe U.S. citizens had enough information to make the best decision; instead, they established the electoral college …show more content…
"In 1824, the House of Representatives voted to choose John Quincy Adams for the presidency rather than Andrew Jackson, who had the most popular and electoral votes" (Document G). Congress believed Andrew Jackson was aggressive and didn't think he'd be a good president. In Andrew Jackson's case, this made him more determined. He and his supporters were determined to win the 1828 election. He succeeded and was later elected in 1828 and again in 1832. But Congress was proven right; he was a very controversial president. Not only did Andrew Jackson own enslaved people, but he also treated them very harshly. He had forced the Native American population out of their ancestral land. Many people lost their lives at the hand of Andrew Jackson. It was clear that Jackson was arrogant and wholly disregarded constitutional restraints. A problematic candidate had been elected into …show more content…
"Even when the popular vote margin is wafer-thin, the winner-take-all electoral vote tends to look like national decisiveness" (Document E). When the majority of the population votes for the Democratic candidate, but the Republican candidate is elected into office, citizens may feel unheard or even ignored. The neglect is similar to going to a coffee shop and asking for oat milk instead of cow's milk. This decision may be best, but when the barista brings back the drink with cow's milk in it, one may feel like what they need doesn't matter. That feeling of excitement and relief of knowing everything will be fine is ripped away instantly. Looking at the numbers of the popular vote and understanding that the people have spoken, that they have chosen their perfect candidate, to elect another candidate. The confidence and the reassurance citizens may have to know this candidate will attend to their needs is turned against them. The feeling of being ignored instills an understanding that citizens have no say in these significant elections and that even if they speak up, their voice doesn't matter. Historically, there have been "Five times the candidate who gained the most (popular) votes did not win the presidency." (Document G). Ultimately, this displays the idea that the people's vote does not matter; in fact, this
Short Essay: The Electoral College was constructed in the 1700s in which it was a process that ensured that election of the President of the United States was fair and not chaotic. It consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. Many people disagree with the system of the Electoral College being an impact when determining the President of the United States.
The Framers of the Constitution created the Electoral College as a compromise between electing the President directly by popular vote and having Congress choose the President. At the time, there were concerns about electing the President directly, such as the lack of communication and travel infrastructure to facilitate a national election and the possibility of uneducated voters being easily swayed by popular demagogues. Additionally, the Framers were concerned that smaller states would be overshadowed by larger ones in a direct popular vote. The Electoral College has several pros and cons.
The Electoral College was founded by, ironically, the Founding Fathers. It is a process which is established in the Constitution, and serves one purpose: to elect a President by fair means. This method involves a combination of votes from both the Congress and the citizens of the United States. The Founding Fathers believed that in order to prevent tyranny, or oppressive government rule, a sort of system should be established. Along with the lack of trust, the Founding Fathers also were concerned about possible manipulation by foreign governments, thus creating the Electoral College (History Central).
The Electoral College is an antiquated process the founding fathers established in the Constitution as a compromise to elect a president not from a vote in Congress or popular vote of qualified citizens. But by both The Electoral College process consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. The College consists of 538 electors, which a majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. States are entitled an allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators.
In most states the candidate who wins the plurality of popular votes receives the electoral votes, but this is not always true (Gronke). The electoral college was conceived of at the constitutional convention in 1787. It took much time and discussion till they finally came to the decision of using this method for voting. The country only consisted of 13 states so using popular vote just didn't seem practical. They believed that if a candidate had to win over a whole state, they would more likely have wide ranging support instead of just in their home town.
As the mode in which electing a president needed to prevent the possibility of “cabal, intrigue, and corruption”, stated by Alexander Hamilton, and thus the Electoral College was born. Our current system follows the regulations dictated by the US Constitution and 12th amendment: each state is assigned a number of votes based off said state’s population and whomever receives the majority of the votes wins that year's election. The system was crafted in attempts to make sure bigger states did not hold an absurd amount of power over smaller states; it was crafted to serve the republic. The political and socio-economical climate is completely different than the one in which the Electoral College was created in. In fact, the original design was “supposed to work without political parties and without national campaigns”, giving more choice to the public.
People vote for the candidates by voting for the electors that reflect the viewpoints of the particular candidate and their personal political opinion. With that said, the Electoral College is a winner take all system where the states have voted and the majority vote of the presidential candidate goes to the electors that then cast their votes for the states. The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College in the Constitution for a couple of reasons. Schulman (n.d.) states the first reason it was fabricated “was to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President” (p. 1). Although, another significant reason that the Electoral College was created was for equal representation in voting
The distribution of electoral votes acts as though less people live where they do, and more people live where they don’t, meaning that in the vast majority of states citizens are either over- or underrepresented (Document A). By beginning to distribute electoral votes based on Congressional representatives, the Electoral College gives an unfair advantage in voting power to citizens of smaller states, and reduces the voting power held by larger states. In short, the Electoral College essentially deems that some residents are worth more than others. The elections of 1980 and 1992 must once again be taken into consideration as, between them, 25,463,258 votes, cast by citizens of the United States, were completely dismissed by the Electoral College (Document B). While neither of the candidates would have won, the fact that the votes of citizens can be so blatantly ignored is troubling.
To prevent disaster, and protect the American people, our Founding Fathers created the electoral college.
The system was an experimental product of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The delegates to the convention, as was the rest of the world, were inexperienced with the formation of a democracy, and made their best attempt to strike a balance between a true democracy and appeasing the newly-united states. As the fragile nation quickly discovered, each of the states had its own needs, and compromise was a necessity. Supporters of the Electoral College often downplay the role that slavery played in its creation by insisting that the compromise was intended to protect the small states from the will of the large ones, but the true divisions that the Electoral College intended to patch were between the North and the South, and they involved one key issue: slavery
The Electoral College Many people do not realize that when they are voting for their presidential choice, they are really just voting for the Electoral College vote. The person who is nominated to hold the position for the Electoral College then votes for the presidential candidate. The Electoral College was put into place by the founding fathers as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens (Archives). The Electoral College is 538 electors and the President needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the election.
The Electoral College has been a part of the American National government ever since its beginnings, but is it the system that we should keep using? The Electoral College is made up of electors. Each state has 3 or more electors based on the amount of Senators and Representatives it has. These electors each vote for a running presidential candidate. And these votes directly determine who will become president.
America was molded by a group of individuals who felt that their voice was being drowned out by a tyrannical monarchy. After the revolution, this was resolved by creating a system that attempted to allow all people to have a say in the country’s government. The Electoral College was established as a representative way for the citizens of America to elect a leader; however, many are not satisfied with the results.
The whole concept of the Electoral College is actually quite confusing, but the main point of the electoral college is to be a group selected by the states to elect the president and the vice-president, in which each state's number of electors is equal to the number of its senators and representatives in Congress. This all works by those selected from each state are to vote for the electors when they cast off their votes on others behalves. The Issues that were hidden within the electoral college started in the year 1787, at the Congressional Convention. Where the US was still working out the bumps in the road on the balance of the small states and the large states, this sparked new ideas to alter the whole concept of electing a president and a vice-president. This was going to become the starting base of the Electoral
Every four years we hold an election to decide who will be hold the office for the President of the United States. The founding fathers established the Electoral College to keep a candidate from manipulating the publics opinion and keep them from gaining absolute power. It also was set up so that smaller states would be able to have same power or say as the bigger states (Why the Electoral College). Each state is giving “Electors” based on the number of members it has in the U.S. House of Representatives, and also gets a 2 Electors for the two members they have in the U.S. Senate. Washington D.C. however only has 3 Electors.