Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq

872 Words4 Pages

The Electoral College is a system of voting created by the writers of the Constitution. The main goal of the Electoral College was to ensure that the citizens of the United States could not elect the president directly. The writers of the Constitution believed that the voters would not be properly educated on who they were voting for and consequently make a poor choice. The Electoral College is no longer in need today given that the public is adequately educated on the candidates for elections as a result of the excess amount of communication today. The Electoral College should be abolished because small states are over represented, the system is unfair to third party candidates, and a tie leads to a vote in the House of Representatives. Small states are extremely over represented. The Electoral …show more content…

“In 1980 and 1992 the third party candidates received 6.6% and 18.9% of the popular vote but both received 0% of the Electoral Vote” (Document B). This is a significant difference of the popular vote and the electoral votes. It is not a correct representation of the citizens’ votes. Arthur Schlesinger wrote, “The abolition of state-by-state, winner-take-all electoral votes would speed the disintegration of the already weakened two-party system” (Document E). The Electoral College voters mostly belong to Republican and Democratic parties therefore they do not want a third party candidate to win. Arthur Schlesinger also wrote, “It (The abolition of the Electoral College) would encourage single-issue ideologues and eccentric millionaires to jump into president contests” (Document E). This is only an excuse made by those who support the traditions of the government because they do not want a new candidate with modern ideas for the United States government. Not only is this not a correct representation of the citizens’ votes, but also if it is sent to the House of

Open Document