If there wasn’t an Electoral College then the smaller states would be at a complete disadvantage. It is giving the smaller states equal power compared to the larger states. If it was based on popular votes, the people around the coasts would dominate and dictate the election. The constitution is big on giving states rights and power, so this helps give all states power. Getting rid of the popular vote would get rid of this idea that the peoples vote does actually impact the election.
Caused by the flaw in the federal law that electors do not have to vote for whom they have pledged for. However, a punishment is given if they choose to go down that route "($1000 fine)". The issue with this is, when voting, rather than directly voting for the campaigner a voter is actually voting for his/her elector. And in return, the elector will vote for that campaigner. Rendering citizen votes useless in elections if the citizens don 't even get to choose who they wish to be president.
Currently, the electoral voters are the only ones with a direct vote in the election. In order for the election to be more reflective of the citizens’ wishes, the popular vote should become more significantly tied to the election. The Electoral College should not be the most prominent voting process, when the popular vote should be more important. The risk of untrustworthy electors increases, which causes the voter to feel that they are being cheated out of their votes, which may discourage them from voting in the future. There is also the high possibility in which neither candidates receive the majority of electoral votes required to win election, such as what occurred in the 1824 election, meaning the House of Representatives would have to decide who becomes
On the other side with the defenders of the Electoral College they believe that the Electoral College system is more fair. "In Defense of the Electoral College" states that it provides a certainty of outcome in that "if the difference of the popular vote is small, then if the winner of the popular vote were deemed winner of the presidential election, candidates would have an insensitive to seek a recount in any state." They also state that swing states are important because "they are likely to be the most thoughtful voters" "and the most thoughtful voters should be the ones to decide the elections" giving their votes importance. They also say that it avoids having no candidate winning a
States represent the people’s voice in the election because popular vote isn’t important in the Electoral College. There have been numerous times where the candidate with the popular vote has lost because of the state’s power. Document 7 has the 2016 Presidential Election Electoral Vote Map and Projection, it had the democrats winning 237 electoral votes. To the 187 republican votes, this gave democrats the upper hand in the prediction. With this prediction it also connected with the popular vote because Clinton had the popular vote won.
It is also believed that the Electoral College makes potential voters not want to vote at all and they end up not representing their candidates. And most people already have a certainty of the outcome of the election, meaning they already know who will win the election based on the number of votes so far in the popular votes section and the electoral section. The system of electors is also not fair because the people can not control who they are voting for has the electors, and the states number of electors are equal to the number of people on its congressional delegation, which gives big states an advantage over small states. To conclude this letter, I again say that the Electoral College should be changed to election by popular vote because, popular vote is fairer then the Electoral College, the people have no power compared to the electors and the are subject to corruption with in the
It also gives more power to the states. They get to decide the delegates allowing for participation in who gets to be the president. However, there are just as many cons to the Electoral College system. The first con is one most people have the biggest problem with. It is that the even if the majority of Americans are in favor of a candidate, it does not mean they’re going to win.
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
One of the primary arguments to the credit of the Electoral College is that a winner can be more easily determined in the Electoral College vs the popular vote. The Electoral College has a system for handling ties (The House of Representatives), and is much more accurate than the popular vote. It is not possible to attain 100% accuracy when the voting population totals above 126 million, making for difficult logistics and guaranteed recounts, whereas determining a majority in a state to assign electors is trivial in comparison, thus “saving the nation ‘from the effects of an ambiguous outcome‘”(Hardaway 127). As well as being highly accurate in deciding a winner, the Electoral College also ensures that political candidates must campaign in nearly every state because of the power of each to affect the election, ensuring that every state actively participates in the political process. In addition, the winner-take-all system, also known as “unit rule”, while not always necessarily representative of the popular vote, “the electoral college and unit rule provide decisive majorities that lend stability to our presidential election system” (Josephson, Ross 162).
This seems deceptive because the people of that state vote for their party, not the opposing side. However, as seen multiple times in history, representatives have voted against their party. Although it seems as if the state representatives have the power to manipulate the majority’s vote, it is noted that the people choose their representatives (so the voters receive what they voted for). Through the establishment of the Electoral College, people are allowed to vote for their representatives, candidates have a better understanding of the nation’s needs, and there is more equal representation. It is with these reasons that I support the Electoral College and do not think that it should be modified nor abolished.