Should We Abolish The Electoral College?

New Hampshire has always been the first state to hold a primary, and passed a law that gives its secretary of state the power to change the date in order to precede any other primary by one week. (Convention and campaigns) Though New Hampshire is surrounded by blue states, it is a swing state, and could vote either way in the upcoming presidential primary and later in the presidential election. (New Hampshire Voting History) In the last ten presidential elections, the people of New Hampshire have voted for the Republican candidate five times, and for the democratic candidate five times. (New Hampshire Voting History) Although, in five of the past six general presidential elections the state has voted for the Democratic candidate. (New Hampshire Voting History) In recent polls from November fifteen, Trump was leading in Republican presidential primary polls, followed by Carson, Rubio, Cruz and Kasich.

My third amendment I want to consider changing the 12th amendment the election of the president and vice president. This amendment was created to tie the electoral college in the president and vice president election. My reasoning is that whoever can vote should be able to choose who they want as president not the electoral college. This should be abolished because this country is a democracy and the popular vote should count not the electoral votes (Debate.com). With Hillary Clinton, more than 300,000 votes ahead of President Donald Trump in the popular vote count as of the election calls have already begun to ditch the Electoral College system enshrined in the Constitution for choosing presidents (Editorial Board).

“Whoever the majority votes for that given person should be the victor. The current system is undemocratic. The electorate does not officially elect the president, those who are apart of the electorate college elected the president. No other country holds their election in such a convoluted manner.” “Our nation witnessed the result of allowing the Electoral College to determine the

One reason the Electoral College should be abolished is that one of the candidates could win the popular vote and still end up losing the election. On November 8th, 2016 Donald Trump was elected president because the Electoral College voted for him. Approximately thirty out of the fifty states’ electoral colleges voted for Donald Trump, he ended with 290 Electoral College votes. He had lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by about one million people because the vote of the citizens in the US has no value. The Electoral College votes are the only ones with value.

In the electoral college, however, California has 55 representatives and Vermont has 3, meaning that California only has about 18 times more representation. This encourages presidential candidates to not only focus on the big states during their campaigns, as to increase their chance of being elected. Another problem with getting rid of the electoral vote is that maybe the population vote won’t be entirely correct. This could be caused by flawed ballots or a technology

Thus. The US general elections are not the great equalizer. The general election designed in a way where voters in less populous states have more per-voter influence on Electoral College than voters in more populous states. (Due to the Apportionment Act of 1911), which limits the House of Representatives size and keeps the House from growing along with the population as Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution outlines. The answer to this problem is a not a more direct voting system based on the popular vote.

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.

The Electoral College system, in our government today, is made up of a winner-take-all system. The winner take all system demonstrates that whichever candidate that receives the most votes wins all of the electoral points and the other candidate receives nothing. The Electoral College system enacts the candidates of both parties to only visit the larger states, in which they know they will most likely receive the most electoral points. This is not technically fair because each state is not getting proper representation. When states disagree, with one candidate’s views on a particular issue, they can swing and vote for the other candidate causing the other candidate to alter their approach to win back the state.

Whether or not the electoral college should remain in the voting process is an often debated topic. It’s debated that the popular vote should determine who the president is and I believe that this is the fairest thing to do. If the electoral college is replaced by just going by the popular vote, it will more accurately represents American citizen’s verdict on who the next president will be. Presently, in most states, the candidate to get the most votes gets all of the electoral votes that the state can give. The electoral college also affects whether or not people will vote.

The Electoral College began with Article II of the Constitution, stating that each state will appoint as many electors as it is entitled senators and representatives. (Levin-Waldman, 2016) The president of the United States is elected by what is called the Electoral College. There are a total of 538 electoral votes cast, and all candidates elected to run for office from their respective party needs 270 in order to win. “For most states, the candidate who wins a majority of votes in that state takes all of its electors. 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).