The Purpose Of The Electoral College

The Electoral College is a system that was put in place in 1787 when the founding fathers were determining how to fairly elect a president in a country that had different sized states that separated themselves from a centralized national government in a time when national votes being collected from all of the people, given the rural areas and lack of transportation or communication, was not feasible, thus eliminating the idea of a simple national popular vote.

Other ideas suggested included having Congress or state legislatures elect the president, but these too were discarded due to the risks of upsetting balance of the power, either between the executive and legislative branch, or between state and federal governments. In the end, the concept of the Electoral College was passed.

With the Electoral College, each state has a specified number of voting districts, these divided and based upon the population of that state. During an election, the people vote for the candidate they choose, and the candidate who wins the popular vote wins the election - for that state. This state then throws all of its weight - that being, a point for each of their prescribed voting districts, and two points (one for each seat in the Senate) - behind that candidate.

A candidate must reach a majority of 270 to win the election. There are many arguments for why the Electoral College is still effective - it strengthens the unity of the country by preventing the domination of an area with a higher population over rural areas. It maintains stability of our political environment by encouraging our bipartisan system, as it makes it very difficult for new parties to win enough popular votes to gain any traction in an election. Most importantly, it maintains a balance between state and federal governments, where the states have the power to select their own