ipl-logo

Benefits Of The Electoral College

1956 Words8 Pages

Since 1789, the process in which the President of the United States was to be selected was established in the United States Constitution. Article II of the Constitution determines that the President will not be determined by popular vote, but rather by the Electoral College. The Electoral College is comprised of 538 electors. This number is determined by the amount of Senators and House Representatives each state has. When voters vote, they are not voting for president. Instead, they vote for the electors who will then vote for the President in December after Election Day. In this system, it is possible for the winner of the election not to win the popular vote; this has made the institution extremely controversial. The elections of 1876, …show more content…

Beginning with modern technology, people are able to access information to make educated decisions, therefore the Electoral College isn’t seemed to be essential. Also, “Electoral College are now selected by the political parties and they are expected to vote along party lines regardless of their own opinions about the candidates”(procon.org). Meaning that their decisions are based on their party system alone, and the electorate personal opinion does not count. In addition to this, some may agree that the general people's opinion is being disregarded. This was seen in the most recent election in 2016. In this election, Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote by more than one million votes and lost the election due to the fact that she did not receive as many electoral votes as Donald Trump. Most would agree that the one who wins the most popular votes should be elected president. Not only does their opinion not have as great of an impact, an issue that some have with the Electoral College is that they give too much power to swing states. Such as in the most recent election, “Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have made more than 90% of their campaign stops in just 11 so-called battleground states. Of those visits, nearly two-thirds took place in the four battlegrounds with the most electoral votes” (procon.org) When it comes to campaign strategy, only certain states are selected, …show more content…

A positive attribute is the Electoral Votes allows multiple regions to be in focus, benefiting the entire population. However, a negative of the Electoral College system results in a system in which certain states are ignored in the electoral process, either due to their number of electoral votes or depending on which way their vote swings. In, addition to that issue, the popular vote seems to be not accounted for, as seen in the most recent election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Overall, the Electoral College should be eradicated from the Constitution, mainly because it is not an accurate representation of the peoples of the nation's vote, and voters have access to information to make an educated vote. Being so, more states need to enact the National Popular vote so the Electoral votes will have to be based on the popular vote of that

Show More
Related
587 Words | 3 Pages

The Electoral College is pretty much a process that was established in the Constitution by the founding fathers which was suppose to be a compromise between election of the President by a vote in congress and by the popular vote of citizens. This process consists of the selection of electors, the meeting of the electors is where they vote for the President and Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. In the Electoral College it contains 538 electors and to win the majority they need to have 270 electoral votes. As well as, the number of electors for every state is equal to the number of Representations that the state has in congress which is based on the population and there is also one vote for each Senator. So, each state has at least three electors and votes.

Read More
450 Words | 2 Pages

The citizens votes or “popular votes” don’t actually directly elect the leaders of the country. The citizens votes elects the 538 members of a group called the electoral college. Then the electoral college elects the president and vice president that has the most or majority of the votes. The electoral college was devised by the framers of the United States Constitution to provide a method that was feasible, desirable, and consistent with a form of Republican form of government. A faithless elector is someone who votes for a candidate other than the one who he is pledged make the electoral college outmoded and undesirable.

Read More
622 Words | 3 Pages

Many people wish to eliminate the Electoral College because it’s considered out-of-date and archaic. According to Source 1, it’s a system our founding fathers set in place that elects the president through designated electors for each state, not by the popular vote. Some may argue that this process is less democratic and can produce elections that result in a victor who gains less of the popular vote than the runner-up did. While both of these are great points, there have only been a few instances in the hundreds of years that the United States has had the Electoral College in place where the popular vote was not in favor of the winner of the presidential election. And due to this, its “undemocratic” nature is actually very consistently in

Read More
692 Words | 3 Pages

Like many others great creation the Electoral College has some downfalls. The first con of the Electoral College according to Amelia Josephson " It gives too much power to swing states". What this means is when candidates run for president are more likely to target swing states rather than going to a state that always goes blue or red. Candidates do this because they are trying to sway the swing there way so they can win, which then gives the swing states power into picking the presidency. The second con the Electoral College according Kathleen McCleary

Read More
946 Words | 4 Pages

The Electoral College, in states where they have the winner takes all system, make voters that are voting in states that are strongly controlled by the a certain political party feel like their votes aren’t really important considering that all the electoral votes will just go to the political party that wins. This feeling like out votes don’t count is the biggest argument against the Electoral College that it should’ve been for quite a while already a popular vote decision not an Electoral College decision (Davis). This argument also goes hand and hand where a president and vice president voted into office won because of the popular vote and received a majority of the support. Also removing the Electoral College would remove the power that only a certain states have, the swing states, but the downfall is swing states will just be replaced with high population states. Some people also view the Electoral College as being undemocratic especially in large population states where the votes of the losing political party, are a large number of voters, are essentially

Read More
1570 Words | 7 Pages

Proponents of the Electoral College argue that state viewpoints are more important than political minority viewpoints. We shouldn’t tamper with the careful balance of power between the national and state governments. Overall, they believe that the Electoral College has functioned for over 200 years and find the existing system extremely efficient because they feel that electors represent their constituents Proponents of the Electoral College believe that a popular vote would create numerous deficiencies in the system by making candidates too uniform and making them liable to deceptions of the truth (Pass or Fail, 2000). Why change a system that has functioned and elected a handful of respected and successful presidents? The real question though is, has this system truly worked flawlessly for over 200 years, or do we just think it has?

Read More
1338 Words | 6 Pages

If we somehow happened to be a capable vote, then we ought to have the capacity to really pick who might be president. The Electoral College removes that from us. The Electoral College is not by any stretch of the imagination reasonable for our rights and our opportunity. It, for the most part, takes away the ability to vote the president. The Electoral College was made in a period when votes were harder to gather and number.

Read More
904 Words | 4 Pages

Several years after the United States came to be, the Constitutional Convention met to determine how the new nation should govern itself. The delegates saw that it was crucial to have a president and vice president, but the delegates did not want these offices to reflect how the colonies were treated under the British rule. The delegates believed that the president’s power should be limited, and that he should be chosen through the system known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. Many citizens feel that the Electoral College goes against our nation’s principle of representative democracy, while others

Read More
428 Words | 2 Pages

Since the inception of our constitution in 1787, there has only been 4 elections where the Electoral College has allowed the future president-elect candidate to win the election, despite losing the popular vote. 4/57 elections is probably something that political scientists don’t lose sleep over, but it is a topic that is worth mentioning and discussing, especially after the controversial presidential election in 2000. From my point of view, I believe that the method we use in selecting our presidents is flawed and ineffective for a couple of reasons. First, the Electoral College has far fewer votes than the American people, yet their vote has a lot more meaning. With 538 delegates representing the Electoral College, it is unfair and inequitable to the millions of people who devote their time and energy to stand in long

Read More
646 Words | 3 Pages

Joel Hale 1. In the first article it is stated that after Trump had won the election even though he had lost the popular vote, several angry Democrats and liberals were calling for the abolition of the Electoral College. The Electoral College was designed to prevent coastal elites from large states from getting to pick the president. People were furious that Clinton didn’t win, and millions of people in California, New York, and other states wrongly believed that their support would affect the outcome. A suggestion for moving forward is keeping the Electoral College, with some minor changes, and get rid of the popular vote.

Read More
796 Words | 4 Pages

Electoral college has been with us since the birth of the constitution, and to this day we are still using this type of system to this day. The Electoral College is a system that the United States uses to elect our upcoming presidents and vice presidents. Each state has electors equal to their senate member and house of representatives, however who ever gets the highest popular vote in the state gets the electoral vote. The issue is the Electoral College do not give votes to the people, but to the states. Which has some unfair consequences.

Read More
1026 Words | 5 Pages

In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. The delegates understood that the need for a leader was necessary but still bitterly remembered how Britain abused of its power. The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is defined as “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” Since 1787 the Electoral College has been the system for voting in the United States, but with our nation ever more changing and growing it

Read More
837 Words | 4 Pages

All through the history of the United States of America, many people have discussed the abolishment of the Electoral College. For many reasons, some believe it is what makes our country have the type of government we have, some believe that it's what limits the power of the government, and many people such as Mitch McConnell believes it is what gives us our freedom and prosperity. While these are valid arguments there is a multitude of reasons to why the electoral college should be abolished. Such as there is only a need for twelve states in order to become the president, popular vote of the people for president can still lose, and the Swing states are given too much power and attention compared to that of the other states. This is why I believe in the abolishment of the Electoral College.

Read More
975 Words | 4 Pages

The number of electors in each state is equaled two plus one for each member of the House of Representatives, and Washington DC has three votes, bringing the total number of electors to 538 (“What is the Electoral College?”). It’s a well-known fact that when the public goes to vote for a candidate they also vote for the corresponding vice president. A much less well-known fact is that they are actually voting for the electors as well; by voting democratic or republican the corresponding electors for the party are elected as well (“Electoral College” 2010). Then on the Monday after the second Wednesday of December the electors assemble in a central location in each state and cast their votes for president. In forty-eight states, there is a “winner-take-all-system” where the highest vote getter in the state gets all the electoral votes, however in two states, Maine and Nebraska, there is a proportionality system in place; where if one third of the votes are for one party and two thirds are for another, the electors will split and one third of the state electoral votes will go to one party and the rest will go to another (“What is the Electoral College?”).

Read More
373 Words | 2 Pages

The United States Consitution specially states legislators decide how electors are chosen in their states. They electors then pledge their support to the candidate that we have chosen. It's crazy to think that my vote for the person I think is best for the job isn't actually counted. I vote for a

Read More

More about Benefits Of The Electoral College

Related Topics

Open Document