Ever since its creation at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Electoral College has been the most widely debated aspect in the Constitution. There have been over 700 proposed constitutional amendments aimed at fixing or abolishing this process. And Congress has on several occasions held highly publicized hearings on Electoral College reform but overall has remained fairly inactive (Best, p. vii). And while the Electoral College is a cornerstone of our Constitution and therefore a major aspect of American democracy and government, its very nature is quite unfair and undemocratic. Many of its aspects portray biases and favor certain groups of people and certain states. It is deemed archaic, undemocratic, complex, ambiguous, indirect, and dangerous by many scholars and is in direct need of reforming (Kura, p. 30). It especially contradicts Walter Stone’s instrumental voting model for the Electoral College at first makes one believe as if one’s vote counts but eventually one figures out that it is in fact quite unimportant (Stone, p. 51). For with the Electoral College, the people are not in charge but rather the system is – the Electoral College presidential election system that is.…
The Electoral College is an institution that may have served a purpose 200 years ago when the founding fathers needed a system that would be met with approval by both large and small states. The Electoral College is a flawed method of electing our President that has created problems in previous elections and is likely to be the source of problems in the future. The Electoral College provides an undemocratic method of choosing our president that potentially undermines the will of the voters. Not only can a candidate be elected without actually winning the most votes, it puts our elections at the mercy of electors who don't always cast their vote as pledged. I intend to demonstrate that the problems inherent in this voting method far outweigh any benefits it may provide. Replacing the winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes with a system such as proportional representation or eliminating the college altogether in favor of direct election is the best way to ensure a trouble-free and fair election…
Instead, the system should just be modified. The whole winner-take-all system is what should be abolished in order to more accurately reflect the popular will across the nation. It should be replaced by the Congressional District Plan already put in use in Maine and Nebraska. In this new system, Electoral votes are distributed based on congressional district winners plus another two for whoever receives a majority of the state’s votes. This way, just like in Congress, the will of the people and the state are accurately represented in each…
In the 2000 election, Al Gore and Ralph Nader split the left wing vote. (Document 5). While Nader only won 3% of the popular vote, the election was so close that 3% more of the popular vote would have put Gore in office. (Document 5). This also happened in the 1912 election, when the Republicans split the vote between the incumbent Roosevelt, and Taft, allowing Wilson to win. The voters know that this will always be the result, so they do not vote for the party that their beliefs align with the closest. Instead, they vote Republican or Democrat to actually have a chance of winning the election. Third party candidates cannot win not only because of our two-party system, but because of our winner-take-all system. If two candidates split the liberal vote, the conservative party will win all the votes in that state. If this trend continues, the conservative party will win the entire election. (Document 6). If the United States based elections on the popular vote instead of the Electoral College, then people would be more likely to vote with the party they agree with most, not the party that is more likely to win. This would make citizens actually want to vote because they have more options and they would feel like their vote actually…
Critics argue that this system listens to the minority. In fact, it does not, this system discourages minority by using the winner take all rule. The winner take all rule promotes the idea that 49.9% of voters might get no representation. The Electoral should be changed to a proportional representation system, a method of voting by which political parties are given legislative representation in proportion to their popular vote. For example, in a state with 21 electors and 47% votes for Republicans and 53% for Democrats should get electors proportional to the popular vote, which would be 11 electors for Democrats and 9 for Republicans. This system would be much fair and would help represent both the minority and the majority of a certain state. Proportional elector system will not only encourage voter turnout, but also help accurately reflect the views of the public. Another reason why the Electoral College should be changed is because there is a theoretical possibility that a president loses the popular vote but still wins the electoral votes. As history shows, in the election of 1888 between Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison won the election with plurality of the Electoral Vote (Harrison - 233 Electoral votes, Cleveland – 168 Electoral Votes),…
In conclusion the Electoral College is system of the past as it does not truly reflect what Americans think but what faithless partisan electors think and believe, the Electoral College was built in a time where there wasn't any trust in what was a so-called democracy but it was a way for the government to show their distrust of the people. The Electoral College is a disaster and ultimately should be…
In my opinion, the Electoral College should go. I have three reasons why the Electoral College should be either get rid of. My reasons are that it focuses more on smaller states than big states, Hamilton had other intentions for the Electoral College, and the Electoral College was meant to be for small states so it would be more equal.…
Although I believe the Electoral College needs many changes, it is necessary in order to have a successful government that is fair. Thee main argument against the Electoral College is that the presidency should be won by popular vote alone. It shouldn't be that one candidate could win the popular vote, but lose the election. At first I completely agreed with this, because we do live in a democracy, and I believe that a democracy is a government for the people by the people. This would mean that the mass population decides who is the president, not a hand picked group of men to vote on who they wish, because they do not always have to vote on the candidate in which the state has voted the majority on. Although the Electoral College may take away the presidency from the candidate that won the majority vote, it evens things out across the nation.…
I believe there are more reasons to abolish or update the Electoral College than to continue with our current system. First, it discourages candidates from focusing on those states with fewer electoral votes therefore encouraging the candidates to only focus on approximately one third of the country. How can a system work for the country as…
The electoral college in america should be abolished because it has major flaws, supports political inequality, and doesn’t support third party candidates. On top of the flaws that already exist in the electoral college the biggest flaws is what happens when there is a tie. In the case of a tie the decision of who gets to be president is cast in the House of Representatives. This would mean that every states essentially has one vote making “the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, [the same] as the 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters”(Document F). This is important because if you just look at the numbers say Wyoming is the smallest states with 500,00 then any state with more voters that excess amount of voters basically don’t get a vote. In this case 34.5 million voters don’t get a vote. In addition to this example of political inequality, political inequality is seen in the number of electors each state receives. One example of this would be how a candidate could win the electoral vote by winning only 11 states, completely ignoring the Northeast United States(Document A). As a result of candidates only needing 11 states, bigger states have more influence than small states with only 3 votes making them less important. Yet even though 11 states have more influence than the others they really should have more because the electoral vote doesn’t truly represent population. For instance, in Illinois there are about 12 million people and they have 20 electors. Whereas in 12 smaller…
Document #2 shows a graph that represents the number of electoral votes based off the population. It is shown that the more people there are in a state, the more electoral votes the state receives. This does not mean that votes in a larger state count for more, in fact that is incorrect. Document #4 explains the how many voters are represented by each electoral vote. It is proven that smaller populated states are given more power towards the election and their votes. This is because there are less electoral votes, allowing their vote to count for a greater percentage. It is unfair to someone who can not afford to live in a certain place that allows more voting powers. Votes should not be based on population but should simply be counted for every person. It would surprisingly be easier to count the votes for every person instead of having to count the votes and translating them into electoral votes based on districts. Electoral votes give less power to the people and it can be unfair because even though a president elect may have the majority vote, they may not become president if they do not have the most electoral votes. This is unreasonable because if the majority of voters choose a certain president elect, that person should become president. The Electoral College is inefficient to the voters living in the United…
The advocates of this position are correct in arguing that the Electoral College method is not democratic in a modern sense. The Constitution provides that “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.” And it is the electors who elect the president, not the people. When you vote for a presidential candidate you’re actually voting for a slate of electors.Under the Constitution, the people are empowered to choose, through direct popular election, the men and women who represent them in their state legislatures and in the United States Congress. The states, through the Electoral College, are empowered to choose the president and vice president.…
I like the Electoral College. I don’t want a most popular vote win election because I want the smaller states to still have a say, but, if America switches to most popular election, the way things are, might just get worse. There are some good reasons for a most popular election, and there are not good reasons for one too. I like the Electoral College a lot, and I would like the voting system to keep it that way. However, our founding fathers created the Electoral College, to create a better way to elect a president that would not cause chaos or havoc in the country.…
Even though the Electoral College has shown on three elections to not match the popular vote, a way to prevent this would be to get rid of the “winner-takes-all” policy. This would make it possible for candidates to win different sections of states. With the Electoral College the way it is now, a candidate can win all the votes of one state, even if not all parts of the state give a majority vote to that candidate. This would make it so the votes matched the popular vote, making it a more democratic system, while still reaching the same ultimate goals.…
The United States is a republic and has set a new standard to give their citizens the right to vote, however, the Electoral College should be based on popular vote. There have been four cases when a president lost the popular vote and became president because they won the electoral college(History). This scenario has happened four times out of the fifty-seven elections, meaning that seven percent of the elections turn out this way. The most recent time this happened in 2000 when George W. Bush won the electoral college, but lost the popular vote. If the majority of people to not want a candidate to be president, then why should he/she end up being president. This is an issue with the electoral college and this big important determined from the citizens that live under the…