Electoral College Pros And Cons

The Electoral College
In the United States, we the people are guaranteed a vote in our government. Built upon the principles of freedom and democracy, The United States has striven to give equal representation to the people. Presidential elections are held to give people the chance to vote for who they believe will best serve the country. The electoral college is in place and adds an extra step in the presidential election process. However, many Americans do not understand the Electoral college. How it works, its strengths and weaknesses, and how to fix the problem that is the electoral college are the main point explained within this paper.
The electoral college is composed of 538 electors, the electors consist of 435 representatives, 100 senators and 3 electorals from the District of Columbia. These individuals make the final decision on who becomes the United States President and Vice President. For a presidential nominee to win the election they must secure 270 electoral college votes. 48 out of 50 states participate in the “winner takes all” method of voting
which means the popular vote winner of the state gets all of the electoral votes for said states. The two states that do not participate in winner takes all are Maine and Nebraska, each of these states votes in it’s own way. The larger a state is the more electoral votes it receives to vote with therefore it is imperative that the nominees persuade these larger states.
The electoral college is very controversial among American people as to whether or not it is positive or negative form of choosing our president.
One positive aspect of the Electoral College is that it represents minorities. Smaller states are treated more than equal based on their population seeing as several large states get votes taken away and have them given to the smaller states in an effort to represent the less populated. Although the electoral college represents minorities, it has many cons. Ultimately under the electoral college the people’s vote does not truly matter. If a nominee wins the right states, 80 % of the population could vote against him or her and they still win the presidential election with electoral votes. This completely violates the sense of democracy in our country because our whole population is not deciding on this major government decision, it is merely a numbers
game.
For these reasons I believe the electoral college should be eliminated. In a democracy each eligible voting citizen should have a say in who becomes president. Through the electoral college, the citizens of America are cheated. If I was to design a system for election voting, I would base it merely on the people. Each eligible citizen gets a vote and the candidate with the most votes wins, simple as that. Overall, I consider the Electoral College an unreliable and unfair way of American voting. The United States will never have a perfect voting system, however, I feel the one in place could be greatly improved. Being the first election in several years that the electoral college votes outwayed the popular vote, only time will tell as to whether we chose the correct candidate or not. In Conclusion, I learned a lot about American voting in this assignment, and it has made me want to participate more in government.