Electoral College In 2000 George W. Bush was elected as the 43rd president of the United States. This was despite the fact he lost the popular vote. This was made possible by the Electoral College, the system the United States uses to elect the president (and vice president). Elector are the people appointed to vote for the president in the Electoral College system. These electors are appointed to the states based on the number of people in Congress (and 3 electors are given to the District of Columbia). In most states, electors pledged their votes based on their state’s popular vote. The candidate who receives an absolute majority of the electoral votes, wins the presidency. 1 For example, If a president won the popular vote in Minnesota, …show more content…
This would modify the structure of the American government, and slightly modify the 12th amendment. The way the amendment would do this can be done in several ways, but the most simple way is to have a direct nationwide vote. This means the president and vice president would be elected similarly to the way a senator or representative would be elected, but on a larger scale. They would need to have a majority of the votes, or 51 percent or higher. If there was a tie in the race, the presidency would be chosen the same way it has been in the past.3 The president would be elected by the House of Representatives from one of the candidates in the race. In short, the basis of the proposed amendment is to switch from the Electoral College, to a nationwide, majority rules, voting …show more content…
The first and biggest benefit from switching to a popular vote is this system ensures the majority candidate wins the presidency, thus more accurately reflecting the wants of the people. Under the Electoral College system, the minority candidate can win the presidency in a couple of d different ways. The most concerning way is if one candidate had the overall popular vote, but another candidate won a slim enough lead in few states with enough Electoral College points to win the presidency.2 This can be avoided with the popular vote, because regardless of the state, one vote is the same. Another benefit to switching to a popular vote is candidates can focus on states more equally. Swing states are states which don’t have a concrete alliance, or are not prone, to vote a certain way (democratic or republic). With the Electoral College system swing states get a huge disproportionate amount of time spent on them, up to ¾ of a candidate's time.4 Without the Electoral College system, candidates will be able to devote time equally amongst all states, instead of a small few. The final benefit from the change to the popular vote is the likely increase in voter turnout. With the knowledge of swing states, those who live outside of competitive states are less likely to turn up to vote.4 Using a popular vote system, voters are more likely to want to vote, knowing they have more of an impact on the presidential race. An
Most states are always republican or democratic in the way they vote. So the amount of votes is already in favor of one candidate or another before voting actually arrives.(Document 7). Since the candidates are always insured a certain number of votes, the candidates only have to worry about “swing states” or states that change their decisions every election. Since the non-swing states never decide in favor of one candidate or the other by themselves the power to elect a new president resides with whom the citizens of swing states vote for. Without an electoral college, each citizen's vote would be worth more and everyone could help determine a new president instead of the select few who are living in “swing states.” All of these reasons help to make it clear that the electoral college is a corrupt
When Americans vote for president, they are actually voting for presidential electors, who are known as a whole to be the electoral college. These electors, who are elected by citizens of the United States, are the ones that elect the chief executive. The electoral college has shaped the past, present, and future of the United States ever since it was constructed by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The electoral college was created with fair and good intentions.
First of all, the Electoral College ignores what most citizens want and undervalues their votes. Because people in each state are voting for electors that are assigned to each party rather than the actual candidates, the decision for president is really up to 538 electors instead of the population of more than 300 million Americans (The Electoral College: Top 3 Pros and Cons). 48 states use a winner-take-all system, where the dominant candidate in each state gains control of all the electors. The only states that don’t use this system are Maine and Nebraska ( ). This system the election about winning states in order to gain electors, and not about each citizen's individual vote. It’s so focused on winning overall states that it completely neglects the popular vote. It is mathematically possible under the Electoral College system that a candidate can win only 21.8% of the popular vote and still win the presidency.. This is due to the fact that the 39 smaller states have too many electoral votes for their population, and because of the winner-take-all system in every state except Nebraska and Maine, all a candidate needs to do is win 50.01% of the popular votes in those states, and he/she can clinch the election (Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College). Events similar to this have happened in history where the candidate who received more popular votes didn’t win the election. For example, in 1876
In presidential elections, citizens do not actually vote for the candidate of their choosing, instead citizens are voting for electors known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College chooses a President, and Vice President. The Constitution gives each state a number of electors that equals the number of House of Representatives and Senate, which totals five hundred and thirty eight and also includes three electors for the District of Columbia. Each state receives a certain number of electors based on population size. The results in a state determine which electors are chosen. All electoral votes in a state go to the candidate that gets the most votes, and after state elections appointed officials certify the popular vote of each state. Two hundred and seventy votes are needed to elect a President; the candidate with the majority of the votes becomes the president.
The electoral college has been choosing a president for the United States of America for hundred of years. The college has been put in effect in 1787 in order to balance the needs of large and small states. But this has stopped people from choosing their wanted president. The electoral vote has trumped the popular vote many times during presidential election. The electoral college is an unfair voting system which can favor mostly large states and limit the say of people in choosing their leader.
The Electoral College, first instituted in 1787, is designed to give all states in the United States a say in who the president will be. The Electoral College works by giving a vote to each House Representative and Senator for the state. The senators and representatives for a state cast their ballot based on the popular vote in the state. Whichever candidate gets the most electoral votes in the state gets all the electoral votes for the state; this is called the winner take all system. Many people believe the Electoral College is flawed and should be changed while others believe it should be thrown away altogether. There are many things about the Electoral College that should be changed but the system is not completely broken. The Electoral College is a flawed process, but one that is needed for a fair election. The way electoral votes are given is fair but, how a President is chosen with no majority, which is a requirement to become president, and the winner take all system are ineffective and must be changed because they do not reflect the true will of the people.
The electoral college has been a major part of the American political system since its founding. This was first brought into question while the founding fathers were discussing the Constitution and the manner in which a president is to be elected. Thus, the Electoral College of the US was introduced. The requirements for the proper setup and execution of the electoral college is that every state has at least three representatives between two Senators and one Representative based on population which translate into the number of electoral votes. While using the college, forty eight states have the winner take all system where the candidate who has the most votes will get all of the votes from said state. This is one of many reasons to why the US needs to protect the establishment of the Electoral College. The main focal areas to why the Electoral College is a beneficial aspect of the political system is the ability to change with the people of the nation, the rapid pace to which the results are given to the public, as well as incorporating and
`Every four years our country elects a new president. Many people believe that when we cast our votes on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the way we cast our votes will determine who the next president of the United States will be. That belief, however, is not the case. The truth is that we are only voting for “presidential electors, known collectively as the Electoral College” (history.com). It is this group of people that actually elect to president. Each state is given a number of electors based on how many representatives they have in Congress, for a total number of 538 members of the Electoral College as of the time this paper was written. It is imperative that we maintain our Electoral College, so as to minimize
Was Antifederalist 72 correct in saying the government would be too big and the people would be better off self-governing if we don't have a president and electoral college? In the year 1788 an anonymous writer by the name of Republicus sent an article to the Kentucky Gazette in March. The paper spoke of how the writer has a firm belief that the president would be too powerful and the voting system of electors seemed inefficient in the fact that the voter may not know what they are voting for. The president and electoral college need to be in place, despite the people having the power to self-govern, because history and my argument points will show you how it is better to have the right man for the job rather than everyone have a little knowledge
The answer is simple while the founding fathers were able to make the rules in advance for the future there has already been several amendments to our constitution in fact and one involving the Electoral College itself as mentioned in the third paragraph above, the 12th amendment. So what exactly changed well, originally the way the first Electoral College was set up made it so the runner-up would always become vice president, but a problem could easily be seen in this system. The two candidates would almost never have the same agenda, this in turn would have disagreements occur between the them and not allow the country to be ran properly so an amendment was made in 1804. This amendment allowed there to be two separate ballots for both president and vice president. The way this process would be carried out was the electors would meet in their states and decide who the president and vice president will be. The electors could not be a senator, republican, person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States. They’re supposed to be neutral but sometimes, there would be a few electors who will already be leaning toward one presidential
The office of the President of the United States is designed differently than many other nations “rulers”, however, it is quite similar to the government in Mexico. In the United States, the President has to go through a selection process to become the candidate of their chosen party. The registered voters in America select a party to vote for and vote for that party’s nominee. The nominee then campaigns for the general election, where the registered voters vote for Electoral College votes to elect the next president. The winner is the President with the most Electoral College votes (even if they do not win the popular vote) (Ellis 25-71). Similarly, to electing the President of the United States, the process to elect the president of Mexico
The president is elected by a group of people called electors and each state has a number of electors equal to their congressional delegation. During the presidential election, a smaller group of representatives, at state level, give the final decision of the presidential election. Throughout numerous elections, only four occurrences where the candidate could not be agreed upon. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same amount of electoral votes, resulting in the House of Representatives breaking the tie. In 1876’s presidental election, the popular vote went to Democrat Samuel Tilden, however a commission voted for Republican Rutherford B. Hayes as the winner. In 1888 the popular vote candidate, Grover cleveland, did not win the election but rather Benjamin Harrison due to the electoral votes. Just recently in 2000, George W. Bush won the majority of electoral votes, even though AL Gore won the popular vote.
The Electoral College in the United States is not a place but a process. It was a process our founding fathers established in the Constitution. It is a complicated voting system that most citizens today do not understand. The Electoral College has been in place for well over two hundred years and is unfortunately showing its age. Most people believe that when they vote in a general election for the President, they truly believe they are voting for the president. This has shown to be the case many times in the past elections, but it has happened that the candidate who won the popular vote was not elected President by the Electoral College. The Process spelled out in the Constitution as written by our founding fathers known as the Electoral College needs to be replaced with a better method that truly represents the will and vote of the American people.
One proposed change from Electoral College is the National Popular Vote. According to Gregg (2011),
In 2000, as the election approached, some observers thought that Bush, interestingly also the son of a former president, could win the popular vote, but that his opponent, Gore, could win the Electoral College vote because Gore was leading in certain big states, such as California, New York and Pennsylvania. In the end, Gore secured the popular vote, but Bush won by securing the majority of votes in the Electoral College.