The Importance of the Electoral College Essay

Beginning in America in 1787, the Electoral College was originally created during the Constitutional Convention to help make a fair way for the president to be elected without giving too much power to either the national government or individual states. Over the years, the Electoral College has undergone a few changes in attempt to make it more fair, but there is still much debate about whether or not the Electoral College is the most effective way to elect a president. Some people believe that the Electoral College does an excellent job of creating an equal distribution of votes across all ethnicities and social classes of America. In contrast, others think that the Electoral College does not give an accurate portrayal of the popular

The main result of the election of 1800 was the peaceful transition of political power and the tie between the two democratic-republican candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr with seventy-three votes each. The decision was then to be made by the House of Representatives. Due to Alexander Hamilton's help and persuasion by choosing Thomas Jefferson as the lesser of two evils, the House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson as president and Aaron Burr as vice president. As a result of the 1800 election, the Congress and the states passed the Twelfth Amendment in 1804 separating the ballots for the president and for the vice president to prevent the same crisis in the future.

The political system many of us know today as the Electoral College is one that has been in place in our country for over 100 years. The Electoral College is a system that helps determine who is elected as President and Vice President during major elections. The Electoral College is the primary source of determining who is elected. This system although having withheld through the times and stayed in place is not effective to me, and can lead to unfair elections in the eyes of some American People.

It was created to allow all citizens to participate in elections directly while also giving smaller states some leverage and weight in the presidential elections. The electoral college also allowed constituents a chance to participate directly in the election for chief executive by voting for the electors, or people selected by citizens to cast electoral votes in the presidential elections. It also allowed for the smaller, less populated states to have more pull in the presidential election than they would if the president was simply elected by popular vote.

The history of the Electoral college goes back to 1804 to the framers of the constitution. Many of the nations founding fathers actually did not trust direct democracy and wanted to create a system that had balance between power of the people and power of the government. As James Madison described , he was worried about “ factions” in democracy. “These groups of citizens with a common interest in a proposal that would violate the right of citizens or the nation as a whole” (Joe Miller), Madison's fear which Alexis de Tocqueville later named as the “tyranny of majority”, was that these factions could become the fifty percent and win the majority. Subsequently delegates proposed a variety of different methods to elect the president in order for this to not occur. According to Joe Miller’s article the delegates voted more than 60 times before they finally chose a

The electoral college, per Wikipedia, is a mechanism set up to select the president and vice president of the United States. (The Electoral college, 2016) It was during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that the founders established Article 2. Article 2 Section 1 details the innerworkings of the executive branch of government. The constitution states, “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”. (The Constitution of the United States, n.d.) The framers of the Constitution had many different ideas about how the selection of our president should go but ultimately

Established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Electoral College is a system utilized in The United States of America to select the President and Vice President. This process was established by the Founding Fathers in 1787, when the Constitution was written. The original purpose of the electoral system was to ensure that those who select the leaders of this nation were the most knowledgeable and informed people that America had to offer. The electors - the elected officials that make up the Electoral College - are elected to office through a general election wherein the entire national population has the right to vote. The President of the United States, however, is actually elected to office by the Electoral College only, regardless of the popular vote of the citizens in general. Thus, the Presidential election is the only federal election in our nation where the vote of the citizenry does not directly determine the victor. Despite the fact that this electoral system has been in place and operational for over two hundred years, the Electoral College is looked upon by some as an honorable system, whereas others view it as faulty. The Electoral College is not fair and equitable because it is based on population, it is not trusted by the people, and it is unjust to the wishes of the citizens.

The Electoral College dates back to the very founding of America and American politics. The way to elect the President was a hotly contested issue at the Constitutional Convention. Many options were considered, including selection by Congress, selection by state governors, selection by state legislatures, and direct popular vote (Electoral College 6). The final decision of the Founding Fathers was written in Article II, Sections II and III of the US Constitution:

In 1787 at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America worked together to identify the best way to elect the President (Patterson, 2013). The ideas suggested varied and ranged from selection by members of congress chosen by lottery, to a popular vote of the people. By the end of the Convention the matter had yet to be settled as the framers fore saw that many of the suggestions were prone to corruption, error, and were very chaotic. The issue was passed down to the Committee on Postponed Matters, who in turn created the system that is used today and is commonly known as Electoral College (Kazin, 2011). The Electoral College was outlined by the Committee to up hold the views of the founding fathers, who were the framers of the Constitution.

Twelfth Amendment – The twelfth amendment describes how a president shall be chosen if they do not have the majority. This is by the House of Representatives voting for who the president should by. If the votes were tied, then the people who had the same number of votes would be the options for the house to vote on. If no one had a majority, the five highest voted people would be candidates for the presidency.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Founding Fathers could not decide if the president should be elected by Congress or elected by a popular vote, so they decided to create the Electoral College (“US Electoral College”). The Founding Fathers did not trust the people to vote on the right presidential candidate, so they decided that an indirect election was the best method (Becker). The Electoral College is a group of individuals who elect the president and vice president in the United States of America (TED-Ed). The number of electors that are given to each state is stated in Article II,

The Electoral College was created during the Constitutional Convention in 1787 when the framers of the constitution debated many options for determining how the President of the United States would be chosen. The Electoral College was created to give smaller states a voice in the process of choosing a President for the United States. If a President was chosen through popular vote, people feared numerous candidates would be receiving votes and a candidate would win the most votes from a populous state instead of votes from smaller states. Another option for voting for the President was that Congress would

The constitution, in the 12th amendment, sets up the system by which we pick a president and vice president. The amendment lays out all of the specific guidelines concerning the electoral college, such as the requirement to only vote for the elected nominees. It lays out emergency plans in the case of a tie, and how electors are chosen. Replacing the guidelines in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, the 12th amendment states, “The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all

The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides the procedure for electing the President and Vice President, only one vote for the president and a different vote for the vice president, instead of voting for two presidents and the one with the least amount of votes be made the vice president. . (Kimberling)

There have been many attempts to reform or even scrap the Electoral College election sense it's birth. The most recent one being in 1997 when congress debated a constitutional amendment to replace the electoral system with a direct popular vote system. However the Electoral College system to this day remains virtually un-changed from its original form. The only exception is the twelfth amendment, which requires each elector to cast two votes, one for president and one for vice president.