The Electoral College System Essays - 520 Words

The Electoral College System After the last presidential election, which is still underway apparently, there is much controversy over what should happen to the Electoral College system. There are people who say that the Electoral College is good but should be modified to meet the needs of the modern world. There are those who say that the Electoral College system is too outdated to be modified and should be entirely eliminated. Finally there are those who say that it is has stood the test of time and is still the best system for our country. The original framers of the constitution obviously preferred the electoral system to a direct popular election. The argument that historians give for this is that they preferred this system†¦show more content†¦There have been many attempts to reform or even scrap the Electoral College election sense its 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. Under the current system there are five hundred and thirty eight electors. Each state gets one elector, each representative, and a senator. A presidential candidate needs two hundred and seventy votes to win the election. The electors meet after the November popular election to cast their votes and officially elect the president. Electors may vote for whomever they wish. Each states electoral votes are awarded on a winner take all bases. The arguments to modify or eliminate the Electoral College system are all derived from the notion that it is outdated. Under the current system if a candidate wins a large states like California, then they win twenty percent of the needed votes even though California only accounts for eleven percent of the U.S. population. Whats more is a president can be elected without winning a majority of the popular vote. This has happened 15 times in U.S. history. TheShow MoreRelatedThe Electoral College Is A System886 Words   |  4 PagesThe Electoral College is a system that the founding fathers established to allow people to vote indirectly for the president. The public does not directly vote for the president and his or her running mate, but intern votes for a representative that has pledged to vote for a certain candidate. Once the electoral votes have been cast, the majority winner wins the presidency. Each state gets a certain number of electoral votes, there is a total of 538 electoral votes, and a majority of 270 votesRead MoreOpponents Of The Electoral College System1703 Words   |  7 PagesOpponents of the Electoral College system also point to the risk of so-called faithless Electors. A faithless Elector is one who is pledged to vote for his party s candidate for president but nevertheless votes for another candidate. There have been 7 such Electors in this century and as recently as 1988 when a Democrat Elector in the State of West Virginia cast his votes for Lloyd Bensen for president and Michael Dukakis for vice president instead of the other way around. Faithless ElectorsRead MoreThe Importance Of The Electoral College System700 Words   |  3 PagesImportance of the Electoral College System Since its establishment the electoral college has always come under fire for the way it executes the election process in the United States. Many people believe that a direct popular vote is the best way to elect president and vice president, rather than the indirect election process used now. Because of this conflict, the question of whether or not the electoral college should be abolished continues to be a heated debate, especially after the most recentRead MoreElectoral College System Essay1031 Words   |  5 PagesThe roots of the Electoral College System can be traced way back to more than 200 years. A controversial debate on the effectiveness of Electoral College continues over years. The founders established it as a resolution between president choice by a vote in congress and choice of the president by qualified citizens’ popular vote. 538 electors constituted the Electoral College and 270 majorities of electoral votes choose the president. The United States got its i ndependence from Great Britain, andRead MoreThe Importance Of The Electoral College System886 Words   |  4 PagesIn 1787 the farmers at The Constitutional Convention put in motion The Electoral College system because of their belief that the average american didn’t have enough education/intelligence to directly pick the president, making the U.S.A. a representative democracy. In brief the Electoral System is made up of a body of repertentivates who were elected by the citizens and in return the electors are suppose to cast their votes on behalf of the people. The number of electors given,was established dependingRead MoreThe Electoral College System Essay1495 Words   |  6 PagesIn the Electoral College system, as presented by Hamilton, every voice is heard and there is a greater guarantee that the elected will effectively represents those voices in office. During election season, the people in the states vote for the representatives that will make up the Electoral Colle ge. The people within the states will votes for the prudent few that they believe best conform to their political interests, just as they do for those voted into the House of Representatives. As a resultRead MoreThe Electoral College System Is Not Effective1767 Words   |  8 PagesI would change the Electoral College system. Like many other Americans, I feel that the Electoral College system is not effective. It caries a notion of the state versus the people, electors oversee a large part of the country and is change the answer to this issue? I believe that times have changed and we need to reform the electoral system all while not changing the constitution. The Constitution of the United States of America created a system called the Electoral College where it outlinesRead MoreThe Electoral College System Is Outdated And Unfair1670 Words   |  7 Pagesfourth of November an election is taken place to select the next president of the United States. Just recently, in the 2016 election, Hilary Clinton won the popular vote and Donald Trump won the electoral vote, in which he was elected president. This made many Americans question if the electoral college system is outdated and unfair and if the direct popular vote is a more effective way of electing the president. This has happened twice where the candidate who has the popular vote did not win the presidencyRead MoreThe Electoral College For Presidential Election System1206 Words   |  5 Pagesthere is still one piece of US policy that has long overstayed its welcome. This piece of policy is the use of the electoral college in our presidential election system. The electoral college is a group of individuals who each cast a direct vote for the president. The way that this works is complicated but essentially it boils down to this. Each state has a number of electoral college votes equal to the number of seats they have in the senate plus the number of seats they have in the House of RepresentativesRead MoreThe Electoral College System Of The United States Essay1670 Words   |  7 PagesAfter a year of voting and much debate the final decision of electing the 45th president of the United States was once again down to the Electoral College. (history) The Electoral College system was established by the founding fathers around 130 years ago and basically a process used to select the President and vice President of the United States of America (Procon). So when you went to the polls on November 8th and casted your vote for the next president, something else happened behind the scenes