The founding fathers created the Electoral College as a compromise for the Constitutional Convention. Since the delegates could not agree on a solution for the problem of creating a system to elect the President, it was given to the Committee of Eleven on Postponed Matters. Ultimately, that committee decided to create the Electoral College. The first system consisted of electors which each had two votes for president. Whoever obtained the most votes would become president, and the person who received the second most amount of votes In order to compromise for the best solution possible, they added a limitation that electors could not cast votes for two candidates from their own state.They justified this restriction for three reasons. One reason the committee chose to use the Electoral College was the electorate system promotes federalism or a system of government where the individual states share power with the central state. One example of a federalist system is the United States. The United States’s central government sets laws for the whole country, but each individual state can make their own …show more content…
One change was after the election of 1800. Two of the candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, had both accumulated the most amount of votes, so, consequently, the vote went to the House of Representatives. Untimely, Jefferson won, and this victory prompted the Twelfth Amendment.( Larson 29) Congress wrote in the Twelfth Amendment ”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...” The text outlines the changes to the Electoral College, which include that there is a difference between the vote President and Vice President. Moreover, it says that electors cannot cast both of their votes for people who are residents of their own
Though our founding fathers created the Electoral College over 200 years ago, it has been changed with time to accommodate modern needs and is still an important and necessary part of our electoral system. The Electoral College ensures political stability in our nation by encouraging the two-party system and also protects the interests of minorities. Furthermore, the Electoral College helps maintain a united country by requiring widespread popular support of a candidate in order for him or her to become president.
What would you do if you didn't have a say in who runs America and how it is ran. What if you were promised freedom, and told that you had a government ran by the people but you didn’t get any input in the decisions? The direct popular vote doesn’t give the smaller parties a chance, but the electoral college does. Some people believe that the electoral college should be abolished; however, it gives people in rural communities a stronger voice, it allows the President a mandate to meet people’s needs in every state, and it reflects the political opinions of more Americans. Therefore, America should keep the electoral college.
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
Your vote should mainly matter! Yes, the electoral college should be abolished. The delegates did not believe the president should be chosen by a direct population vote (of the people). They didn’t trust voters would have enough information to make a good choice. The Electoral College is where the president and vice president are chosen indirectly. This system is where all states and the District of Columbia get one electoral vote for each of their US senators and representatives. Also, each state has a slate of electors for each presidential candidate. Another way this system works is by winner-take all method. The winner-take all method is where whichever candidate wins the most votes in the state, wins the state electoral votes. Lastly a candidate must receive a majority (one more than a half) of the electoral votes to be declared president. That is how everything goes in the electoral college. The electoral college should be abolished because 12 states and D.C. total have double the amount of electoral votes but less people than Illinois. Also, the winner of the 1876 presidential election isn’t what people wanted, it was based on the number of electoral votes. Another reason the electoral college should be abolished is that the states with the same representatives dont have the same number of voters. All these issues that continue to happen, need to be resolved by getting rid of this system.
The outcome of the 2016 election left many Americans feeling confused, angry, cheated, and terrified of the future. Somehow, the sexist, racist, homophobic candidate Donald Trump had become the nation’s president, though Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received the majority of popular vote. This raised many questions over the constitutionality of the Electoral College system, and whether it was unfair to the people of the United States. In the electoral system, created by the Founding Fathers due to their lack of trust in the people, the constituents of each state vote for their preferred candidate, and all of the state’s electoral votes go to the candidate with a majority. Clearly, the Electoral
A change in the Electoral college should be the number of electoral votes for each state's. Now they are based on the population, for example the Electoral Vote chart shows the higher the population in each state the more electoral votes that state has. The less populated states have less Electoral votes than the bigger more populated states. (Doc. 2) This shows that the less populated a state is the less say the have with the voting. Each state needs to have the same number so that it is appointed accurately. This majority would help with which state and show that more of the population chose a certain candidate.
What do you think the founding fathers thought about our citizens as voters? Shortly after the country’s government was formed, framers of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 did not believe that the People should directly decide who becomes the president of the United States. They made this decision because during 1787, the government was dealing with opinions from small and large states, and slave and free states. Now, though, all of the states have extremely similar rights and regulations, so I believe that there is no reason for the Electoral College to still exist. The question being answered here is whether or not the Electoral College should be abolished due to its effects on the People and
America the place where we the people get to pick the president, actually not there are a few indivals that are called the Electoral College and they really pick who the president will be. There are 538 people in the Electoral College and they pick who the next president will be. The 538 people in the Electoral College consist of 100 senators and 438 repressive from the fifty states. The Electoral College should be abolished because it is undemocratic, not accurate for the people votes, and it is unfair to 3rd party candidates.
Should the Electoral College be preserved or replaced? A question monopolizing all of us. The Electoral College has been around 1788 and American democracy would be far stronger without it. This form of representation is old, and on behalf of the U.S., we need an improved portrayal of the citizens that accounts for our updated uses of technology. The Electoral College underrepresents states and allows some votes to count more than others. Rather than providing a true democracy we elect “Electors” to vote in our favor. This is unreliable and doesn’t account for those who don’t vote.to Electoral College The Electoral College was created by “Framers” also known as our Founding Fathers. This system is made up of 538 electors, or delegates, who
Former President Obama said, “We need to ensure peaceful transfer of power from one freely elected president to the next” (“Obama Farewell Speech”). The sincerity of a peaceful transition of power is decaying because of the Electoral College. The Electoral College was set up by Article II clause II in the constitution, which laid out how the president and vice president would be elected (Kimberling). The only major change it went through was in the form of the 12th Amendment. It stated that the electors would cast one vote for president and one vote for vice president, instead of naming the second place finisher vice president. Other minor changes came at the state level. An example being the winner-take-all system in most states. This
The electoral college system is unnecessary at this point in time. When the electoral college system was thought up in the 1700s by the framers of the constitution, they believed that electors to represent the peoples’ vote would be more efficient since it was extremely difficult to get information to and from places quickly, meaning that citizens would be late on news. To to combat that, the framers created the electoral college system, a system where electors elected by a political party would represent the peoples’ vote, gather in Washington, and vote on their behalf. Because of the lack of technology, this method wasn’t a bad way to vote for presidents efficiently. But technology improved, negating the problem of Americans not knowing the news in Washington and concerning their candidates. Today, Americans have access to current and reliable news regarding their candidates and are generally up-to-date with politics. So with the technological advances present today, why do we still employ an electoral college to vote for our next president? There isn’t a pressing reason to keep it.
The founding fathers created the Electoral College as a compromise for the Constitutional Convention. Since the delegates could not agree on a solution for the problem of creating a system to elect the President,
The United States, well known for its democracy, holds elections every four years to elect its President. Every American citizen over the age of 18 has a right to cast a vote in the presidential election. The voting process, although it seems easy and straightforward, can be very complicated. In the 2000 election, Al Gore captured the majority of votes, but George Bush won. The reason for this strange outcome and why Al Gore lost was because of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is voting system where different states are given a certain amount of votes in the election, and which ever candidate wins a state, is given that state’s votes. The Electoral College is out of date, and should be replaced by the Popular Vote system,
During the electoral college, all states had the same number of electoral votes as they have representatives in Congress. The first purpose for the creation of electoral college was to create a buffer between population and the selection of president. The second purpose, as a part of the structure of the government that gave extra power to the smaller states. The founders believed that the Electoral College had the advantage of meet only once and therefore, they could not be influenced over time by foreign governments or others. But electoral college have problems of not been effective to the modern world, failure to represent the nation’s will, also unfair representation.
Democratic theorist, Robert Dahl once said, “…every member must have an equal and effective opportunity to vote, and all votes must be counted as equal.” This quote greatly summarizes what the Electoral College system means; every person in the United States is guaranteed one vote. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to elect who serves in the government, and we are given that opportunity through this system. This is what the Founding Fathers came up with in order to solve the problems they faced over 200 years ago. However, some have opposed this system is not fit for this democracy, and argue that other systems would work more fairly. On the contrary, I strongly believe that the Electoral College system should be kept because it is the fairest way to elect the President.