The Electoral College
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. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered several methods of electing the President, Including allowing the members of congress, state Governors, state legislatures, and by direct election by the people (Staff, 2010). Because there was so many plans and thoughts on the process, a committee was formed which devised the Electoral College system. This plan received widespread approval by the delegates and was put in the final document. Article II, section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution spells out the process of selecting electors for the selection of President and Vice
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
The Electoral College gained its origins when our countries fore fathers gathered at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and began brainstorming on different methods to elect a President. The Electoral College at the time was created to be a
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 went over several systems that were proposed for electing a new president which included but were not limited to by the governors of the states, by the state legislators, and by direct popular vote. The issue was soon referred to the Committee of Eleven on Postponed Matters, where the plan for the current electoral college was devised. The electoral college issued each state a number of electors equal to the sum of the
in the process of choosing a President for the United States. If a President was chosen through
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)
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:
The Electoral College has been around since 1787 and is how the United States elects the president and vice president. Many people support the Electoral College because the Founding Fathers thought it was the only way to have a democracy without completely trusting the people to elect the president. The Electoral College process is stated in the Constitution so many people think it is the only way to elect the president. Many critics of the Electoral College call it out on the fact that a candidate can win a popular vote but not the presidency. This actually contradicts the fact that the United States is supposed to be a democracy. Many people, including myself, think that the downfalls of the Electoral College vastly outweigh the benefits, so the Electoral College should be abolished. Instead the United States should elect the president based solely on the national popular vote.
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 Electoral College is a group of people who are “appointed by a larger group” of people to represent each state in the U.S. who then vote for the presidential elections (Dictionary.com 2015). The founding fathers created the Electoral College so that qualified citizens could vote for the president. They believed that the average American is uniformed, so they decided that a few educated people would make the correct choice for the entire population. The founding fathers also thought the Electoral College would be effective because at that time the only way of communication was through word of mouth and through letters. With the Electoral College, it was a more simple way to get the votes to one place and count them. A major criticism of the Electoral College is the popular candidate may lose to the electoral vote. This means that if majority of the population voted for candidate A, but majority of the electoral votes were for candidate B, the president of the nation would become candidate B. This situation has occurred four out of the fifty-six presidential elections that have been held in the United States. I believe that the Electoral College should be abolished so that the popular candidate would win the election, people would feel that they are making a difference in the society they live in, and we should replace the Electoral College with popular choice or allow our house of representatives to vote for the presidents instead.
The Electoral College is the indirect election of the President of the United States. We, the people, vote for the president which determines the popular vote, but we don't truly elect the president, it just selects the electors so THEY choose the president. That is the second-part process of choosing electors. The first-part process is that the political parties in each state select electors. Although this assembly was needed back when the constitution was first established, because people didn't know much about the requirements of a President and they didn't know much about the presidential candidates because of the very little technology back then, we no longer need the Electoral College, and we should no longer have this assembly of electors.
The electoral system was first established in the constitution in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2-4. In short, the constitution stated that each state appointed their electors in accordance to their state legislature. Each state would have an amount of electors equivalent to the number of representatives in the house and senate combined for that state. It also said that “no Senator, Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States could be appointed as an elector.”
The Electoral College was established by our nation’s founding fathers. It was recognized in the Constitution as an agreement between the vote in Congress for the election of President and the popular vote for the election of President. This election system created representative democracy instead of having direct democracy. The Electoral College began in a time when the federal government did not have the power they have today. The idea
Back in 1787 at the constitutional convention, America created a new way to elect our president. The electoral college was created by the founding fathers as a compromise. Many wanted Congress to choose the president, while many others wanted the people. With this, the electoral college was created. It worked great back then, but we are in the 21st century now. This way of voting is outdated and unfair to the American people. Now there are better alternatives than the electoral college. The electoral college needs to be amended.