...Electoral College is a group of citizens that is representing all of the United States that is voting for only the United States president. The electoral college votes is not considered the same as the popular votes whereas majority rules with popular votes. Electoral votes has a maximum of 270 votes that is necessary to elect the President of our country. There has been many situations where citizens thought that Electoral College votes should be stop; and that the United Stated should go on to popular votes. During my research on electoral college there was many facts that I gained knowledge from. How was the electoral college structured and the different functions of the electoral college? Comparison between the Electoral College and the popular vote. The value of an individual vote under the electoral college system when it comes to...
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...The Electoral College and the Popular vote have been a part of U.S. history since the founding of our country itself even though the actually process of both systems have changed since the late 1700’s and early 1800’s when they were first implemented. The debate on these two-unique systems have been brought to light due to the recent 2016 Presidential Election between the Presidential Candidates, Senator Hilary Clinton(D) and Donald Trump(R), when Donald Trump(R) won the 2016 Presidential Election by winning the Electoral College vote, even though he lost the popular vote. The purpose of this essay is to explain both voting systems and explain both in the best and most detail possible, as well as my personal opinion on the two, and if the current...
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...popular vote. It was soon decided that a new system; Electoral College, would replace popular voting. The Electoral College allows a candidate to become president without the votes of 25 percent of the country, based on how the electoral votes are distributed. The Electoral Vote can also negatively impact third party or independent candidates. Political equality is unbalanced when comparing popular and electoral vote. A complication with the Electoral College is the involvement of Congress in the event of a tie vote or no candidate receiving the majority vote. With all reasons...
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...20 years, by the popular vote. Additionally, if you are a Republican in Maryland, because Maryland is predominantly a Democratic state, your vote would not matter in the majority of elections. Be it resolved that the United States presidential election be decided by the electoral college. (Pause…) We support this resolution on these four contentions. First, rural areas are constantly ignored by the electoral college and secondly, the electoral college fails to represent the national will. Also, the distribution of the electoral college votes per state is not equally dispersed. (Pause…) Lastly, the electoral college depresses the voter turnout. Be it. Resolved that the general population determines who wins the national election, not the electoral college. (Pause…)...
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...“The Electoral College is a process, not a place (What is the).” The Electoral College has been around since the Constitution, but the reason for its existence is strange. When the Constitution was being created the Founding Fathers believed that the new found American citizens would be too stupid to govern themselves, and thus, The Electoral College was born. The Electoral College functions by giving each state a select number of votes based on population (What is the). Once each state gets their Electoral votes they must choose Electors; this is a two part process. First, Political Parties from the state chose potential electors, and then the people of the state vote on which electors they see fit (Electoral College Fast). Since its creation, The Electoral College has gone unquestioned, and we’ve never stopped to ask ourselves if it should still be in place. People are in opposition to The Electoral College because they believe it creates a sense of inequality, and lack of voice in vital elections. On the other hand, some people believe that The Electoral College gives states with smaller populations a voice, and is helping stupid people from making the wrong choice in elections. To some, The Electoral College has a magnitude of flaws perpetuating a unfair social hierarchy; to others, it is a system that is preventing inequality and anarchy to flourish in the United States. People believe that the The Electoral College is an unfair process created to silence the...
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...Electoral College Debate Introduction As said by Juan Williams, a journalist for FOX News, “In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush, but still lost the election. The Supreme Court's ruling in Florida gave Bush that pivotal state, and doomed Gore to lose the Electoral College. That odd scenario - where the candidate with the most votes loses - has happened three times in U.S. history.” Although forty-five U.S. presidents have been elected and this scenario has only happened three times, it still leads to scrutiny, questions, and arguments about the effectiveness of the Electoral College. These disputes have gone on for quite a while as to which method of choosing the president is the best option. The electoral...
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...Llerena BUS 200 Dr. Lasher 3/19/12 The Electoral College is defined as “a body of electors chosen by the voters of each state to elect the President and Vice President of the United States”. The Electoral College system has been a staple in the United States since the ratification of The Constitution, however there is much debate on whether it should remain or be done away with completely. In this essay, I will give a brief history on the Electoral College, how it works, and why it was created in the first place. Despite the shortcomings and limitations of the Electoral College I believe that it should not be abolished because it contributes to the cohesiveness of the country, it maintains a federal system of government, and it maintains the interests of minority groups. To begin with, I will discuss how the Electoral College works. The Electoral College operates by having each state allocate a number of electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) along with the number of its U.S. Representatives (varies from state to state depending on its population). Next, after all their caucuses and primaries, each party nominates their candidates for president and vice president. After that, the people from each state vote for a party’s slate of electors. Whichever party slate gains the most popular votes becomes the slate of electors for that state. Then, the electors meet in their respective state’s capitol and cast their votes for president and vice president. Finally...
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...the Electoral College – an indirect voting system and not a national popular vote. This system was implemented by the Founding Fathers about 200 years ago (Shea 2005, 4-6) In recent times the debate about whether the Electoral College is still an effective system considering the circumstances the United States has to face now, is arising more and more. “American society is highly polarized in its perception of the existing election system” (Belenky 2012, ix). This paper has the aim to contrast the arguments against and in favor of the Electoral College and to demonstrate possible alternatives. In the conclusion an answer to the question “Should the Electoral College be reformed?” will be given. 2. How it works The Electoral College, as it is outlined in the 12th Amendment, is a body of electors chosen to elect the President and Vice President of the United States. In Article II of the Constitution the electing procedure is written down. Each state delegates a specific number of electors to the Electoral College, dependent on its representation in Congress (House of Representatives & Senate). According to the fact that each state has two Senators and at least one Representative (dependent on the size of the population in the state), each state has three electors at the minimum (for example Alaska). With 55 electors, California has the largest number at the moment (see illustration 1) (Electoral-vote.com 2013). Figure 1: Blank map of the U.S. with electoral vote ...
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...The Electoral College: The Fear of Mobocracy Katherine Kinert Olympic College, Bremerton Abstract The Electoral College is a very important part of the United States Electoral System. However, very few Americans actually understand how it works. The lack of political efficacy in this country is a large reason of why some people do not think the Electoral College should be abolished. However, as Eric Black (2012) stated in an article on PBS News Hour, “Polls for many years have reliably shown that a majority of Americans would prefer a straightforward popular vote for the presidency.” Originally the Electoral College was established to prevent majority factions from having too much power causing mobocracy to occur. However, this system is outdated and the conditions that prompted the founding fathers to institute this precaution no longer exist today. Also, the fact that almost all the states use a winner-take-all system to determine which candidate gets all of the electoral votes for the state. Will abolishing the Electoral College rid the United States from mobocracy? Introduction The Electoral College is outdated and does not follow the true spirit of American Democracy. David Stewart (2013), a lawyer in Washington, D.C., states that, “Because most people knew little about public events or leaders from distant states, the convention delegates reasoned, they would not make a wise choice between presidential candidates.” Today, people have access to information through TV...
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...Electoral College Alan A. Garcia GCC On the first Tuesday of November, the US citizens cast their ballots for the upcoming president. All of the votes go towards a state elector which then casts the vote for the state. There is a total of 538 electoral votes and in order for a presidential candidate to win the election, they must gain majority of the votes, at least 270 electoral votes. “A state's number of electoral votes equals the number of the state's Congressional delegation (2 Senators + the number of Representatives)” (Vote Smart, Paragraph 5). The ballots go to a block of electors, which pledge to vote for what the majority chooses. There are many flaws to the Electoral College, as well as positives. The Electoral College is used to distribute power from heavily populated states, which helps out small states such as Wyoming, a small state that only counts as 3 electoral votes, compared to...
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...Relevancy of the Electoral College The President is defined as the elected head, or leader, of a republican state. A republic a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives. The United States of America has proficiently based their processes on electing these officials, known as a President, on this basis. Their process included the voting of citizens in the United States for their [the people's] preferred delegate. The Founding Fathers of the United States developed a system where for the votes of the people to be counted for at a higher rate. This system is known as the Electoral College. The United States’ electoral college system throughout the years have been seen to work exceptionally well but many perceive the Electoral College to be both unfair and controversial. The Electoral College's role throughout the years of elections was ultimately against the true morals of the election process. To identify the controversial issue brought upon by the...
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...You may think that the presidential candidate with the most votes will become the next president, but that is not the case thanks to the electoral college. The electoral college was first established in 1787, almost when the government first started. The electoral college has decided every presidential election except one in 1824. If for some reason a presidential candidate do not get the amount of electoral votes needed, the House of Representatives will decide on the next president. The electoral college should be kept the same and not be changed or abolished. The electoral college should be kept the same because it gives smaller states a say in the election, the third party has a chance to persuade the election, and it takes away the chance of big population states to take over the whole election. The most important reason to keep the electoral college the same is because it takes away the chance of big population states taking over the whole election. An important reason the electoral college should be kept because it gives the smaller states have a say in the election. The electoral college is based off the population of the state voting towards electors which go towards the president as points basically. Each...
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...The Electoral College (EC) was established in Article II of the Constitution and amended by the 12th Amendment in 1804. Each state gets a number of electors equal to its number of members in the U.S. House of Representatives plus one for each of its two U.S. Senators creating a total of 538 electoral votes. A majority winner must receive 270 votes to be elected. With a few minor exceptions, the Electoral College gives all of the electoral votes for each state to the plurality winner in that state, regardless of the margin of victory. This "winner takes all" arrangement at the state level can elect a President who loses the popular vote, as was the case in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000. Firstly, one reason supporting the abolishment of the EC is that it suppresses the popular will. This is because it may allow a candidate to win despite only receiving a minority of votes across the country as a whole. For example, in the 2000 elections Gore received approximately 500,000 more of the popular vote than Bush winning in most major cities and urban counties. However, Bush received more electoral votes throughout the rest of the nation winning more than three times the amount of counties than Gore. It also suppresses the popular will through faithless electors. These are members of the House of Representatives who were chosen to vote for a party but do not vote for their state’s preferred candidate. For example, in the 2000 election, Barbara Simmons abstained voting for Al Gore to protest...
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...The factors that influence the founders in creating the Electoral College were brought on by lessons learned in the early elections the result of those factors are still used to this day, two centuries later. The founding fathers had a lot to consider when it came to selecting how they would choose the leader for their newly formed government. The first president was chosen by the founding fathers before the election of 1800 in which the candidate with the most votes was elected president and the runner up was to be the vice president. This was proven to be a problem due to the different views of the parties that were running against one another. Having just won its independence from Great Britain and only having the Monarchy as a model to obtain guidance it was very important that the founding fathers looked at every angle of picking the person to lead the country at the time. The wrong type of man at the helm of the country could be devastating to what the founding fathers had worked on establishing. If the people were to have a say in who was to be president the electoral college could be seen as a way to protect them from a person that could persuade them with words but truly have a hidden agenda or not have the best interest of the country in mind a “demigod “. Adolf Hitler is a good example of this type of person becoming a leader that was able to persuade an entire country into trying to take over the world and this kind of person was exactly what our founding fathers...
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...The electoral college system, what the United States of America uses to elect the President ever four years, is an outdated system that is not needed and does not make the election process any easier. We have had two instances where the popular vote has been different than the electoral college numbers. In an effort to keep the President of the United States of America popular, we must start off with electing someone who earned the majority of votes in the first place. To do this, we must use the popular vote. Accordingly, this paper will be directed toward the general audience of all voters and will discuss how the electoral college system is a bad idea to continue using and why the popular vote is the correct way to go. So, what is the “electoral college”...
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