...Omar Sharif Should the Electoral College be abolished? The invention and approval of the electoral college by the Constitutional Committee in 1787 resulted in an electoral system whereby the election of the president, every 4 years, is determined by members of the electoral college and not the popular vote. Each state receives a number of electoral college votes (number of state congress members) and this is amended every 10 years to reflect changes in state populations. However, there is a growing movement to abolish and replace the current Presidential electoral system with a more democratic system that more accurately reflects the popular vote. Firstly, to understand why the electoral college became the chosen system, it is important to understand the issues faced by the Constitutional committee. James Madison wrote at the time "There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections." Therefore, whilst many members acknowledged that a nationwide popular vote would be ideal, state conflict over the rights of slaves, which divided the nation, was the ultimate deciding factor in the choice of electoral system. However, there were other highly influential...
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...Briana Heck Mrs. Dawson Business Research and Writing 17 January 2017 The Electoral College was established by the founding fathers in the Constitution. It is a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. The process of the Electoral College consists of the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors where they vote for the President and the Vice President, and the counting of the electoral votes by Congress. The Electoral College has 538 electors, with a majority of 270 electoral votes required to elect the President. Each candidate running for President in your state has their own electors. The electors are generally chosen by the candidate’s...
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...It looks like the founders of the Electoral College thought we aren’t smart enough to choose our own president. Therefore, they created the Electoral College to balance the power of large and small states. It was also created because the founders believed a charismatic tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come into power. So should we get rid of the indirect method of electing the president that is currently being used? I think so yes. The Electoral College should be abolished for three main reasons. It is undemocratic because it doesn’t fairly represent the will of the people; it hurts third parties by giving the two-party system too much power; it gives small states to much power. The Electoral College is undemocratic and every...
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...what is known as electoral votes. When you vote you are voting for electors that then elect the president based on the states votes instead of just electing the president by popular demand. This can be a problem because the people in the electoral college can go against their party. In the chances of a tie then the choice of president is given to the House of Representatives and that might not always give the people a fair vote. The electoral college is not necessary anymore and the President should be nominated through popular vote. To begin, some electors might not even vote for their party's candidate. Bradford Plumer writes, “In the same vein, faithless electors have occasionally refused to vote for their party's candidate and cast a deciding vote for whomever they please…” (Source 2). This shows that even when we vote in electors they may not always vote for the candidate that is in their party. This can make the voting process unfair because people will vote in electors to vote for someone and then they go against it and for for another person. This is just one way that electoral votes are unfair....
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...The electoral college has served its purpose to help elect the President of the United States for 200 years. All though the electoral college helps the nominees win the popular vote, it does not mean that they will be elected. About 7% of the presidential elections were won by the loser of the popular vote because they won the electoral vote the most recent being the year 2000(Black, Eric). I believe that the electoral college should be used to elect the President because, the candidates Advertise for themselves in areas with large populations( For example: California, New York, and Texas) leaving the small states( Nebraska) with no sense of who to vote in favor for.The candidates not understanding that most states that don’t get advertisement have the higher voter turnout(Miller, Joe). Although there are reasons that the electoral college should not be supported, using the method that has worked and is effective to get the popular vote would help all the candidates get elected and faster....
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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 Electoral College Should Be Abolished The Electoral College has been around for over 200 years. It was made in a time when the population of the United States wasn’t as large as it is now so, the Electoral College helped give smaller populated areas more power in elections. There are 538 qualified electors and to become president you’ll need 270 votes from the Electoral College. The amount of electoral votes a state gets is determined by the population of the whole state. A state is given one electoral vote for every representative and two for each senator. When a person goes to vote they aren't really voting for the president they are voting for an elector to cast their vote on the candidate that gets the most popular votes in that state. So, if the population of a state votes for a presidential candidate by even 1% more than the other, all the electors in that state need to cast in their vote for the presidential candidate that won by that 1%. For years, the question of whether the Electoral College should be abolished or not has been floating around. The Electoral College should be abolished. It takes away voting rights of...
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...Do you think that the electoral college should be abolished or is it a good idea. The electoral college is a good thing because it gives everyone the right to vote and it helps to elect the president of the United States. I am going to use document A which is the electoral votes and the states that have the most votes. Then I will use document C which talks about the way the electoral college is and how it helps pick the leader for the United States. Then use document E which is how the electoral college should not be a thing and how it takes so long to figure out the president or who it will be as the next leader. Then last document F talks about how the electoral college and how the electoral college is unfair to smaller states. So the states that are bigger like california that has 55 electoral votes is unfair because is you take a state like wyoming that has 3 votes then they have less say. The two...
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...The popular vote should be used for an Presidential Election. The Electoral College is basically people voting for people to vote for who they want as president. The Electoral College makes something simple so much more complex. It would be easier to just use the popular vote instead of having people vote to vote for who they want. The popular vote is a much better representation on who people really want as their president. A reason the Electoral college shouldn’t be used because it shows lack of faith in American voters . The Electoral college was formed in the late 1700’s because of people that might lack knowledge of presidential candidates and because the founding fathers didn’t want a direct election. At the present time, We can easily...
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...All of the sections of government were balanced and in check with the other sections. Some people have said that if we abolished the Electoral College it would remove a big part of the free and balanced nature of our American government system. “ The desire of Americans to maintain a balanced government where no one source of power reigns above any other, calls for such systems as the bicameral legislature and the Electoral College” (McCollester). Others have stated that because the citizens of our country elect the Electoral College Members it should keep it fair and balanced. The individuals that are appointed to the Electoral College are representative of the political parties that they represent. They also have a duty to support and uphold the agenda of that political party. While citizen’s vote and choose representatives, the representatives actually “control the drawing of electoral districts and thereby decide who the representatives will represent” (Thompson). When our founding fathers created the Electoral College, we can agree that their intention was to keep the process fair and balanced, not allow the representatives to choose their...
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...If college and the Electoral College have anything in common, it is that they both throw away the importance of what was once important. Grades have less value in college; popular votes, as in the public’s votes, have less value in the Electoral College. Nonetheless, both have a plethora of differences, a major one being that no one wants to terminate college whereas the fate of the Electoral College is hotly debated. Should the Electoral College be abolished? To conclude an answer, one should understand the functionalities of it. The Electoral College is a process, penned by the Founding Fathers hundreds of years ago, that is used to determine the United States’ President and vice-president indirectly. Each state will receive a certain amount...
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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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...The President of the United States of America is responsible for the most powerful military, laws and their enforcement as well as an arsenal of apocalyptic amount of weapons that can end civilization and who ever makes world changing decisions should not be elected through such an outdated system. This election should not be taken lightly. Although it may seem dramatic, The Iraqi war and its expenses along with major cuts to the government's revenue, hostility to anything regarding climate change, the cost of health care near doubling and nearly crippling the economy. Although while in office Bush did implement Education programs which increased scored and a HIV relief program saving millions of lives (Matthews, 2013), and like any human being put under the stress of the most demanding job in the world, will make difficult choices and some have good results and others have horrendous consequences, but in the end he was elected by the majority of the american...
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...The Electoral College is a very fair way to elect the President of the United States it represents all areas of the country. I don’t think the Electoral College should be replaced there may be so ways to improve it but not replace. The Electoral College was approved when the 12th Amendment was ratified in 1804. I think this system is fair because all areas of the country must be heard so it gives every state a voice. If you look at past elections different states have decided the election. Sometime it Iowa, maybe Wisconsin or Michigan, even Ohio or North Carolina. This system forces candidates to go to Iowa and Ohio to hear the concerns of those people. The Electoral College changes often when the census is done and congressional lines are...
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...In the light of reasons why the electoral college should be eliminated there are also reasons to argue otherwise. In the first place, if the electoral college were to be eliminated it would cause the candidates to focus their attention on states where they have gotten high number of votes in the past. According to Schultheis, “The candidates would instead go to where their votes are – even if those votes are in a deeply Democratic – or Republican – leaning state”. For the Democrats, they would pay more attention on Democratic states like California and New York. Republicans would focus on Texas and deep south states. This would change the process of campaigning be making the smaller even less significant. There would be no need for candidates...
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