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Electoral college essays
Electoral college essays
Electoral college essays
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Voting is at the center of every democratic system. In america, it is the system in which a president is elected into office, and people express their opinion. Many people walk into the voting booth with the thought that every vote counts, and that their vote might be the one that matters above all else. But in reality, America’s voting system is old and flawed in many ways. Electoral College is a commonly used term on the topic of elections but few people actually know how it works.
Every ten years after a census, politicians redraw the district boundaries that determine the house and state legislature. The problem with this system is that the same politicians who redraw the district boundaries are the ones who are being elected by the
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Instead of a direct democracy, the United States has what is called a representative democracy, which means that when you vote, you are voting for a representative who in turn will vote for the president. This system may seem fair but it gives more power to people in a less populated states than those who live a highly populated state. If the 538 total votes in the Electoral College were divided evenly, then there would be one vote for every 574,000 people. However, the rules of the Electoral College say that each state gets at least three votes, regardless of population. Then the rest of the votes are given out based on population. This happens because the Electoral College gives the votes to the state rather than the people. California has about 37,000,000 people and has fifty-five compared to the 560,000 people in Wyoming, which gets represented by three votes. So Wyoming gets one electoral vote or one for every 187,000 people. However California gets 55 electoral votes, or one for every 677,000 people. This means Wyomingites have three and a half times the power of Californians in the Electoral
Abolishing the Electoral College is the best option for our democracy because keeping it slim the chances for independent candidates to win and unfair voting distribution to exist. In Document B, the 1992 presidential election shows Ross Perot with 19,743,821 votes but 0 electoral votes. Independent candidates like Ross Perot don’t get any electoral votes but millions of popular votes. This proves my claim to be true because major party candidates are receiving all electoral votes and are not allowing independent candidates to have a fair election. In Document F it states, “Because each state casts only one vote, the single representative in Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as the 55 representatives from California,
The Electoral College is a system where the President is directly elected. This process has been used in many past elections as well as the current 2016 election. This process also helps narrow down the large numbers that were made by the popular votes, into a smaller number that is easier to work with for electing the President. Some states use a system called “winner-takes-all”, which is another system that is connected with the Electoral College. This allows a candidate with the most electoral votes, to get the rest of the votes that the state provides. This has made it very unfair to many people, because the Electoral College has the most advantage for candidates. The Electoral College is a very unfair system that causes any candidate to win easily if he or she has the highest votes, and makes the number of voters
The Electoral College has been the favored method by the United States to elect the president for many years. When the College was first created in 1787 it was seen as an efficient and reliable way to vote the president into office. It has been more than 2 centuries since this method of electing was chosen and many things have changed in U.S. society. The Electoral College is failing to keep up with these advancements in society and a new method must be chosen soon.
Every four years, the citizens of America migrate to their respective polling locations and cast their vote. On this important day, the second Tuesday of November, the next President of the United States is elected. The election race for United States presidential candidates undergo a political marathon, negotiating primaries, party conventions and an electoral college system along the way. The electoral college is one of the main aspect of a presidential election. The Electoral College is made up of electors in each state, who represent the states popular vote. Each presidential party or candidate designates a group of electors in each state, equal to the States electoral votes, who are considered to be loyal to that candidate, to each State’s
The United States of America is a democracy country that is characterized by the equality of rights and privileges. The Electoral College is considered undemocratic because it gives a higher percentage of the voting power to states with low population. Thus, the popular vote should be counted and not the electoral votes. In Document D of the Electoral College DBQ, there’s a chart that shows the comparison of population and electoral votes in 2010. In the chart, it has the twelve states that are less populated plus DC with the total population of 12,500,722 and total electoral vote of 44. In addition, Illinois has the total population of 12,830,632 and the total electoral vote of 20. This shows that Illinois would have less electoral vote than the 12 states plus DC which has 44. It is unfair to the larger states and it shows the unequal electoral votes to the states. In Document F, Bradford Plumer wrote, “the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, where the state
The electors in each state are equal to the number of representatives that state has in Congress resulting in at least three electors per state regardless of population (McKenzie 285). Each state has two votes to correspond to the senators representing that state in Congress, and then each state has one vote to correspond to the House representative that represents that state in Congress. Smaller states comprise a higher percentage of the total electoral votes than would a popular vote for the president in those states (Muller 1257). The Founders intended the Electoral College to protect overshadowing the small states’ interests of the larger populous states by allowing at least three representative votes rather than none at all, and the smaller states were not willing to give control of the election process to the larger states, which was similar to their fight for representation in Congress (Muller 1250). However, it ignores the people who voted against the winner, since once the result is determined at the state level; the losing voters no longer have any significance nationally (Wagner 579). Wagner also points to the fact that the winner-take-all system can lead to selecting the minority candidate over the majority vote, as in the George
This process of electing a president is unjust and is not based off of the people’s views. In Document D the chart provided illustrates how some of the electoral votes favor some states over others; for example the twelve states listed and the district of Columbia seem to have a bigger say in the presidential election process than the citizens of Illinois. This itself is unfair because Illinois deserves to have an accurate representation of their votes, the same as other states do. This shows that the Electoral College undercuts the principle of one person, one vote, and therefore violates political equality. “It is not a neutral counting device... it favors some citizens over others, depending solely upon the state in which voters cast their votes for president” (Document D). Political equality means all citizens are equal and it also allows citizens to partake in state affairs, including the right to vote and the right to challenge elections. However the Electoral College violates the principle of this for the fact that it weighs some citizens’ votes more heavily than others (video). Generally it makes no sense for the people to vote if they’re not even counted, and either way it violates their rights.
The United States is a privileged country with freedoms and opportunities many countries strive to achieve. People come into the United States in hopes to obtain these rights and make a better life for themselves; they strive to achieve “The American Dream.” Citizens are given the chance to vote, speak their mind, and live according to their desires without prejudice. However, the same government that promises hope has flaws that frustrate the American people; the Electoral College is one topic of debate. Many feel this system is a safe way to regulate who leads the country, while others feel that issues should be left to popular vote.
As the United States of America gets older, so does the presidential election voting system. The argument to change this method of voting has been becoming more and more popular as the years go on. It has been said that the Framers of the Constitution came up with this method because of the bad transportation, communication, and they feared the public’s intelligence was not suitable for choosing the President of the United States. Others say that the Framers made this method because they feared that the public did not receive sufficient information about candidates outside of their state to make such a decision based on direct popular vote. My research on this controversial issue of politics will look into the factors into why the Electoral College exists and if it is possibly outdated for today’s society. It will look into the pros and cons of this voting system, and it will explore the alternative methods of voting such as the Direct Popular vote. Many scholarly authors have gathered research to prove that this voting system is outdated and it does not accurately represent the national popular will. Many U.S. citizens value their vote because they only get one to cast towards the candidate of their choice in the presidential election. Based on the Electoral College system their vote may possibly not be represented. Because of today’s society in the U.S. the Electoral College should be abolished because it is not necessary to use a middle-man to choose our president for us. It is a vote by the people, all of us having one voice, one vote.
First of all I would like to bring to your attention that many votes don't even get counted if you call the United States a democracy. The way the whole Electoral College thing works is that each state is allowed a certain number of "electors" (the state's number of Representatives plus its Senators), who then vote for the president. The elector's vote based on the state's popular vote. After the state verifies the votes, the candidate that receives the most votes get all of that state's elector's votes. Because the state's constitution awards electoral votes that way, the innumerable individual votes become meaningless. Does that sound fair to you? It doesn't to me.
The electoral college started in the year 1804. This mechanism is a group of representatives in the United States who cast votes for the election of a leader or co leader of America. In recent years, there has been a lot of debate amongst citizens of this country on whether or not the process of electing the president is fair. To most, they can agree that something isn't right with the system for individuals in America to vote. There is too much confusion going on and not to point out the total unfairness that some don’t realize. The U.S. presidential election is biased due to the reasoning that it is out dated for its time, senators are valid to hijack the election, and the electoral college gives the Americans a right to vote for the president,
The United States of America is a representative republic. In order to sustain a representative republic, it requires an actively engaged and informed participation from its citizens. The U.S Electoral College is a process in which the president of the United States is chosen. The founders escaped a tyrannical government, installing this system to prevent corruption, and more of a federalist system. This system balances the national governments power, and the states’ power. This system varies state by state. Generally speaking, the people who make up the electoral college is made up by people who are elected by each of the state’s legislature. This federalist system proves that voters cannot simply vote for their favorable presidential candidate; they must also vote in their local elections.
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 established the process of the electoral college. The electoral college can be defined as a group of people representing their state’s population to form a majority of electoral votes that determines the United States Presidency and Vice Presidency. There are many debates on whether the electoral college properly displays democratic values. In this paper, I will go over the pros and cons of the electoral college process and gather creditable sources proving the electoral college is not democratic.
The United States Electoral College is a process of electing the president and the vice president of the nation. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors: 435 members of house of representative, 100 senators, and 3 electors from District of Columbia. The Electoral College started when the founding fathers drafted the U.S. Constitution in which many laws and the presidential election laws stated. Most states use the “winner-take-all” system, that is, the winner of the state popular vote gets all of the state’s electoral votes. This system allows some candidates to win presidency even if they lose the national popular vote by a small margin. Another voting system is called the congressional district plan. This method divides the state depending on the number of its district then distribute its electoral votes to each district. The winner of each district will have that
On the first Tuesday in November, voters cast their ballots for a presidential candidate. These votes count towards a group of electors who pledge a vote for a specific candidate in the Electoral College. Acknowledging the strong regional interests and loyalties which have played a large part in American history, proponents argue that the Electoral College system contributes to the unity of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support in order for a candidate to be elected president. Without such system, the president of the United States would be chosen through the domination of large urban areas over rural areas. As a result, residents in Idaho and Wyoming would be ignored in favor of California and Texas, leaving rural areas and small towns marginalized. Thus, the Electoral College system enhances minority status. Even though the Electoral College protects minority interests, the candidate that the majority of American citizens want as their president will not necessarily win over the presidency. Because each state gets two electors for its senators regardless of population, less populated states are overrepresented. One of the key reasons that George W. Bush won the Electoral College vote against Al Gore in the 2000 election without winning the popular vote was that he did better in the smaller states. Bush narrowly won the election, with 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266, but lost the popular vote. In the recent election of 2016, despite the fact that Hillary Clinton won almost three million more votes in the general election than Donald Trump, Trump won the Electoral College and the presidency. Just as in 2000 when George W. Bush received fewer nationwide popular votes than Al Gore, Donald Trump will serve as the President of the United States despite being supported by fewer