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 …show more content…
Under the process of the Electoral College, a member of the general electorate casts a vote for the candidate in the set party but since there’s no federal law that requires elector to vote for their set candidate. The elector doesn’t have to cast a vote for the initially agreed candidate. However, twenty-nine states and the district of Columbia have states law that bounds electors to casted their vote to whichever party thy have pledged to but still there are 21 states in the union that have no control. Therefore, despite the outcome of a state’s popular vote, the state’s elector have the freedom to vote in whatever manner they so choose to without any legal repercussions (Kimberling, 2000). Even in the states with the laws, the repercussion is slim to nothing. For example, during the 2000 elections, Barbara Lett-Simmons was an electoral from the District of Columbia in the Democratic party and see didn’t cast a vote for presidential candidate President Al Gore when she was supposed to. She didn’t have any repercussion but it calls doubt from the American people in the electoral college because if the vote isn’t going to the candidate in which it supposed to be then why is there even an electoral college. So since the electors of the electoral college isn’t going to vote for the candidate in which they pledge to then faithless electors show the …show more content…
It pushes the two-party system and disregards states. Majority of the presidential campaigning is between the major parties in American: Republican and Democrats. So campaigning is spent on swaying the people to cast their votes for either candidate. Presidential campaigns have clear tendency to concentrated their resources on state both candidates have certainty pull while ignoring the states that favors one candidate or the other. With the winner-take-all system, a candidate that already is well ahead in a particular state doesn’t spend any more time trying to campaign in the state nor either does the losing candidate try to win over the state. So, candidates will tend not to bother with states where they are either ahead or behind. For example, Massachusetts’ residents said that during the 2000 general election, they rarely saw campaign advertising from either major-party candidate (Gregg, 2003). By fact that Massachusetts was counted to be in favor of Gore. And by contrast, residents of Illinois complained about having been overwhelmed by presidential campaign ads. Illinois was swamped with campaign ads because according to the polls, it was characterized as a “battleground state (Gregg, 2003). Another example is the 1960 election between Senator John Kennedy and Vice President Ricard Nixon. In Stanley Kelley’s study, it found out that both Kennedy and Nixon spent seventy-four percent of their total campaign
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.
If the candidate doesn't win the electors' votes, then they will not have a chance of winning.
If you think on the Election Day, you just voted for US president, than you are mistaken, just like millions of Americans who hope their votes would pick next president. When voting for President, we actually vote for state electors who hold Electoral votes. Electoral votes are the votes that decide victory of candidate in election. This Electoral College System has limited democracy to people in major three ways. Electoral college holds an ability to alter result of Election over popular votes, discriminates candidates to campaign in certain states not others, and creates high voter turnouts.
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.
The Electoral College allows a candidate to win the presidency without winning the majority of popular votes. Additionally, the unequal representation created by the number of electors each state has leads to a differential worth depending upon a voter’s state of residency. Moreover, the winner-take-all rule of the results in votes which are essentially rendered worthless if they are contrary the state majority. Finally, the system places much of the focus and power to effect elections in the hands of so called swing states that are not historically aligned with only one party. (Dahl, 80-83) These aspects of the U.S. political system are utterly counterintuitive and stand in stark contrast to many of the cardinal ideals of
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.
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 Electoral College was a compromise between those at the Constitutional Convention who wanted the US president elected by popular vote and those who wanted congress to select the president. They believed that having it where each state would get a certain number of votes based on population would keep a manipulative and charming person out of office. They thought it would prevent bribery and corruption along with secret dealings. I don’t think that this is the case and it one of the reason I feel that the Electoral College should be abolished.
Americans do not vote for their presidential or vice-presidential candidate. Instead, they indicate their preference of candidate. Whichever candidate gets a plurality of the vote in a state gets all the Electors for that state. Each state's number of Electors is based on the number of Representatives and Senators it has in Congress. Once a candidate gets a plurality, the Electors vote in the "Electoral College" (a sort of caucus in their state six weeks after the election) for that candidate. So a candidate who gets just one more vote than the other in a given state wins all the votes from that state. Notably, although it is called a College, the Electoral College is a process administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It is not a particular place (NARA 1).
Believe it or not, the President of the United States is not selected the day after Election Day. In fact, there are multiple steps involved after the popular vote. After the votes are counted, a winner for each state is declared (except for Nebraska and Maine, who split their votes). Then, electors (or people from the winning party selected to represent the party) meet to cast their votes. Since the electors for the winning party almost always vote for their party, all the electoral votes from a given state get counted towards the candidate. On January 6th the following year, the electoral votes are officially counted in Congress. The presidential candidate that received 270 electoral votes or more wins the election. Since the number
Unknowingly to many Americans, when they go to vote on Election day, they aren 't actually voting for their favorite presidential candidate but, they are actually voting to elect a group of state electors, who will select the president on the behalf of the general public. They have pledged to vote for a specific candidate in the Electoral College, which is the group of representatives that actually elects the President and Vice President. Currently, the Electoral College has 538 members who represent each state, equal to the number of representatives and senators that represent the state in Congress. One exception is Washington D.C. who still has three electoral votes, despite not having any representation in congress. For a candidate to win
If the Electoral College stays, then the people will not be able to choose the right person for the right job. So this shows how it can cause so many people to be frustrated with the Electoral College, which does not really help the country at all, in terms of the choosing a new President.
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.
With the political parties in control of presidential politics, the function of the electoral college has changed drastically. Rather than having individuals seek to become electors and then vote for whomever they please for president, the parties have turned the process upside down by arranging slates of electors, all pledged to support the candidate nominated by the