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Why the electoral college should be abolished essays
Argumentative essay against electoral college
Why the electoral college should not be abolished
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The Electoral College is a confusing topic to most people, and its effect on how votes are represented in presidential elections. Essentially people vote and electors, people assigned to vote on the people 's behalf, and the candidate that wins the popular election in that state 's gets the the Electoral College votes for that state. The amount of votes is based on the population and the first candidate to win two hundred and seventy Electoral College votes wins. This system is debated on whether it benefits or hinders the election process, and how it does this is also debated by political experts.
The Electoral College is seen by some to have a negative effect on representing how voters really feel in presidential elections, however
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When the article it discusses electoral dynamics,it leads to the debate of how the elections can change often. The authors, Charles Prysby and Carmine Scavo, explores how “a lopsided victory for one party may be followed by a landslide for the other party . Electoral changes can be divided into two types: short-term and long-term” (2012). The short term changes are caused by fluctuations that vary for the particular election. Examples of short term changes include characteristics of candidates or condition of …show more content…
In the presidential primaries, closed primary voters tend to be seen more extreme than the voters in the open primary. Voters in a closed primary can only vote for the party they have registered themselves as through the voter’s registration form they are required to fill out before they are even eligible to vote. Norrander states that more independents vote in the open primaries rather than the closed primaries, unlike the republicans and democrats, because of the rules and party identification. In the states that conduct the primaries using party identification laws were seen to have more party members and few independents. In a survey, Norrander found that the higher level of voters who claimed to be independents were in the states that had either semi-closed primaries or open primaries. The fewest amount of independent voters was found in the semi-open and closed primary
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.
Electoral College is Wrong The Electoral College is the name given to a group of electors who are nominated by political activists and party members within the states. The electoral college really isn't necessary and should be abolished. There are numerous reasons why this is so important. With the Electoral College in effect, third parties don't have a chance to become the president, which isn't fair.
If you think on the Election Day, you just voted for US president, then you are mistaken, just like millions of Americans who hope their votes will pick the next president. When voting for President, we actually vote for state electors who hold electoral votes. Electoral votes are the votes that decide the victory of a candidate in an election. This Electoral College System has limited democracy to people in three major ways. Electoral College holds the ability to alter the results of elections over popular votes, discriminates against candidates to campaign in certain states, and creates high voter turnouts.
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
Due to the discrepancy between the winner of the popular vote and the winner of the electoral college in the most recent election, there has been a lot of talk about eliminating the electoral college and moving to a direct popular vote. While many people argue for this shift, usually with little knowledge of what a popular vote election would look like, there are also many citizens who are opposed to the idea. In our polarized political climate, this fact is not surprising. Those who support the electoral college defend it by claiming that it is not only constitutional, but it also represents the whole county, and makes for a more certain, legitimate election process.
The Electoral College was created by the framers at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. They believe that it wasn’t a good idea for the people to elect the president directly because they did not trust that voters would have enough information to make a good choice. The Electoral College basically chooses who the next president will be since it takes away our freedom to vote away. The Electoral College should be abolished because it’s undemocratic, the small states are overrepresented, and it hurts third parties.
The United States of America is often touted as the guiding beacon of democracy for the entirety of the modern world. In spite of this tremendous responsibility the political system of the United States retains some aspects which upon examination appear to be significantly undemocratic. Perhaps the most perplexing and oft misunderstood of these establishments is the process of electing the president and the institution known as the Electoral College. The puzzle of the Electoral College presents the American people with a unique conundrum as the mark of any true democracy is the citizens’ ability to elect their own ruling officials. Unfortunately, the Electoral College system dilutes this essential capacity by introducing an election by
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 Constitutional Convention of 1787 gave birth to the Electoral College system. The Electoral College system can be briefly described as a system where voters are able to vote for candidates(electors) on election day. Electors then cast their vote for a candidate in their respective party. Our Founding Fathers described the electoral college system in Article
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 most influential structural element of the new primary system is the newfound practice of the political parties choosing a favored candidate before the primary season. The parties then throw all their support and financial backing behind this candidate and instantly make him/her a front-runner. While this element is standard among the two parties, the remaining structure of the primary system differs between the two main political parties. While both the Democratic and Republican parties hold open and closed primaries, the two parties hold many of their state primaries on separate dates. Additionally, the two parties have different rules that determine how each state’s delegates are allotted. The Democrats practice the proportional representation method of delegate allocation. The Republicans, on the other hand, pract...
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.
Originating in 1787, the Electoral College was created as the official body within American politics that elects the president and vice president. The decision of who will win is based off the vote totals in each state, and “the founding fathers established it in the constitution as a compromise between election of the president by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.” (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, “What is the Electoral College?”). During this time, the job of the Electoral College was to make peace between differing states and federal interest groups, provide popular participation in elections, give a vote to less populated states, and keep the president’s powers separate from Congress.
Finally, these consequences go far beyond simple "fairness" issues. Too many times in American history the Electoral College has single-handedly defeated the purpose of democracy in our country. Since the first presidential election, there have been more than a dozen instances in which somebody has been elected president without a majority of the votes. The following are examples from how the electoral college has disrupted an election: Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, and now George Bush.
2016 is slowly approaching as 2015 comes to an end and thus ushers in a new President at the end of the year! The 2016 election will be held on November 8th, 2016 and will be the 58th quadrennial presidential election. With each presidential election comes the controversy on the basis of how they were elected. Primarily, the publics opinion on the electoral college and how it is the actual determining factor in who is chosen for presidency. The problems that may spring forward will be what the electoral college actually is and how it works, why the founding fathers created the Electoral College, major criticisms on the Electoral College, and why it should be abolished.