Arguments Against The Electoral College

During the Revolutionary Period, much debate spurred between the colonists involving the issue of how presidents would be elected. During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Founding Fathers “considered several methods of electing the President, including selection by Congress, by the governors of the states, by the state legislatures, by a special group of Members of Congress chosen by lot, and by direct popular election” ( ). This issue ended up being solved by the so-called Committee of Eleven on Postponed Matters. They proposed the idea of an indirect election of the president by electors, which originated from the system Romans used to select the Pope. This idea, known as the Electoral College, was founded due to many unresolved political issues and is a highly controversial and criticized topic to this day. The Electoral College, as stated above, is a system used by the United States government that allows an indirect election of the president. Each state has a specific amount of electors, and each elector votes for whomever …show more content…
Statistics show that 74% of the population is against the Electoral College. The first reason as to why it is so highly criticized is because a president can be won without a majority of the popular vote. If most of the United States population supports one candidate, but the electors’ majority supports the other, the candidate chosen by the electors becomes president. It has happened at least four times in the past and arguably violates the powers of the common people. Another reason why the Electoral College is highly criticized is because the weight each elector has between small and large states vary greatly. In 2010, for example, “an individual citizen in Wyoming has more than triple the weight in electoral votes as an individual in California” ( ). These major criticisms are the reason why the Electoral College is so highly disliked by the American