Electoral College: A Flawed System
For generations, a man who holds more potential power than anyone else on this imposing earth has been ordained his power by a small group of 538. This system has been continually tarnished and contorted until it arranged itself to the system of today; a warped empty shell of good intentions gone wrong. It is of my opinion that the system we have today is fallacious and must be removed with great haste. Once an idea on a path paved with good intentions, at some point a fork in the road presented itself, on which the wrong lane was taken, leaving the presidential candidates to the mercy of a process gone awry. To most, it is a little known phenomenon that the genuine voters, the hardworking people of mainstream …show more content…
In 1824,1876,1888, 2000, and 2016, the popular vote and the electoral college vote did not match. As the people voted for one candidate, the electors voted for another, leaving the United States in a mist of confusion. A major question was left unanswered, which candidate was the true winner? According to the constitution, the electoral college decides the outcome and represents the people, but as shown in these elections, this was not true. This discrepancy occurs as a result of the amount of electoral votes per state being based the number of members in the senate and house of representatives. Whichever candidate wins 270 electoral votes wins the candidacy, disregarding the popular vote. For example, in the 2000 election, Bush won the presidency, while Al Gore won the popular vote. Outrage erupted in the nation as a president was sworn into office without the support of the population. As a result of the phenomenon, a large portion of votes are rendered meaningless when a candidate loses the popular vote in a state, From this, a feeling of efficacy (when a voter feels that their vote doesn’t count) emerges, eventually leading to an endless pit in which hardly anyone votes. In order to avoid this catastrophe, our election system must go through a major metamorphosis. The opposition of this argument is that the electors should have the power to prevent an …show more content…
Residents of small states, for instance Wyoming, are much more represented than residents of bigger states such as California. This occurs because of the fact that each state receives electors based on their population, as represented by the House of Representatives, as well as two senators. The electoral college system becomes cruelly unfair to those in larger states through this paradox. No matter the population, every state holds at least one representative, and two senators, resulting, at a minimum, three electoral votes. This produces a dire consequence. In Wyoming, the state with the smallest population, every 510,000 inhabitants has one representative and two senators. In Montana however, every representative speaks for 935,000 occupants. Both states have three electoral college votes, but people in Wyoming are represented in a higher proportion, almost twice as much as a person in Montana. Another problem in the category of misrepresentation of votes is that some votes aren’t even represented by the electors. Every state, excluding Maine and Nebraska, has a winner-take-all system. This self-explanatory system allows for any vote not for the top candidate in a state is metaphorically thrown in the trash. The vote isn’t even taken into consideration if not for the winning candidate, and the electors have no way of representing this large chunk of people. Once
For generations, a man who holds more potential power than anyone else on this imposing earth has been ordained his power by a small group of 538. This system has been continually tarnished and contorted until it arranged itself to the system of today; a warped empty shell of good intentions gone wrong. It is of my opinion that the system we have today is fallacious and must be removed with great haste. Once an idea on a path paved with good intentions, at some point a fork in the road presented itself, on which the wrong lane was taken, leaving the presidential candidates to the mercy of a process gone awry. To most, it is a little known phenomenon that the genuine voters, the hardworking people of mainstream …show more content…
In 1824,1876,1888, 2000, and 2016, the popular vote and the electoral college vote did not match. As the people voted for one candidate, the electors voted for another, leaving the United States in a mist of confusion. A major question was left unanswered, which candidate was the true winner? According to the constitution, the electoral college decides the outcome and represents the people, but as shown in these elections, this was not true. This discrepancy occurs as a result of the amount of electoral votes per state being based the number of members in the senate and house of representatives. Whichever candidate wins 270 electoral votes wins the candidacy, disregarding the popular vote. For example, in the 2000 election, Bush won the presidency, while Al Gore won the popular vote. Outrage erupted in the nation as a president was sworn into office without the support of the population. As a result of the phenomenon, a large portion of votes are rendered meaningless when a candidate loses the popular vote in a state, From this, a feeling of efficacy (when a voter feels that their vote doesn’t count) emerges, eventually leading to an endless pit in which hardly anyone votes. In order to avoid this catastrophe, our election system must go through a major metamorphosis. The opposition of this argument is that the electors should have the power to prevent an …show more content…
Residents of small states, for instance Wyoming, are much more represented than residents of bigger states such as California. This occurs because of the fact that each state receives electors based on their population, as represented by the House of Representatives, as well as two senators. The electoral college system becomes cruelly unfair to those in larger states through this paradox. No matter the population, every state holds at least one representative, and two senators, resulting, at a minimum, three electoral votes. This produces a dire consequence. In Wyoming, the state with the smallest population, every 510,000 inhabitants has one representative and two senators. In Montana however, every representative speaks for 935,000 occupants. Both states have three electoral college votes, but people in Wyoming are represented in a higher proportion, almost twice as much as a person in Montana. Another problem in the category of misrepresentation of votes is that some votes aren’t even represented by the electors. Every state, excluding Maine and Nebraska, has a winner-take-all system. This self-explanatory system allows for any vote not for the top candidate in a state is metaphorically thrown in the trash. The vote isn’t even taken into consideration if not for the winning candidate, and the electors have no way of representing this large chunk of people. Once