Essay Component
The Electoral College is no doubt a major factor in the presidency. But what is the Electoral College and what does it do? Just like with everything it has its pros and cons. Created by our Founding Fathers, Americans either approve of it or want to abolish it.
The Electoral College is consisted of electors, from each state, that cast their ballots for president and vice president. The election for president is consisted of a vote from Congress, and by popular vote of citizens. In order for the president to be elected, there needs to be a majority vote of 270 electoral votes. If that majority is not met, then the election is given to the majority vote determined by the people. In the Electoral College each state gets two senators …show more content…
A candidate can win the popular vote but still not win the election, because that candidate has more votes from the Electoral College. Some believe that the larger states have too much power. When you have too many electoral votes, the voice of the individual decreases, therefore, leaving little influence in the presidential election. This amount of power makes the voting unequal. Another criticism is the Winner Takes All process. This began in the 1824 election between John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson. The state leaders wanted as much power and support for their candidates as possible. In this system a candidate with the most amount of votes is given representation. However, they’re a few issues with this. Women, different ethnicity groups, young parties, and young voters are given little representation making it unfair. This also leads to the majority of the votes being wasted. These little representation groups will usually vote for someone who was not elected. Because people feel like they have no representation, it causes a decrease in voting. Another criticism is the faithless elector. This is when an elector does not vote for the candidate they had originally pledged to. There has been 156 faithless electors recorded in our history; none have which changed the outcome of an election. Faithless electors choose to vote for the opposing …show more content…
We cannot just elect the president due to popular vote. This is because there is too much politics involved. States with a smaller population have more political power than in a direct election system. Since most of the low population states are Republican, electing a president by popular vote would drastically decrease the chances of the president being Republican. If we wanted to get rid of the Electoral College it would require a constitutional amendment. This process is tough because amending a constitution takes a lot of effort. It requires a 2/3rds majority in both houses of congress, and a 3/4ths vote by the legislatures of state. The constitution was made to be untouched. Therefore, the Founding Fathers made wanting any future changes into the constitution very difficult. Large states usually divide their power evenly between the two parties. Without the existence of the Winner Take All System, the power would all go to the small states and the different ethnicity groups and young parties would lose their importance. The Electoral College helps give equal power and representation for all states. If we had a direct popular election, then the most populated regions of the country would control the election. The Winner Take All system helps the candidates from swing states to center their campaigning in the toss up states. Doing this allows for the candidate a better chance at the presidency because the
The Electoral College is no doubt a major factor in the presidency. But what is the Electoral College and what does it do? Just like with everything it has its pros and cons. Created by our Founding Fathers, Americans either approve of it or want to abolish it.
The Electoral College is consisted of electors, from each state, that cast their ballots for president and vice president. The election for president is consisted of a vote from Congress, and by popular vote of citizens. In order for the president to be elected, there needs to be a majority vote of 270 electoral votes. If that majority is not met, then the election is given to the majority vote determined by the people. In the Electoral College each state gets two senators …show more content…
A candidate can win the popular vote but still not win the election, because that candidate has more votes from the Electoral College. Some believe that the larger states have too much power. When you have too many electoral votes, the voice of the individual decreases, therefore, leaving little influence in the presidential election. This amount of power makes the voting unequal. Another criticism is the Winner Takes All process. This began in the 1824 election between John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson. The state leaders wanted as much power and support for their candidates as possible. In this system a candidate with the most amount of votes is given representation. However, they’re a few issues with this. Women, different ethnicity groups, young parties, and young voters are given little representation making it unfair. This also leads to the majority of the votes being wasted. These little representation groups will usually vote for someone who was not elected. Because people feel like they have no representation, it causes a decrease in voting. Another criticism is the faithless elector. This is when an elector does not vote for the candidate they had originally pledged to. There has been 156 faithless electors recorded in our history; none have which changed the outcome of an election. Faithless electors choose to vote for the opposing …show more content…
We cannot just elect the president due to popular vote. This is because there is too much politics involved. States with a smaller population have more political power than in a direct election system. Since most of the low population states are Republican, electing a president by popular vote would drastically decrease the chances of the president being Republican. If we wanted to get rid of the Electoral College it would require a constitutional amendment. This process is tough because amending a constitution takes a lot of effort. It requires a 2/3rds majority in both houses of congress, and a 3/4ths vote by the legislatures of state. The constitution was made to be untouched. Therefore, the Founding Fathers made wanting any future changes into the constitution very difficult. Large states usually divide their power evenly between the two parties. Without the existence of the Winner Take All System, the power would all go to the small states and the different ethnicity groups and young parties would lose their importance. The Electoral College helps give equal power and representation for all states. If we had a direct popular election, then the most populated regions of the country would control the election. The Winner Take All system helps the candidates from swing states to center their campaigning in the toss up states. Doing this allows for the candidate a better chance at the presidency because the