Electoral College Research Paper

The Electoral College is not, as its name suggests, a physical place, but more appropriately a procedure. It was formed by the framers of our Constitution as a compromise between a popular vote and Congressional vote for the presidential election process. They felt that the general public of their time was not educated enough to elect the president, as well as they aimed to keep the election of the president out of the hands of the majority. It is called for by Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution and was adjusted by the 12th and 23rd amendments. The Electoral College currently consists of 538 members with the number of electoral votes per state being equal to the amount of representatives sent to the House plus the two …show more content…
Texas, along with all states except Maine and Nebraska, utilize the “winner takes all” method, whereas Maine and Nebraska use the Congressional District Method. There is a specific process to become an elector in Texas and it contains five steps. Anyone aiming to become an elector (of either party Republican or Democratic) must vote in the primary, participate in the precinct, county, and state party conventions, and then lastly, be selected at the state party convention. Both parties currently choose a list of 38 electors to send if there respective party candidate wins the state popular vote meaning that when one party’s candidate wins, the other party’s electors go unused. Though, Texas does apply the “winner takes all” method but there are far more …show more content…
First of all, “winner takes all” requires that all the Electoral College votes of a state go to winning candidate of the state’s popular vote. This is favorable for states in which there is a large part majority in one direction or the other: democratic or republican. The proportional, also known as Congressional District method, is another form of vote distribution that ensures the two Senate votes to winner of the statewide popular vote, but gives one vote to the candidate who wins each congressional district within the state. This method allows for a split vote as the districts may have opposing party majorities giving votes to both candidates. For example, if this was implemented into the state of Texas, the two Senate votes would most surely go to the Republican candidate, but there would be some allowed democratic electoral votes in the districts which have a democratic majority. National Popular Vote (NPV) indicates that the state legislatures agree to give all their votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of their state popular vote. This is proposed as a way to circumvent the Electoral College, due to the intensive process of amending the Constitution, as the states would just agree to synchronize their votes with the popular