The Electoral College System

The method for selecting an elector to vote for the president rather than having individuals choosing the president through their own particular vote is a system known as the “The Electoral College”. In the book, “We the People: An Introduction to American Politics” an electoral college is defined as “ the electors from each state who meet after the popular elections to cast ballots for President and Vice President”. The Electoral College was acknowledge under Article II of the United States Constitution stating that each state will get one vote in favor of the president relying upon the majority of the votes. A popular election happens in which the candidate who gets the most votes wins the election, however because of the Electoral College …show more content…
There were various reasons that brought about the decisions of the founding fathers to create the Electoral College. The system was made for the insurance of the population in selecting a president while still giving power to the smaller states. The founders were reluctant of holding an immediate voting in choosing a president due to the importance of equality between the bigger and smaller states. They were afraid that one of the candidates would have the ability of manipulating the public’s opinion and be able to be in complete power. In “The Federalist Papers”, Hamilton states that the president should be chosen “by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station… combination of all the reasons which were proper to govern their choice” (The Library of Congress- Hamilton). With the assistance of qualified electors they would be able to make better judgment in assuring that the candidate meets the requirements of becoming a reliable president. The founders did not believe that ordinary citizens had the ability to make that reasonable decision for themselves and therefore implemented the system we have …show more content…
The problem with the Electoral system is that there is no guarantee that the electors will decide, with the majority votes that were collected from their representative states, who wins but rather there is an essence that the electors might want to switch off their vote to assist another candidate. In past decisions, there were instances where the electors chose not to go with the majority votes, but ultimately it did not affect the result of the election. A candidate often depends on the electoral votes to determine their presidency. Then again, the candidate that does receive the majority of votes is not ensured for presidency. For instance in some elections candidates have been elected regardless if the other candidate had the majority of votes throughout. It implies that a President can in fact win without the majority votes. As expressed the Electoral College votes play a significant role in the candidates campaign. Regardless of the fact that the votes are counted by each state, candidates are more interested in only a small amount of states. The issue with the system of the Electoral College is that it does not give votes to individuals only to some states resulting in the system of unfairness. The purpose of the Electoral College and why it was established by the founding fathers was to protect the small states from the big