Persuasive Essay On The Electoral College

Imagine sitting at a table and drafting a document that is going to govern and choose the United Stated president every four years for the rest of history. In 1787, the values and thoughts of those men were about fairness and a balance of government that they had not found being under British rule. Now as a citizen of the United States, we go into booths and either press a button or mark with a pencil who we would like to be our president or at least that is what we think. The actual process of electing the president is handled by a group of individuals elected by our citizens that cast a vote based on what we as citizens mark in that booth. We can all agree that while it was fair and balanced with 13 states in 1787, we may need to relook …show more content…
The founding fathers of our nation spent over two months trying to devise a plan that would have a fair and just way of elected our nation’s principal administrator. The Electoral College is constructed of state electors that equal the number of the United States House of Representatives plus the 2 senators from each state. The District of Columbia has three electoral votes even though it is not a state and has no voting representation (“Presidential Election Process”). There are 538 electors total for the Electoral College and 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidential election (“Presidential Election Process”). These individuals are picked by the political parties of the states that they represent and they vote in December and Congress then tally’s these votes in January. Most electors from the states vote on the winner take all based on which candidate won their states election. That means the candidate that wins the most citizen votes from their state will then get all of the electoral votes from that …show more content…
The Electoral College was designed so that the candidates running for President would need to campaign and appeal to all of the voters of our nation and not just a select few. It allows for even smaller states that a national candidate might never visit to require the candidate to show up and ask for votes. The every state has a right to hear and see the candidate allows the candidates to focus on issues that affect everyone around the country and not just one section of the nation. While the winner takes all fashion of issuing votes with the electoral college may be representative of the citizens of that state, it leaves out states that are not consider “swing” states for their issues being included. Candidates tend to campaign hard in states considered “swing” states and then ignore the states that they believe they have already won. The citizens in the “swing” states tend to get their issues heard and talked more about with the candidate versus the states that are not considered “swing”