Electoral College Literature Review

For as long as American citizens can remember the assigned method of election for the United States presidency would be the use of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a process not a place or institution, in this essay I will briefly describe the Electoral College process as well as describe some pros and cons of the electoral college and lastly, I will attempt to answer the controversial question, if you could improve the electoral college, would I choose to abolish or reform the system?

Despite the Electoral College system being founded by the founding fathers in America and being there as long as the Constitution exists, many people still do not have sufficient knowledge on how it works. The Electoral College does not provide honest presidential elections rather it has the potential to undo the will of people at any point from the selection of electors to the vote tallying in Congress (Shaw, 3). Electoral College in the United States has played a major role in depressing the voter's turnout. Every State is given an equal number of electoral votes despite the population and in turn, the system has put in place no measure to encourage the voters to take part in the elections. Besides, the system distorts

The Electoral College is an excuse of the electoral process, proving itself to be undemocratic, false in representation, and harmful to third-parties. Therefore, the Electoral College should be abolished, and the process should rely on the popular vote to have the leading judgement in the election procedure for a new president. The Electoral College has proven that a candidate may not need to win the popular vote of the people of the nation in order to win the presidential election. But first, beforehand, let me introduce the system in which the Electoral Process is based upon. The Electoral Process is the government’s created system of indirect voting in order to elect the nation’s president.

The Electoral College is the system established by the Founding Fathers to select the President of the United States. It is important that Americans have a fundamental knowledge of this system, and the obstacles overcame in its development. There were many obstacles faced by the Founding Fathers while constructing the government. America was comprised of 13 states that wanted to protect their individual rights and leery of a strong centralized government. The nation’s population lay across a vast area with limited communication capabilities. In addition, the Founders believed that a true gentleman should not campaign for office. “The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office” was the saying. They challenged themselves

The voting process in America appears straightforward, but it is a very complex, complicated system. The Electoral College is America’s current voting system. The Electoral College still serves its intended purpose, but with increasing political activity among Americans it has caused a need to reform this process. Research suggests that the Electoral College system should be amended because it poorly illustrates democracy, is outdated and the majority of Americans are in favor of abolishing the system.

Every time there is an election in the United States, the debate of Electoral College always heats up, and suddenly everybody seems to know about or at least they are interested in learning about it. The Electoral College is firmly established under the United States Constitution to elect the president and the vice president of the United States indirectly. A slate of “electors” are chosen from each state, and they are the ones responsible for voting for president in the general elections depending on which party the candidate is vying with. From this statement, what it means is that one does not choose his or her preferred leader directly and this has made many suggestions that the Electoral College is not a true representation of democracy. This paper will look at the strongest arguments for and against the Electoral College, analyze whether the current Electoral College should be re-engineered or scrapped in favor of direct vote and finally determine if the Electoral College is consistent or contrary to democratic principle.

In this country, we hold elections every four years to select the president. The founding fathers of our country established the electoral college to give the original thirteen states a fair voice in the election process. This country electoral called the electoral college into question on more the one occasion. In the most recent election, President-elect Donald Trump won the electoral vote over Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. This election has sent the country into an uproar and citizens of the United States are now challenging the legitimacy of the electoral college process. This paper will examine whether this process is reliable and valid when choosing the leadership of this country.

In the “Point: Abolishing the Electoral College,” Benjamin Bolinger, a licensed lawyer who can practice law in Colorado and Pennsylvania, argues that the Electoral College needs to be abolished for the American democracy. Bolinger examines that some states with a little population have large number of electoral college compare to those states with larger populations. He believes that the Electoral College damages the value of democratic government by leaving

The United States, well known for its democracy, holds elections every four years to elect its President. Every American citizen over the age of 18 has a right to cast a vote in the presidential election. The voting process, although it seems easy and straightforward, can be very complicated. In the 2000 election, Al Gore captured the majority of votes, but George Bush won. The reason for this strange outcome and why Al Gore lost was because of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is voting system where different states are given a certain amount of votes in the election, and which ever candidate wins a state, is given that state’s votes. The Electoral College is out of date, and should be replaced by the Popular Vote system,

According to critics, the Electoral College is a faulty system that should be abolished and replaced by direct election. Supporters of the Electoral College system make convincing arguments that it is the best system to decide the Presidential election in a complex society such as the United States. Many scholars place the Electoral College into a historical context by discussing its evolution and sustenance throughout the history of the United States. This paper will discuss the main arguments made by supporters of the Electoral College System.

The Electoral College is a controversial voting system that has been part of the United States election process since it’s very beginning. Created during the constitutional convention of 1787, the Electoral College was intended to increase the voting power of states with a low population. A solely popular vote was thought to ignore the minority of smaller states (Jost and Giroux). In response, the electoral college would involve a group of elected state representatives that would decrease the influence of populous states over smaller states. This system is still implemented today and continues to hold similar workings to that of the past. The number of electors granted to each state is the sum of senators and House representatives for that state (Jost and Giroux). Only senators, representatives, and anyone holding an office of trust or profit are prohibited from becoming electors. On election day, US citizens vote for their Electoral College representatives, and those chosen become leading players in the presidential election. This system settled disputes between states in the past and has survived for over two centuries; however, some critics now find the system to be flawed and out of date (Jost & Giroux).

“He lost the popular vote by a lot but won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!”- Donald Trump. The Electoral College has been an integral part of our nation's history. All presidents have been elected through the Electoral College system. However, just because it's always been done, doesn't mean it's right. Through recent years many limitations have become apparent which leads one to wonder “Is this system the best way?” To understand the drawbacks of the Electoral College one must scrutinize the history of its origin, the structure of its system, and its shortcomings within the modern day election process.

During the 2016 Presidential election, candidate Donald Trump lost the National popular vote to candidate Hillary Clinton by almost 3 million votes, but he still won the Presidential election by getting 304 Electoral College votes. (The Electoral College: Top 3… 1)The result of the 2016 Presidential election reflects a significant defect of the Electoral College System that the support from majority American population could not promise the presidency to a candidate. In fact, the it is not the first time that citizens received an unexpected election result; prior the 2016 Election, there are total four times in US history when candidate won the popular vote without won the presidency: 1824 (John Quincy Adams VS Andrew Jackson), 1876 (Rutherford B. Hayes VS Samuel Tilden), 1888 (Benjamin Harrison VS Grover Cleveland), and 2000 (George W. Bush VS Al Gore) (The Electoral College: Top 3… 1). For United States, a country advocating democracy, the voting system of Electoral College is a less ideal way to ensure the citizens’ right to elect the president they prefer. The government should change the Electoral College for its inefficient, unfairness and obsoleteness

The Electoral College is the fundamental way the President of the United States is put into office. Despite being such an important aspect of our government, many Americans do not understand what the Electoral College does in relation to the voting process. In the podcast “Should we abolish the Electoral College?,” Alex Keyssar, an American historian and professor of history at Harvard, and James Ceaser, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, discuss arguments for and against the Electoral College. These arguments range from explaining what the Electoral College is, the purpose of the Electoral College, the topics of fairness in the presidential election, and why we should either keep or get rid of the Electoral College in the American voting process. The question of “Should we abolish the Electoral College?” is being brought up over the idea of fairness and the idea of democracy in the election of President Trump. President Trump won the 2016 election, despite the majority of Americans voting against him, with the help of the Electoral College. This idea of unelected officials being able to go against what the majority of voters wanted is frightening and is why the Electoral College should be abolished.

The Electoral College is almost an archaic system, however, we cannot blame our nation’s founders for the flaws we find today. The US constitution was written in a time when political parties did not yet exist. In the conflicting party’s absence, the largest division between Americans was small states against large states (5 – 11 para). The small states vouched for congress to elect our president so that they would receive enough representation that they