Preview

Persuasive Essay on Electoral Colleges

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
498 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Persuasive Essay on Electoral Colleges
Persuasive Essay on Electoral Colleges

In the United States we are all guaranteed one vote per person. Everyone has an equal voice in electing the people that serve in the government. Every four years during the month of November citizens of America go to the polls to vote for a president and vice-president of the United States. Am I right? Not really. They actually vote for electors that then vote for our president. It makes me wonder, "Are we a democracy?" Having the Electoral College defeats its purpose. I oppose the electoral college for these three reasons, in election 2000 the president that lost the popular vote actually won, everyone's vote doesn't really count, plus the electoral college has disrupted elections fifteen times!
First of all I would like to bring to your attention that many votes don't even get counted if you call the United States a democracy. The way the whole Electoral College thing works is that each state is allowed a certain number of "electors" (the state's number of Representatives plus its Senators), who then vote for the president. The elector's vote based on the state's popular vote. After the state verifies the votes, the candidate that receives the most votes get all of that state's elector's votes. Because the state's constitution awards electoral votes that way, the innumerable individual votes become meaningless. Does that sound fair to you? It doesn't to me.
Secondly, do you agree with election 2000? I surely don't, I mean the wrong president won the election. Gore received 500,000 more votes than Bush. But who won the election, Bush. All because of a policy called the Electoral College. It is a very controversial issue. I know that many people are unhappy about this election. I thought we were a democracy! And we choose are president, not electors.
Finally, these consequences go far beyond simple "fairness" issues. Too many times in American history the Electoral College has single-handedly defeated the purpose of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    When citizens vote and cast their ballot for the candidate that they believe will be fit for president, they are not voting directly for their favored candidate. Instead of a direct popular election, the United States has the Electoral College, a group of elected electors who represent a certain states votes. The Electoral College was established by the constitution to protect minority interests and reduce the possibility of a regional candidate. However, some believe that the advantages of a direct popular vote election, such as its consideration of democratic values, outweigh the disadvantages. While others believe that the Electoral College has been put in place to hinder regional candidates not allow it to happen.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Electoral college is a process that is set up by our founding fathers in the constitution; it is a “compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens” (U.S Electoral College). Electoral college is an example of indirect democracy; therefore, we do not choose our president directly. Thus, electoral college is not democratic.…

    • 282 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Electoral College, established by the founding fathers in the United States Constitution, is a process whereby a body of electors chosen by voters in each state cast a formal vote to elect the president and vice president. Among many other things established within the Constitution, the Electoral College requires extensive reform. The Constitution itself was merely a framework for the United States government and did not take into account the extent to which society would change between 1787 and 2015. Amidst the several problems constituted by the Electoral College, the four most threatening complications consist of the possibility for the loser of the popular vote to win the electoral vote, the inequality among the distribution of votes according to population, the exclusion of third party victors, and the consequences that arise in case of a tie.…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Electoral College is an institution that may have served a purpose 200 years ago when the founding fathers needed a system that would be met with approval by both large and small states. The Electoral College is a flawed method of electing our President that has created problems in previous elections and is likely to be the source of problems in the future. The Electoral College provides an undemocratic method of choosing our president that potentially undermines the will of the voters. Not only can a candidate be elected without actually winning the most votes, it puts our elections at the mercy of electors who don't always cast their vote as pledged. I intend to demonstrate that the problems inherent in this voting method far outweigh any benefits it may provide. Replacing the winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes with a system such as proportional representation or eliminating the college altogether in favor of direct election is the best way to ensure a trouble-free and fair election…

    • 2120 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The reason is because it allows for the possibility that one candidate would win the majority of the popular vote across the nation, and still be able to lose the election if another candidate wins the electoral vote. This has happened on more than one occasion, most recently in 2000 when George W. Bush won the electoral vote and became President despite the fact that his opponent, Al Gore, won the popular vote. The world was shocked when Bush was named winner of the U.S. presidential election, even after more U.S. voters had cast ballots for Gore. How could the U.S. call itself a democracy, yet not select its officials based on majority rule? The U.S. was not established as a pure democracy, but as a republic where voters elect representatives and electors. Whether there has ever been anything close to a pure and total democracy is debatable. There has never been universal suffrage. The result in 2000 election led many people to call for Electoral College reform or a change to a direct popular vote system. No major changes have yet been made to the system; the electoral college remains the “democratic” way we elect the President of the United…

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The founding fathers were not gods. Consequently, they were not perfect, and neither were the systems they set up to run the country. Nevertheless, they knew that things would change, and they set up ways to fix the government when needed. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the American people have the right to alter or abolish the government if it does not fit their needs. The Electoral College is flawed, and the American people need to replace it because this system does not fairly represent the people, it forces people to vote a certain way, and it does not always guarantee that the winner of the popular vote will win the election. These imperfections in the Electoral College make voters feel like their votes…

    • 1166 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first problem with the Electoral College is that the presidential candidates only pay attention to the states…

    • 1099 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are other ways to satisfy the majority rather than abolishing the Electoral College. Lawyer Jeanne Kempthorne states some of the issues seen with the EC. One being that, “[the election] can easily result in an outcome that conflicts with the will of the people, whereby a candidate who loses the popular election nonetheless becomes president, as occurred in 2000 and almost occurred in 2004. This is a serious, recurring problem that afflicts both parties” (Jones 1). Robert Hall, a professor at Stanford University in Economics integrates that, “the Electoral College does not embody the egalitarian principle of popular sovereignty, the concept of "let the people rule" (Hall 1).…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The system of electing our president has been fairly consistent throughout the past 50 years and one thing that has not changed since our constitution was written is the use of an electoral college to elect the president. By using an Electoral College voters do not directly vote for their next president, instead they submit a vote that is then tallied by the electors and whichever party has the most votes at the end gets all of the Electoral College votes from that state. The use of an Electoral College has been the topic of a lot of debate in recent years, especially after the election in the year 2000 in which Al Gore won the popular vote, but failed to become president because George W. Bush won the electoral votes. There are people whom favor the use of an electoral college and there are people who think that it should be abolished and that voters should be able to directly vote for their president. For my paper I want to present both arguments, each side’s pros and cons, and ultimately whether or not I think we should or should not change the use of an electoral college.…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The electoral college in america should be abolished because it has major flaws, supports political inequality, and doesn’t support third party candidates. On top of the flaws that already exist in the electoral college the biggest flaws is what happens when there is a tie. In the case of a tie the decision of who gets to be president is cast in the House of Representatives. This would mean that every states essentially has one vote making “the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, [the same] as the 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters”(Document F). This is important because if you just look at the numbers say Wyoming is the smallest states with 500,00 then any state with more voters that excess amount of voters basically don’t get a vote. In this case 34.5 million voters don’t get a vote. In addition to this example of political inequality, political inequality is seen in the number of electors each state receives. One example of this would be how a candidate could win the electoral vote by winning only 11 states, completely ignoring the Northeast United States(Document A). As a result of candidates only needing 11 states, bigger states have more influence than small states with only 3 votes making them less important. Yet even though 11 states have more influence than the others they really should have more because the electoral vote doesn’t truly represent population. For instance, in Illinois there are about 12 million people and they have 20 electors. Whereas in 12 smaller…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are numerous negative points to having the Electoral College. The Electoral College weighs the votes from smaller states more than larger ones because each state's electoral votes are equivalent to the number of House and Senate seats it has, thus giving one of those smaller state’s votes the power to really make a difference. Secondly, the Electoral College only acknowledges majority votes of the states and ignore the minority votes. Those who do not agree with everyone else are not represented at all.…

    • 606 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Another example is the 2000 election, the president candidate Al Gore won the popular vote, however, the other president candidate George W. Bush won the electoral college (Mayer). This occasions hasn’t happened recently, it also happened in the early election history three instances: 1876, 1888 and 1960 (Edwards 62). As a result of these elections, it ignores the will of the people. United States is built with democracy and it seemed that electoral college is an undemocratic system. Jonathan Chait, an American liberal commentator and writer for New York magazine, argues that “the electoral college failed to mention the most egregious aspect of the process: it subverts democracy. It makes an utter mockery of the principle of one man, one vote.,” (“Electoral College, Pros”). It questions if the Electoral College favors the people at…

    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    One of reasons I believe the Electoral College isn’t a good system is because, depending on what state you live in, your vote is worth more. For instance, if you live in Wyoming, which has 3 electors and a small population, your vote is worth more. A single elector’s vote…

    • 367 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Electoral College follows a winner-take all representative system, which means that the voices of some citizens will not matter. The Electoral College is a system of representatives included in the U.S. Constitution, created by the Founding Fathers, to help ensure that voters selecting the president were qualified and knowledgeable. These voters were chosen, because they knew what they were doing, rather than possible unreasonable voting by the public. However, this system is not required anymore, and can be detrimental to citizens of the United States of America. The Electoral College should be abolished, because it favors’ the voters of small states and because it does not accurately represent the voice of the people of the U.S.…

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Electoral College has remained a United States voting process since the founding fathers established it into the Constitution. Essentially, the Electoral College is the final process of choosing the President of the United States; the process involves having voters from across the country vote for their favored candidate on Election Day. The votes are then organized by state and each state gets Electorates that will represent the people’s votes; the electorates, that were chosen to represent your state, then vote for who your state’s majority choice is in a final ballot that will choose the President. While this method has been working for over 200 years, it is not a just way to collect the votes of the people of America. The Electoral College is unbalanced and should be abolished. The first reason why the Electoral College should not exist is because the system does…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays