Electoral College For A Direct Popular Vote example essay topic

This paper will take an in depth look at how the voting process works in the United States, but mainly focus on the Electoral College and its wrongs and rights in the American voting system. It's difficult to understand and let alone appreciate the Electoral College unless one completely understands it's past circumstances and problems it was attempting to solve. The Electoral College was established to elect a president in a country that was split up into thirteen states that lacked communication and transportation between each other and was made up of 4 million people scattered through out thousands and thousands of miles (Dorgan, 1). After many attempts to set up a voting system that was accepted by the Constitutional Convention, the idea of letting the people elect the president indirectly was brought up. Which lead to the idea of the Electoral College, which was a system that was made up to let the people indirectly elect the president through a college of electors. The Electoral College is made up of electors in each state, who represent the states popular vote.

Each presidential party or candidate designates a group of electors in each state, equal to the States electoral votes, who are considered to be loyal to that candidate, to each State's chief election official. The number of electors a state receives is equal to its number of U.S. Senators plus its number of U.S. Representatives which is determined by its population (Rae, 23). Meaning that bigger states would have more Electoral votes than little states since their population is bigger. On the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in years divisible by four, the people of each state submit their votes for the slate of electors representing their Presidential candidate which is inevitably the election of the States electors and not the election of the President (web 1). This "winner takes all" system is what decides which presidential candidate wins the states electoral votes. The Presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in the state has its designated electors given the electoral votes for that state which means that candidate wins all of the electoral votes for that state.

You need 1 more than the majority of the electoral votes to win the presidency (Rae, 34). The only problem with this is that a presidential candidate can win the Presidency with out winning the popular vote, by winning the larger states electoral votes, such as George Bush did in 2000. Many people stand against the Electoral College system and claim that the system is out of date. There are three Presidential elections that are frequently used as an argument against the Electoral College. In 1800 Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson accumulated the same amount of electoral votes which was later broken by the House of Representatives in the favor of Jefferson within jurisdiction of the original form of the Electoral College (Kimberling, 7). In 1824 Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry Clay were four strong competitors for the presidency and none of which received a majority of electoral votes to win the presidency.

The selection process was then kicked to the House of Representatives who slightly favored Adams and resulted in the first time the person who won the popular vote didn't win the Presidency (Kimberling, 7). In 1872 Horace Greeley died in the period between the popular vote for the Electors and the meeting of the Electoral College. Devoted electors were then forced to change their vote for Ulysses Grant who had already won a majority of the Electoral votes (Kimberling, 8). These three presidential elections are often brought up because of what happened in them had brought attention to some of the flaws in the Electoral College. When these arguments are made in the present day they are hard to accept though, for the fact that they happened over 100 years ago in a political system that was still trying to figure out how to work itself, and with politicians that didn't know much about the election process and how to take on a presidential election. If you take a second to look at the Electoral College you will see that, yes, there are some flaws, but there are also many good things that come from it as well.

The problems that exist from the Electoral College are just a few, one being the fact that a candidate can win the Presidency with out winning the popular vote. This raises the big question of; does the peoples vote really count? Are the people really indirectly electing the president? Looking at the situation, yes, they still are. The votes are just represented in a smaller proportion. The Electoral College takes the peoples popular votes and turns them into a smaller number that is easier to keep track of and regulate.

If the United States counted every single vote in the nation the voting numbers would be much harder to represent and keep track of. Another problem people claim is wrong with the Electoral College, in spite of the 2000 election, is the miss representation of votes, people voting more than once, and people's vote not even being counted. This has come mostly into play after the problems that occurred with the state of Florida's voting. When votes in Florida were said to not be counted at all (Dorgan, 2).

Yes this may happen from time to time, just as there are flaws in everything. People are corrupt and cheat. It was once said if you " re not cheating you " re not trying. Baseball players take steroids, boxers are paid off to take a fall, and Presidents surely cheat as well. Abolishing the Electoral College would not get rid of corrupt politicians. There would still be just as many votes that were counted twice, or not counted at all if the American voting system was changed to the people directly electing the President through the popular vote.

Another problem that arises with the Electoral College is that it is claimed to discourage people from turning out to vote. With the feeling that not everyone's vote counts many people stay far away from the voting polls on the first Tuesday in November (Silbey, 89). This may be the case for the people who are uneducated about the voting system and the aspects of the Electoral Vote, but there is no reason that justifies the reasoning that the Electoral College is to blame for the decline in voter turn out. Voter turn out at the polls has been on a steady decline for many years. Since 1960, when, the voter turn out was at 60% of the age populated Americans who were qualified to vote it has declined to 51% in 2000 and hit 49% 1996, the lowest over the 40 year span (web 1). These numbers have been decreasing over a period of time where nothing has gone wrong in the Electoral College, and each President won the popular vote as well as the majority of Electoral votes.

Another problem people often times argue against the Electoral College is that it misrepresents the people's true will. This could be the one part of the system that has the biggest flaw in it. The Electoral College is set up to over represent smaller states voting leverage. This happens because the number of Electoral votes a state gets is determined by the number of House Representatives it has (which is determined by the population) plus the number of Senators, which is two for each state (Sayre, 54).

The problem in this is that many small states can have a smaller population, than one big state and still have equal or more Electoral votes. For example in 1988, the accumulative voting age population in the seven least populated states, Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming, was 3,119,000 and carry the same number of Electoral Votes as the state of Florida which had a voting age population of 9,614,000 (Kimberling, 14). This means that each person's vote in Florida counted for about a third of each persons vote in the other listed states. These are just some of the many problems people have with the Electoral College and two of them can only really be justified by actual facts and statistics. As well as there may be problems with the Electoral College and the voting process in the United States there are also many good things the Electoral College brings to the country. Things that people tend to over look because they are so caught up in trying to bash the system that they don't take time to look at the good things that also come out of it.

The Electoral College is set up to give the United States a Presidency that consists of people throughout the whole country and not just from one region. If the Electoral College did not exist it would be possible for presidents to be elected by major populated areas more easily. The Presidency would be easier to dominate by large metropolitan areas over rural areas. A president could just grab the interests of a couple major cities and win, which would leave the rural areas with really no say in the presidential election. Due to the way the Electoral College is set up it inclines Presidents to select Vice Presidents from other areas than their own. Because the Electoral College demands support from all over the country the President needs to create a party that will be able to have the support from all over the country and not just one area.

Another way the Electoral College helps the United States is that it makes Presidents pay more attention to smaller states and less populated areas (Kimberling, 17). If there was no Electoral College and the President was elected strictly on the popular votes, candidates would rarely ever pay attention to the interests of rural areas, and would pay a lot more attention to the interests of the major populated cities. The Electoral College forces presidents to take time to look at the needs of the smaller states and areas for those states and areas play a big part in the President being elected. This wouldn't be the case if the Electoral College did not exist. Another thing the Electoral College does for the United States is that it makes the candidates running for the presidency pay more attention to the ethnic minorities in the United States.

With the Electoral College ethnic minorities vote have a bigger impact on the presidential election than if the election was based strictly on popular vote (Kimberling, 18). The ethnic minorities in America can get a lot more things to satisfy their needs and interests due to the Electoral College. If it wasn't for the Electoral College candidates wouldn't spend anytime looking at the interests of the ethnic minorities, but spend a majority of their time trying to satisfy the people who are mostly populating the world and not the minorities. Another reason that it would be absolutely absurd to get rid of the Electoral College is that the Electoral College follows the basic set up and foundation of our Government (Kimberling, 18). Just like the House of Representatives which represents states according to their size, the number of representatives is based on their population; the Electoral College represents states votes according to their size. How come nobody ever complains about the House of Representatives being mis-representative?

To abolish the Electoral College for a direct popular vote would be a death defying blow to the heart of our Governmental structure established by the Constitution and could possibly lead to even more problems and a very unstable political system and structure. The Electoral College System has a history of nearly two hundred years. Its basic rules were written by the fathers of our country and have only been amended once (Sayre, 132). Yet time has brought great changes in the system just the way time will bring change to anything. Outcomes of various elections have affected both the way subsequent Presidents have been chosen and public discussions about the method of choice. But if the Electoral College is abolished it wont change anything.

Yes there are things that are wrong with the system but the Electoral College did not cause the ballot problems in Florida in 2000, nor did it cause the exclusion of voter rolls. Abolish the Electoral College and every out of date voting machine in this country will remain exactly where it is. There is a need to upgrade this nation's voting system and it can be done, but that doesn't mean scrapping the Electoral College. Minorities and rural areas should have a voice in our presidential politics, and it is the Electoral College that gives them that voice (Kimberling, 10). And even though the system is not perfect, it is damn near excellent.

Which is why people need to realize that the system for electing the President in America is the Electoral College and should be for a very long time to come.

Bibliography

Dorgan, Byron. The Reference Shelf: The United States Election System. Art. 2: Electoral College Works Quietly, Just as Founders Intended. January 15, 2001.
Wilson Company. ISBN- 0-8242-1036-0. web How The Electoral College Works. December 1, 2004.
web National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960-2000.
December 1, 2004.
Kimberling, William. The Electoral College web November 29, 2004.