Electoral College Essays (537 words) - Psephology, Electoral Systems

Electoral College The Electoral College has been used to elect the President since the beginnings of the United States. In the two hundred some odd years of history, there have been instances when the college did not work. There have been many ideas that have floated around about fixing the problem with the electorate. Then again, there are many plusses to using the Electoral College system. In an election, the President is elected not by the popular vote, but by the votes of the electorates. The electorates are representative of each state. There are a number of electorates per state equal to the amount of persons in both the House of Representatives, and the Senate. The District of Columbia also has three votes to cast. One of the major drawbacks to the Electoral College is the fact that it can at times be very undemocratic. If a candidate wins the votes in certain states, and gets all their electoral votes, it is possible to win the Presidency, without getting the most popular vote. In the 1800's, there were three instances where the Electoral College disagreed with the popular vote. On the same note, in 1968, the race would have ended up in congress shy of a few votes for George Wallace. Again in 1976, the electoral vote gave Gerald Ford the victory even though Jimmy Carter one the most popular support. How would you fix this problem, there is no easy answer to this question. One way to solve this is send percentages of electoral votes, or ignore the winner-take all system. For instance, say that in Florida, who has 25 votes, 80 percent of the popular vote supports the democratic nomination, whereas the other 20 percent went for the republican nomination. Then 20 electoral votes would go to the democrat, and 5 would go to the republican. Another way to solve this problem would be to base electoral votes solely on the population, separate the nation into regions with approximately the same population, and give them each votes. In this, there would be no actual state borders, just a set number of voting regions. A third and final way to solve the problem would be to do away with the system entirely, and let the popular vote be the sole decision making factor. This would be the easiest and quickest way to solve the Electoral College problem. The electoral system is not all bad. There are several pluses to its use. One of those plusses is the declaration of a clear winner. Whichever candidate wins the most votes, or the first to get 270 votes, wins. Also with the current winner-take all policy, it makes the smaller states votes more important and less significant to the candidates. There is also the ability to tell that a clear winner may or may not have a mandate. A mandate states that the public endorses a candidate's programs and that the candidate should put them into affect when he finally reaches office. The Electoral College is the system of the United States, set up even before the first actual political parties, that is used to elect the President and the Vice President. The Electoral College is not perfect by any means. There have been some instances when a President has been elected even though he wasn't the popular choice, but the plusses given to the election process by having it are worth the few mistakes.