The Electoral College
The Electoral College was put into place hundreds of years ago by the framers of our constitution. They regarded as a system to elect the president by the people, indirectly at least. The original system before the 12th amendment had electors voting for two candidates without distinguishing between president and vice president. The candidate with the highest number of votes was elected president. After the 12th amendment the system was changed into what it is today. The modern day Electoral College has been in place since 1804, and has been a reliable system for electing our presidents. However with all or the controversy surrounding the 2000 election the call to do away with the Electoral College has spread around the country. There are many people who believe that we need to do away with the system in order to make the individual vote count. However there are a lot of people who don't know how the Electoral College works, and the benefits it has for our country. The Electoral College better represents our nation as a whole, rather than population centers. It also turns narrow presidential victories into stronger mandates. The Electoral College gives another checks and balance political system. It gives power to the states, and h
The Electoral College is very beneficial to our country; first, it promotes federalism by giving power to the states and keeping the federal government in check. By ensuring that the president is the most popular candidate overall. If a candidate gains a wide enough margin in other states, the disputed ballots may be thrown out. In fact our last president was democratic, and served two terms. " If our elections were run on a one-person one-vote system, the people in the population centers would control our country. In other words, although the electors physically cast the deciding votes, the party they vote for depends on the decision of the people. The Electoral College tends to produce larger and more decisive margins for wins when the popular vote is very close, leading to a more definitive judgment of victory, and giving presidents some greater sense of legitimacy and mandate which is necissary in a system of checks and Balances. At present, all states, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, choose their electors through a statewide election. Because every state gets at least three electoral votes, two for each senator and one for each congressional district, the college is especially popular with smaller states, whose electoral-vote strength is greater than their popular-vote strength. However, during the same period of time, Democratic candidates won only 39. The Electoral College also promotes two party politics, by forcing candidates to amass votes from more diverse areas around the nation. Jefferson also brings up the point that Americans are kept informed by the media i. Abolishing it would weaken the states and make the national government more capable of abusing its power (Gregg 54). In 1968, with George Wallace running as an independent, Richard Nixon received only 43.
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