Electoral Reform
Last year's election involving Bush and Gore heated up a fifty year old debate: whether the Electoral College is still an effective system considering the circumstances the United States now faces compared to when it was created by the founding fathers. The Electoral College is drafted into the constitution and has been used to elect the President of the United States since the beginning of our independence. In the two hundred some odd years of its history, there have been instances when the college did not work and has stirred up a considerable amount of debate. When our founding fathers created this system of election, they accounted for the many problems faced by a new nation with new citizens. Because of the pristine age of the country, the founders knew they faced different problems of creating a system compared to the older powers of the world. The influence from other world powers was a foreseeable problem, so the founders had to limit the public vote in order to protect the new nation. Two of the main problems faced by the founders were the difficulty of travel and the absence of political parties during the 18th century. In 1776 the United States contained only four million people spread up and down a thousand miles o
In this, there would be no actual state borders, just a set number of voting regions. There are a number of electorates per state equal to the amount of persons in both the House of Representatives, and the Senate. On the same note, in 1976, the electoral vote gave Gerald Ford the victory even though Jimmy Carter won the most popular support. The Electoral College was a brilliant 18th century device to solve the problem of electing a president with states ranging in size. For instance, say that in Florida, who has twenty-five votes, eighty percent of the popular vote supports the democratic nomination, whereas the other twenty percent went for the republican nomination. Cleveland's majority of the popular vote throughout the population of the nation did not matter to four hundred and one electors who decided that Harrison should win. Although brilliant in the 18th century, is the Electoral College still efficient in today's political society? One of the major drawbacks to the Electoral College is the fact that it can at times be very undemocratic. 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 electorates are representative of each state. There are many politically inspired and educated people besides the elected five hundred and thirty eight that should help decide the future of this nation. In effect, the President would not be elected by popular vote, but by the votes of the electorates. An instant runoff allows voters to rank their first, second, and third choices on the same ballot. Because many people like myself are inexperienced, does not mean the entire United States is inexperienced. f Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication. The defeated candidate (Grover Cleveland) polled 5,444,337 popular votes to 5,540,050 for Benjamin Harrison; however, Cleveland received only one hundred and sixty eight electoral votes to Harrison's two hundred and thirty three.
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Acceptance Essays
