electoral college1 essays

electoral college1 essays The Electoral College is the collective name for the electors who choose the president and vice president of the United States. The electoral system was developed by the drafters of the Constitution, to entrust the responsibility to people whose choice would be unaffected by partisan politics. In Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution, the method of selecting electors is delegated to the separate state legislatures. When a voter chooses a candidate in a presidential election that person is not directly voting for that specific candidate. The voter is actually voting for the electors in their state to vote for that candidate. Each state is allotted a certain number of electoral votes based on population. Presently the fifty states and the District of Columbia have a total of 538 electors. A simple majority of 270 votes is necessary for a candidate to win the election. With this system it is possible for a candidate to have enough electoral votes to win the election, while loosing the popular vote. The issue is whether or not the Electoral College should be eliminated. There is no doubt that the Electoral College is a very important part of the election process, and therefore should continue to be used. First, turning to a nationwide popular vote to pick a president would give less power to the smaller states and lesser populated regions. Voters from smaller states, already struggling for attention in presidential races, worry about being ignored altogether by candidates who choose to campaign exclusively in a highly populated region. If the president were elected by popular vote, it wouldnt matter what the less populated regions wanted. For example, the 2000 election is so close that loosing the three electoral votes from a smaller state, such as South Dakota or Rhode Island, could decide the whole election. With a popular vote the only places that would really affect the outcome of the election would be v ...