Does the Current Electoral Process Result in the best Candidate for President?
History informs us about the first method the parties developed in order to pick their presidential candidates. This method was the congressional caucus. The framer’s method in 1787 was that each elector would cast two electoral votes, each for a different person for president. The person who received the majority of the electoral votes would win the presidential election and the person who received the second most amount of electoral votes won the vice presidential election. However, the rise of political parties and the election of 1800 made a great change to the system. During this time the electors cast their two votes for two different
…show more content…
All together, there are 538 Electoral votes. In December after the election, the electors cast their votes. When the votes are counted on January 6th, the Presidential candidate that gets more than half, 270, wins the election. The President-elect and Vice President-elect then take the oath of office and are inaugurated two weeks later, on January 20th. Returning to the main question, I don’t believe the electoral process results in the best candidates for President. I believe the choice should not be left for the electoral college but for each person’s vote to count. One alternative is the popular vote where everyone’s vote would count for one vote. I don't think it is fair to try to convince people that they have a voice and encourage them to vote, when the Electoral College has the final say. The Electoral College leads to things like there being massive amounts of campaigning being down in "battleground states" like Ohio and Florida while people in solidly "red" or solidly "blue" states have their issues basically ignored because it's almost certain which way the state is going to go.
History informs us about the first method the parties developed in order to pick their presidential candidates. This method was the congressional caucus. The framer’s method in 1787 was that each elector would cast two electoral votes, each for a different person for president. The person who received the majority of the
According to the first draft of the Constitution, electors voted for two presidents, at least one of which was from a different state than the elector was representing. Whichever candidate received the most votes would become president and the runner-up would be vice-president. This method worked for several years until, in 1800, the unforeseen effect of political parties resulted in a tie for the presidency between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson, both of the same party. The resulting dispute over who the president would be led to the 12th Amendment to the Constitution.
The Electoral College was designed in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention. A variety of ideas were originally brought to attention. Two significant and highly regarded options were a) Congress selects the
Beginning in America in 1787, the Electoral College was originally created during the Constitutional Convention to help make a fair way for the president to be elected without giving too much power to either the national government or individual states. Over the years, the Electoral College has undergone a few changes in attempt to make it more fair, but there is still much debate about whether or not the Electoral College is the most effective way to elect a president. Some people believe that the Electoral College does an excellent job of creating an equal distribution of votes across all ethnicities and social classes of America. In contrast, others think that the Electoral College does not give an accurate portrayal of the popular
The electoral college, per Wikipedia, is a mechanism set up to select the president and vice president of the United States. (The Electoral college, 2016) It was during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that the founders established Article 2. Article 2 Section 1 details the innerworkings of the executive branch of government. The constitution states, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress”. (The Constitution of the United States, n.d.) The framers of the Constitution had many different ideas about how the selection of our president should go but ultimately
In 1787 at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America worked together to identify the best way to elect the President (Patterson, 2013). The ideas suggested varied and ranged from selection by members of congress chosen by lottery, to a popular vote of the people. By the end of the Convention the matter had yet to be settled as the framers fore saw that many of the suggestions were prone to corruption, error, and were very chaotic. The issue was passed down to the Committee on Postponed Matters, who in turn created the system that is used today and is commonly known as Electoral College (Kazin, 2011). The Electoral College was outlined by the Committee to up hold the views of the founding fathers, who were the framers of the Constitution.
in the process of choosing a President for the United States. If a President was chosen through
Established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Electoral College is a system utilized in The United States of America to select the President and Vice President. This process was established by the Founding Fathers in 1787, when the Constitution was written. The original purpose of the electoral system was to ensure that those who select the leaders of this nation were the most knowledgeable and informed people that America had to offer. The electors - the elected officials that make up the Electoral College - are elected to office through a general election wherein the entire national population has the right to vote. The President of the United States, however, is actually elected to office by the Electoral College only, regardless of the popular vote of the citizens in general. Thus, the Presidential election is the only federal election in our nation where the vote of the citizenry does not directly determine the victor. Despite the fact that this electoral system has been in place and operational for over two hundred years, the Electoral College is looked upon by some as an honorable system, whereas others view it as faulty. The Electoral College is not fair and equitable because it is based on population, it is not trusted by the people, and it is unjust to the wishes of the citizens.
The Electoral College dates back to the very founding of America and American politics. The way to elect the President was a hotly contested issue at the Constitutional Convention. Many options were considered, including selection by Congress, selection by state governors, selection by state legislatures, and direct popular vote (Electoral College 6). The final decision of the Founding Fathers was written in Article II, Sections II and III of the US Constitution:
The history of the Electoral college goes back to 1804 to the framers of the constitution. Many of the nations founding fathers actually did not trust direct democracy and wanted to create a system that had balance between power of the people and power of the government. As James Madison described , he was worried about “ factions” in democracy. “These groups of citizens with a common interest in a proposal that would violate the right of citizens or the nation as a whole” (Joe Miller), Madison's fear which Alexis de Tocqueville later named as the “tyranny of majority”, was that these factions could become the fifty percent and win the majority. Subsequently delegates proposed a variety of different methods to elect the president in order for this to not occur. According to Joe Miller’s article the delegates voted more than 60 times before they finally chose a
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Founding Fathers could not decide if the president should be elected by Congress or elected by a popular vote, so they decided to create the Electoral College (“US Electoral College”). The Founding Fathers did not trust the people to vote on the right presidential candidate, so they decided that an indirect election was the best method (Becker). The Electoral College is a group of individuals who elect the president and vice president in the United States of America (TED-Ed). The number of electors that are given to each state is stated in Article II,
The decision on how to choose who these electors would vote for was left up to the states. Most states eventually decided to use the general ticket system where all of that state’s votes go to one candidate, whoever receives a majority of the votes in that state. The system for solving ties or failure to win a majority in the electoral college is to send the vote to the House of Representatives. There, each state is given one vote to cast for president. A vote is taken until one candidate has a majority.
The Electoral College is a constitutional system written in 1787, in this system “each state selects as many electors as it has representatives in Congress”, members of the college casts ballots for individuals, the individual with the most electoral votes becomes the President of the United States (Shelley 80). It is
Democratic theorist, Robert Dahl once said, “…every member must have an equal and effective opportunity to vote, and all votes must be counted as equal.” This quote greatly summarizes what the Electoral College system means; every person in the United States is guaranteed one vote. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to elect who serves in the government, and we are given that opportunity through this system. This is what the Founding Fathers came up with in order to solve the problems they faced over 200 years ago. However, some have opposed this system is not fit for this democracy, and argue that other systems would work more fairly. On the contrary, I strongly believe that the Electoral College system should be kept because it is the fairest way to elect the President.
Two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, our founding fathers had debated on which route to take when electing our President. In 1787, the “Committee of Eleven” had come to a compromise, and created the Electoral College, which is a group of individuals elected by the people to cast votes for the presidency. The Electoral College is described as “a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote” (Price). The reason behind the Electoral College was to preserve “the sense of the people,” while ensuring that our president is chosen “by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under
Do you have a favorite president? Have you ever voted for president? The United States election process was created in 1787 and went into action in 1789 by the founding fathers (“Presidential Elections”). In the first election, two candidates that ran for office included George Washington and John Adams. Through the original election process, George Washington ended up taking office (“Electoral College”). The election process has changed many times since 1789 to become the current election process. Our election process is fair because the candidates and voters have beneficial requirements, the candidates give a valid preview of their government ideas, and the candidate votes are determined by both the public and experienced politicians.