How the Electoral System Works and Why It Is Undemocratic
The purpose of this paper is four-fold: 1) to describe the voting system in the United States and explain how it works; 2) to compare the American electoral system with the other types of voting systems; 3) to contrast the American electoral system with the other types of systems; and, 4) to provide an opinion as to which type of electoral system is the most democratic. Finally, the paper also provides a summary of the research and significant findings concerning the voting system in the United States in the conclusion.
Identify the type of voting system in the United States and thoroughly explain the how it works;
The voting system that is used in the United States to elect the president and vice president at present is termed the electoral college, which was created by the Founders as a compromise between having the U.S. Congress elect the president and vice president and a popular vote of qualified citizenry. According to the legal definition provided by Blacks Law Dictionary, the electoral college is the college or body of electors of a state chosen to elect the president and vice president; also, the whole body of such electors, composed of the electoral colleges of the several states (p. 520).
Interestingly, although the origins of the electoral college are found in the Constitution, the term itself is not used. In this regard, federal archivists report that, The Electoral College is the process by which the United States elects the President, even though that term does not appear in the U.S. Constitution. In this process, the States (which includes the District of Columbia just for this process) elect the President and Vice President (Electoral College, 2023, para. 2). While the term electoral college does not appear in the Constitution, the document does make reference to electors in Article II and the 12th Amendment (Electoral College History, 2023). The Electoral College is currently comprised of 538 electors which are based in part on state population levels (states receive one electoral vote for each member of the House of Representative and one each for both senators) and a total of 270 electoral...
…these situations simply give up and decide not to exercise their franchise at all, a decision that adversely affects presidential elections of course but down-ballot candidates as well. Democracy only works if everyone gets a voice, and the Electoral College ensures that only some voices are heard in presidential elections, making the system undemocratic by definition.Conclusion
The research was consistent in showing that the Electoral College voting system that is used in the United States today to elect the president and vice president provides smaller states with disproportionate political clout that is inherently undemocratic. Despite calls to replace the Electoral College with a direct presidential election based on the total popular vote, the system will likely remain in place unless and until the body politic wakes up and realize that many of its votes for president do not really count after all such as the case in 2016 and in several cases prior to that. It is long past time for this antiquated, cumbersome and profoundly unfair voting system to be replaced with an alternative that more directly reflects the will of the American…
References
Black’s Law Dictionary. (1999). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.
Electoral College. (2023). U.S. National Archives. Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/ electoral-college#:~:text=The%20Electoral%20College%20 is%20how,the%20President %20and%20Vice%20President.
Electoral College History. (2023). U.S. National Archives. Retrieved from https://www.archives. gov/electoral-college/history#whyec.
George, J. (2019, May). Mixed Member Proportional System: An Alternative Electoral System to Indian Democracy. Online International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 9(2), 126-131.
Proportional representation voting systems. (2023). Fair Vote. Retrieved from https://fairvote. org/archives/proportional-representation-voting-systems/.
Revesz, R. (2016, November 16). Five presidential nominees who won popular vote but lost the election. The Independent. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ americas/popular-vote-electoral-college-five-presidential-nominees-hillary-clinton-al-gore-a7420971.html.
What is the Electoral College? (2023). U.S. National Archives. Retrieved from https://www. archives.gov/electoral-college/about.
Electoral College When the constitution of United States was framed there were discussions on various methods of selecting the President and the method of a direct popular vote was rejected. The reasons for rejection were the poor state of communications and the large distances in between the states. This was felt to make the voters really be familiar with the candidates from their own states and this might lead to the
The Electoral College could easily lead to the election of a President that does not have the popular support of the entire nation (Amar pp). Moreover, many believe that the clauses of the U.S. Constitution that provide for the electoral system should be removed before the country elects a candidate despite the fact that another candidate received more votes (Amar pp). Today, technology allows for an informed national electorate as
Electoral College The current function of the Electoral College is that each state has a set number of votes for the President, based on the population of that state. The candidate with the most votes in that state would receive all of that state's Electoral College votes. The system has come under fire from critics would point out the flaws in this system. For example, it does not differentiate between a
Electoral College: Should the U.S. Push for Reform or Elimination? When citizens of the United States vote in a presidential election, many believe that they are taking part in a direct election of the president (Sutin 2003). However, because of the existence of the electoral college, established in the U.S. Constitution, this is not really true. The electoral college is a set group of "electors" who are nominated by political activists and
Supporters of the current system claim it allows small states and small town America to have a say in the election. The candidates go to every corner of the battleground states and many people get the opportunity to meet and question them. Many feel that is a major benefit of the Electoral College. Another benefit many see is that it gives the winning candidate the majority of the vote.
This is just as important as having a president who is equally representative of the interests of each state. The Founding Fathers succeeded admirably in the area of state-based election of the president, but did they succeed in also ensuring we have a democratically elected president? Are public presidential elections really shams, leaving us with a president who is essentially appointed by political party favorites, or does he represent
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