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

ELECTORAL COLLEGE BE ABOLISHED? The Electoral College system for electing the President was widely examined and often criticized following the November, 2000 election. Two times in recent history we faced the possibility that a Presidential candidate would get most of the popular vote and yet lose in the Electoral College. The Electoral College interferes with the individual voter's opportunity to express a preference for one candidate over another because only

election of George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000, who won the electoral vote in spite of losing the popular vote, rekindled a controversy that has been going on for some time now: has the Electoral College mechanism lived its time? According to the United States constitution, each state is entitled to choose its electors for president and vice-president as a number equal to the total number of representatives

The fact is, people vote outside of their party regularly. Consider the Reagan Democrats or the Clinton Republicans, who crossed party lines to support presidential candidates. Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, has been repeatedly re-elected in New York, one of America's most liberal states, and Michael Bloomberg has twice been elected mayor of New York City, one of the country's most liberal cities. These types of scenarios play out at

Electoral Politics As detailed quite eloquently in Chapter 15 of Haywood's text, having political power is not simply getting one's way in a crude and overt manner, like passing or pushing a bill through congress. Rather, power also involves the task of agenda-setting itself, putting an idea upon the national platform of discourse. The author additionally cites Bacharatz and Baratz as critical in defining not simply making yes or no the