Sarah Bellinger

Electoral College
The United States of America uses an Electoral College system to pick the President
every four years. All the citizens of every state vote for who they want to be the President. Each
state gets a certain number of electoral representatives equal to the number of members in the
House of Representative based on population plus the guaranteed two representatives in the
Senate. When the citizens of a state vote, there will be a candidate that wins the majority of
votes. When this happens that candidate will win all of that states electoral votes because it is a
winner takes all system. Whichever candidate gets a majority of 270 electoral votes wins and
becomes the new President. This system was devised by the framers of the constitution back in
1787. In that time they feared a direct popular vote from every American would be unwise
because there was slow travel and slow communication. They figured the citizens of one state
would just vote for that states candidate because information about other candidates would be
not readily available. They believed this would not give any particular candidate a majority
unless from a highly populated state which would be unfair, so they compromised with the
Electoral College. But the framers could have never predicted how advanced our nation would
be back then so it is time for something different because a lot of problems have arisen since
the Electoral College was formed. The Electoral College system is a broken system now a days
because the electoral representation is not equal, the decision by the House, if the majority vote
is not met is not fair, and there have been problems in the past where the majority vote has not.
Because of those reasons the Electoral College should be thrown out and replaced with a more
effective way to elect the nations President.
There are many reasons why the Electoral system is not fair, a major one being the
unequal amount of electoral representatives. So, as previously mentioned, the representation is
based on population plus two. Sounds equal, right? But really it is not because each state is
guaranteed at least three representatives no matter what their population is. This is not fair to a

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larger population state. For example, this means that a small populated state has 500,000
people and are guaranteed three reps. That makes it so there is one rep to every 165,000
people in that state. But on the other hand there is a largely populated state that has 33 million
people and they have fifty five reps that would make it so there would be one rep for every
600,000 people in that state. Now it does not look very equal because if the larger populated
state could have one rep for every 165,000 people like the smaller populated state does, they
would have another 145 reps added to make it equal. This unequalness of representation is a
major flaw to the Electoral College system because it gives the smaller populated states more
power and candidates only focus on certain states to try and win over. A simple way to alleviate
this problem of unequal representation would be to only have representative based on
population and make the ratio of reps to the number of people equal.
Another reason why the Electoral College system is broken is because in the case that
the House of Representative has to pick the President, the decision will be tainted. As stated
previously the candidate with 270 electoral votes or more wins because they have the majority,
but there wont always be a clear cut winner. In the event that there is no majority candidate, the
decision of who gets to be the President goes to the House of Representatives. This is not a
bad idea, but what people dont realize is there is always going to be a majority and minority
political party in the House, whether it be the Republicans or the Democrats at the time. So the
Electoral College system is not broken because when the House votes in the case where no
candidate gets a majority electoral vote, the vote will not be fair. This is because, traditionally,
there are only a Democrat and Republican running to be President. So, if the decision is left up
to the House where there is a majority of representatives that belong to one of those parties, it is
pretty common sense that the candidate that belongs to the political party that is majority in the
House will win the Presidency. It is just an automatic thing that will happen any time there is no
majority. This is a flaw in the Electoral College system because although the representatives of

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the House are representing what the people want, it is an even more diluted version of who the
majority of people want to be their President than the electoral votes are.
The fact that there has been more than one occasion in the past where the majority vote
has not won the Presidency is proof that the Electoral system is flawed. It seems very bizarre to
think that the candidate with the majority votes didnt win the majority electoral votes because
the electoral votes are based on the majority votes in each state. But it has happened four times
in the past in 1824 between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Jackson won the
majority votes by 44,804, but Adams won the Presidency with 15 more electoral votes. The
second time was in 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden where Tilden had
more majority votes, but again, Hayes had more electoral votes. But this was a sketchy deal
because Tilden only won by 1 electoral vote from the south because he promised to pull troops
out of the southern states. The third time was in 1888 between Benjamin Harrison over Grover
Cleveland where again, Cleveland got the majority votes, but Harrison won more electoral
votes. Lastly was the 2000 election where George W. Bush won over Albert Gore where the
same situation took place as the other three did. This election was sketchy too because the
Florida was the main focus between candidates. Bush won there but a machine that counted
ballots was said to have counted wrong and people from minority groups said not all their
members had voted. These pieces of evidence, which sparked a lot of controversy because
they were such odd phenomenon, just go to show how broken the Electoral system is. To
resolve the problem of a candidate winning the majority vote, but not the Presidency by electoral
votes is to change the election system. The nation could switch to a direct popular election plan.
This would ensure that no candidate would lose the Presidency, but win the popular vote
because there would only be one vote and that would be directly by every citizen of the United
States. Since our government was founded on the prime principle that it would be by the people
and for the people, the direct election of the President would give the people of the United

Sarah Bellinger
States a more active role in its government. Some more positives that would come out of this
plan would be that the election process would be less confusing and there would be less voter
apathy. This means that there would be less people not caring and they would actually vote
because they would see that their views could be directly accounted for. All the pros in this new
plan just go to show that our current Electoral College plan needs to be changed.
Some people that are for the Electoral College, winner takes all plan might say that it is a
good thing because it is beneficial to small populated states and minority groups. If their votes
make the majority vote, then all their states electoral votes will be for the candidate they picked.
This could in turn add to that candidates chances of winning the Presidency. This makes those
two types of groups happy because they do not always get their different ideas recognized. But,
this type of Electoral system can make them happy because their views can be important and
makes them feel equal. But on the other hand the small states and minority groups are counting
on their representative electors to cast the vote that was made in the majority. This doesnt
always happen though. There are not faithful electors out there. This is another reason why the
Electoral system is flawed because there is no law saying that the reps have to vote the ways
that the majority said they should. These reps are human just like everyone else and can be
persuaded to go with the other candidate. Now the small states and minority groups are not
happy because their one shot to make a difference for their group was just demolished by
representatives who were not faithful to their people. This is why those groups would probably
change their minds about the Electoral system and opt to do the direct popular election plan that
was proposed previously because then they can be sure that no one will play them, it will be
their own direct vote.
The Electoral College system, used to choose our nations President is very outdated. It
may have been a good plan in the beginning when we didnt have as many states and people,
but now there needs to be a change because the system is broken. There is clear evidence that

Sarah Bellinger
the system is not worth keeping because the electoral representation based on population is not
equal from state to state. Also, the way in which the House of Representatives chooses the
President when there is no majority electoral winner, is fixed with the majority party in the House
at the time. Those two examples show that the system is not fair. There have also been many
instances in elections where the majority did not win the presidency, which is very strange.
Lastly the electors cannot be trusted to cast the majority vote because they may get persuaded
or change their minds. All of this evidence just goes to show how ineffective the United States
Electoral College system is when it comes to electing a President. The system needs to be
changed.