Question

Briefly explain how the Electoral College works. What do you think of the Electoral College? Does it serve any useful function? Does it need to be scrapped? Check out some Electoral College websites and explain what supporters and detractors have to say. If you think we need an alternative, what would you recommend

Answer 1

• The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors who cast votes to decide the President and Vice-President of the United States.The candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes (270) wins the Presidency. The number 538 is the sum of the nation’s 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and 3 electors.
• Every four years, voters go to the polls and select a candidate for President and Vice-President.The candidate who wins the majority of votes in a state wins that state’s electoral votes.
• The Electoral College determines the President and Vice-President of the United States. The Electoral College system also distinguishes the United States from other systems where the highest vote-getter automatically wins.
• This so-called “indirect election” process has been the subject of criticism and attempted reform, though proponents of it maintain that it ensures the rights of smaller states and stands as an important piece of American federalist democracy.
• One reason that some analysts support the electoral college is that it encourages candidates to pay attention to small states and not just get out the vote in big, populous states and cities. The electoral college gives small states more weight in the political process than their population would otherwise confer.
• The electoral college, proponents say, makes U.S. presidential elections less contentious by providing a clear ending. There’s no need for a national recount when you have an electoral college. If one state has voting issues, you can just do a recount in that state rather than creating national upheaval.
• And to win, a candidate must garner the support of voters in a variety of regions. That means whoever wins the presidency must build a truly national coalition. This, in turn, helps promote national cohesion and the peaceful transfer of power between presidents and helps keep the nation’s political system stable.
• The electoral college is far from perfect, there have been many fairly recent events in U.S election history such as the election of 2000 that should show that the system at the very least needs an overhaul and should be removed from existence.
• The founding father's originally placed the electoral college in the constitution because they were afraid that the general population wouldn't have enough information to make a wise informed choice on who would be the best candidate for presidency, but now with the increase in social media and the ability to get information on almost anything at a moments notice, this principle has become worthless and outdated.
• The electoral college came out during a time when the American people were undereducated and the government people knew what was best. Now, we have universal education and the media to help who we want to vote for. If we switch to popular vote people will have a bigger saying than they ever did before.
• There will be a voting system with highly reduced manipulation of vote. Everyone will get a better chance to get elected. The electoral college proponents made a claim there will be more voting fraud, but this is just an excuse to maintain the power in the hands of the few and voting fraud is only a small problem in elections which means there are only a few.
• Some analysts credit the two-party system with keeping American politics stable and driving candidates to the political center, while others would like to see a multi-party system takes hold in the U.S. So, depending on where you stand with regard to the two-party system, you’ll probably have corresponding feelings about the electoral college.
• There’s a movement to encourage states to split their electors in proportion to the percentage of the state vote that each candidate gets. While that wouldn’t eliminate the electoral college, it would change the winner-take-all nature of our system and the way candidates think about state campaigns.
  
• A less likely alternative would be for the U.S. to become a parliamentary republic, where the next president would be the leader of the party with the most seats in congress .