Detriments and Benefits of Electoral College

In a society where a sparse variety of challenges and issues are faced in pertinence to the government, what was once deemed to have served as a process for the prevention of things, such as the election of Donald Trump, seems to have very little effect in our world today. This process that was established under the purpose of appointing both President and Vice President of the United States of America is known as the electoral college, in which consists of a group of individuals picked by the people of the state to be responsible for determining who wins elections. In acknowledging this, the electoral college forces individuals to analyze its true criticisms; one of the biggest being the fact that despite how the state votes, the presidential elections final say is placed in the hands of a good 358 of the millions of people of the states, essentially posing the query that [the] government is simply too far removed from the people (MyNews24). In opposition to mainstream thinking, the leaders of the United States; whom its people have come to label as both President and Vice President are not elected by equitable vote of the general population. Moreover, Article II of the Constitution established the process that abides by the legalities of placing responsibility of choosing the presidents on 538 electors from the different states: shaping the Electoral College. These 538 individuals withhold the authority to cast votes for the presidential candidate receiving the majority vote of their specific state. Though this is so, the contender of the prominent vote nearly always receives its majority from the electoral college, as opposed to the people. Rooted to administer a steady and proficient technique for directing U.S. presidential elections for the vast majority of the country's history, the electoral college serves to be an essential component towards the well-being of the government and essentially does this. There are many benefits to the creation of the Electoral College; however, it must also be taken into consideration the fact that the Electoral Colleger's flaws and elucidations cause many to believe that it no longer functions for its intended purpose as it should. Having been established for two main purposes, the Electoral College's primary intention was to allow for the general population to withhold more power in regard to the choice of a President and the secondary intention of giving additional capacity to states that weren't classified as a larger state (or a swing state). The founders trusted that those voting under the Electoral College would have the capacity to guarantee that any President selected would attain all the qualifications of a good leader. They also held a great amount of faith in the Electoral College to ensure that nobody would have the complete authority in controlling the state. Because Maine and Nebraska are smaller states, they attain what some would see as a benefit to separate their electoral college by congressional district. If this concept were to be assimilated for each state, in which each congressional district and state are both equally given the right to play part in the entire process, it would allow for candidates to focus more on the whole country in terms of winning rather than simply the "swing" states (procon.org). The coined term, federalism, is based upon states and the national government both holding an equal amount of power (FIU Law Review, 2017). Furthermore, federalism can best be defined as a "distribution of power in an organization between a central authority and the constituent" (Merriam-Webster, 2012). Without the Electoral College, there would be a removal of power from the states to choose the president, and founders (of whom wrote The Federalist Papers) believed that because their citizenship resided in a federalist nation, their president was to be chosen under that "federalist way". Moreover, the framers developed a framework that had law based highlights, in which gave individuals more power to an extent when regarding things in relation to their government; however, some still contend that the founders reluctantly restricted the general population's voice.

Cite this page