Electoral College Pros And Cons

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THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM: In the popular election, the American people actually vote for electors, not for the candidates themselves. The candidate who receives the majority of votes from electors takes office. Although the Constitution allows the electors to vote for any candidate, they usually vote for the candidate of the political party that nominated them. In a limited number of instances, the structure of the Electoral College has led to unusual election results.
The republican basis of the Electoral College stems from the Constitution. When the founders of the United States set out to secure a system of political representation, many among them feared mob rule. Elections based on representative blocks of votes would implement checks …show more content…
According to the U.S. Office of the Federal Register, for the 2000 election, 26 states and the District of Columbia had laws in effect that bound their electors to vote for the same candidate as the majority of the general populace in that elector's state, and 24 did not. In most states, the presidential candidate who won the most popular votes then received all electoral votes from that state, referred to as the "winner-takes-all" feature. Only two states, Maine and Nebraska, allocated their electoral votes proportionally according to the popular …show more content…
(1) In the first, the candidate with the most popular votes in a state would automatically receive those electoral votes. This system would eliminate independent voting among electors. (2) In the second proposed alternative, a proportionality scheme, the breakdown of popular votes would correlate directly with the breakdown of electoral votes. This plan would abandon the winner-takes-all structure of the college. (3) In the third alternative, the district plan used in Maine, individual congressional districts would be treated as representative of a single electoral vote, and the two electoral votes that each state receives for its two senators would go to the winner of the majority of the districts. (4) To some advocates, there also exists a fourth option: abolishing the Electoral College altogether and letting direct votes of the people determine who wins the offices of president and vice president.
Despite two controversial elections and occasional calls for change, the electoral system has more or less secured an extended series of peaceable transfers of power in the United States. Absent drastic changes in the political landscape, its role in selecting the U.S. president and vice president seems
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