Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Adam Friedenthal
Mrs.Everett
American Literature
20 March, 2017
The year is 1787, at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia, and the founding
fathers of our nation are creating a document that the country will use as guideline for all aspects
of life in the United States, also known as the constitution. The Founding fathers also discussed
other issues, more specifically, the issue on how to elect the president. They came up with a
system known as the Electoral College which would assign electors to each state based on the
population to represent the population as a whole. America has used this system as long as it has
been a country, however it has not kept up with the changing times. A new system is needed to
meet the issues the Electoral College poses. The Electoral College should be abolished because it
is outdated ,allows for a minority president to be elected without winning the popular vote, and
The Electoral College is outdated as the development and creation of this system was
influenced by slavery and the concern about lack of readily available information for voters,
which is not applicable to today. At the time the Electoral College was created, slavery was still
legal, so when developing the the system, the founding fathers made it so as it would be accepted
by many. Though slaves could not vote at the time, slave owners could count their slaves vote
towards who they wanted to vote for. The Electoral College benefited Southern states because
Friedenthal 2
slaves would be excluded from the direct vote, but could be counted as of a white person when
electoral college votes were given(Outdated). The Founding Fathers also saw the lack of
readily available information to be an issue towards electing the president. The printing press
was the main means of widespread communication when the Electoral College was being
created. The founders were worried that voters from far and wide could not get enough
information. Thus, the founding fathers then believed the voters should select local officials,
whom the voters knew more about, to be electors. These electors would vote for their
information is available through a multitude of mediums, most especially the internet, where
Not only is the Electoral College outdated, it allows for the potential of a minority
president to be elected into office without winning the majority vote. The Electoral College
system can have cases where the candidate with fewer popular votes can win the presidency.
Erik Black, a journalist for the Minnesota Post even stated that the Electoral College can create
the possibility for the loser of the popular vote to win the electoral vote. This situation where a
minority president has been elected has been seen multiple times where one candidate won the
presidential election by close margins in enough states to win the Electoral College, but loses by
large margins in other states and thus gets elected with fewer popular votes than his
rival(Bolinger 180). The Electoral College does not accurately depict who the majority of the
population want as their president. Rather, it shows the want of the states which is not the want
Another reason why the Electoral College should be abolished is because it undermines
the notion that every vote counts. The Electoral College does not support the idea that every vote
counts, rather it further distorts the one-person, one-vote principle of democracy because
electoral votes are not distributed according to population. Every state gets one electoral vote for
each member of its delegation to the House of Representatives (this by itself would be a rough
measure of its population) and each state also gets two bonus electors representing its two
senators.This causes significant overrepresentation of small states in the College. In the most
extreme case, using 2010 Census figures and the new distribution of House seats based on that
census, an individual citizen in Wyoming has more than triple the weight in electoral votes as an
individual in California(Black). People in different states have more of a significant vote than in
other states solely based on the population. Every vote is counted, however in different states a
vote can have more or less power than in others such as in the case of the recent election where
California would vote Democratic in the presidential election (Clinton won it by 29 points) and
that West Virginia would go Republican (Trump won by nearly 42 points)And because of the
United States' peculiar electoral college system, in which the winner takes all the electoral votes
in all but two states, all the California Trump votes and West Virginia Clinton votes didn't really
matter much. So voters in those states might have reasonably shrugged and stayed home on
Election Day(Kurtzleben). The Electoral College system also does not account for all United
States citizens.The Electoral College system awards votes to states, however many citizens are
left out. Even though residents of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands are U.S. citizens,
they are fully excluded from the Electoral College voting system. Puerto Rico by itself has a
population of 3,808,610. After adding this population to that of the other territories, it can found
Friedenthal 4
that over four million citizens are not represented in the Electoral College system. These citizens
are all interested in who becomes commander-in- chief, however they do not have a say(Bolinger
180). The people of these territories are able to vote, however they are not counted in the
There are many reasons why the Electoral College should be abolished yet, opponents
can still argue that the Electoral College should be preserved as it preserves the two-party system
and has the ability to maintain the system of checks and balances in American government. The
two party system balances out the election process and it parallels those found within the
Electoral College itself(the people and the Electoral College vote) as well as the nature of the
two party system may split the country in terms of opinions, however it still allows for the
United States to have a functioning government. Maria Lynn McCollester states how:
Historically, multi-party systems have divided nations, destabilizing them beyond the point of
having a functioning and successful government(184). Also, the values of the United States can
be seen in every aspect of the constitution, which includes its system of checks and balances that
where one source of power cannot be greater than another. This requires systems such as the
bicameral legislature and the Electoral College. With these systems, the United States
The Electoral College was created for purposed that no longer apply to today. If the
Electoral College were to be abolished, would open up many solutions to the problems it has
created. The Electoral College being outdated, does not keep up with the demands of today's
Friedenthal 5
time and for it to be abolished would allow for a new system of how the president is to be
elected that pertains more to today and for future elections. Also, for the Electoral College to be
abolished there would be no more cases where a minority candidate(according to the popular
vote) wins the presidency, and a clear representation of who was to become president would be
shown. Every vote would be accounted for, and more people would be encouraged to go out and
vote. Overall, for the Electoral Colleges abolishment would be an tremendous improvement and
Works Cited
Americas outdated Electoral College New York Times.Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., 20 Oct
Black, Erik. 10 reasons why the Electoral College is a problem The Minnesota Post. Andrew
Bolinger, Benjamin. Abolishing the Electoral College. International Social Science Review
Kurtzleben, Danielle. CHARTS: Is The Electoral College Dragging Down Voter Turnout In
Your State?. NPR. Triton Digital, 26 Nov 2016. Accessed 13 Mar 2017.
Science Review, Vol.82 no. ( 2007): pp. 182-186. JSTOR. Accessed 7 Mar 2017.