Centerville High School

Centerville, South Dakota

Teacher: Terri Buechler

 

 

 

The Electoral College

By Megan Nelsen

 

The origin of the Electoral College started when the Constitutional Conventional explored many ways of choosing a President.  One suggestion was to have the Congress choose the President. A second suggestion was to have the State Legislatures select a President. A third suggestion was to elect the President direct popular vote.

 

The suggestions fell by the way side one by one. The first suggestion failed because there were fears of permanently dividing the congress and concerns of upsetting the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches. The second idea was voted down because the farmers felt that federal authority would be compromised in exchange for votes. The third idea was not taken because of the concern that voters would only select candidates from their state without enough information about candidates outside of the state. The prevailing suggestion was to have a College of electors select a president through an indirect election.

 

Today each state is allocated a number of electors equal to the number of its U.S. Representatives plus two senators. The political parties of each state submit a list of individuals pledged to their candidates for President that is equal in number to the number of electoral votes for the state to elect its chief election official. Each party determines its own way of choosing electors. 

 

After the parties hold their caucuses and the states hold their primaries, the major parties suggest their candidates for the office of President.  The names are then submitted to the states chief election official.  Then they will appear on a general election ballot. On Tuesday after the first Monday in November, registered voters in each state cast their ballots for the office of President and Vice President. Whoever gets the most popular vote in a state wins all of the electors for that state except Maine and Nebraska, which award electoral votes proportionately. Then on Monday after the second Wednesday of December, each state’s electors meet in their respective state and cast their electoral votes. Each elector must cast one of their two votes for the person outside of their state in order to prevent the election of a President and Vice President from the same state.

 

The electoral votes are sealed and sent to the president of the U.S. Senate and are read aloud to both Houses of Congress on January 6.   The candidate with the most electoral votes, provided their absolute majority is declared president. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of electoral votes the U.S. House of Representatives selects the President from the top of the vote getters. On January 20, at noon, the elected President and Vice President are sworn into office. 

 

I think the Electoral College is overrated; it does no good.  I think that we should just be able to vote and then be done with it.  Why do we need to have our votes that we voted for, be read then the best of those be counted? In South Dakota we only get three electoral votes so it makes no since to vote, then have the Electoral College revote for us. I think we should be able to vote for who  we want to vote for. Why should we have the Electoral College tell us how our state is going to vote? How many times did Florida revote at least three that is ridiculous!  

 

On the other hand, it is good to have because it helps the smaller states like us, if we all did want one person to vote, then almost all of the electoral votes would go to the president we want to win.  I’m not going to say I do not like the system yet, I am not old enough to vote.  Who knows maybe I will change my mind.  Now I think that it is a bigger hassle to have the Electoral College.  I think we should try it one year not to have it; maybe we would come to find out that it would be better not to have it.  We would also be able to see if we do really want it.  I really do think that it will still be around in the next twenty years.  It will take a lot to get rid of it. Well it took two months to decide on a President, just think of how long this would take to change. It would probably take more than thirty years to even consider it.  Then to actually vote on it, would be another thirty years.  You know that we would have to talk about it for a good five years.

 

All in all I hope they figure out a better way to handle the United States Presidential election; something needs to happen. This office is too high of a position, and too powerful to leave any thing to chance.

 

 

Required Questions

 

 

1. In 1796, United States selected a President and Vice President, by counting the number of votes, and who ever had the highest number of votes, would be president. To find the Vice President they went with the next one with the higher votes. That year John Adams a federalists. Became president, and Thomas Jefferson a republican, became Vice-president.
2. Between 1808 and 1846 their were four ways suggested to elect president:

-          The proposal to choose the President by lot

-          The direct vote plan

-          Four regions by rotating basis

-          Automatic Plan

3. Five U.S. presidents that were elected with less than the popular vote were: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry Clay
4. The winner take all system is who ever has the most popular vote wins all of the states electoral votes.  The system is used in every state but Maine.
5. Electors vote the first Monday after the second day in December, and in January the votes are tallied up for both houses and the results are announced.
6. The third party would benefit from substituting the direct popular vote for the Electoral College. It will help because they would have some of the electoral votes and so they would have a little of both. Then no one would have an electoral vote and no popular vote.
7. Two arguments for the direct vote system would be!

-          It would give equal right to every vote, that way we would all know that everybody was getting a fair chance.

-          It would reduce the chance of fraud

8. Two reasons that it would not be so good!
9. Would weaken the power of states and strengthen the national government
10. They thought that the direct vote would encourage minority parties because there would be a greater probability that two major parties would receive a majority
11. The difference between the district plan, proportional plan and the winner take all system?  In the district plan states congressional district elects an elector to choose whom they choose to vote for.  The Proportional plan is when the party votes by states.  The Winner take all system is when the winner of the state gets all of the electoral votes. That is the system that we use today
12. The four point experts in 1969 should be included in an ideal plan for electing U.S. presidents. The four points are 1. The need for a quick decision and clear-cut winner 2. the victor should be people’s choice winner of the most popular votes 3. the president-elect should have a mandate to govern a legitimacy which comes from a good margin 4. The ideal system should not undermine the two-party system.
13.  When the democrats said that some votes had never been counted, some of the ballets were not punched properly so the computer did not count them.  Also, some to the ballets were confusing so some votes did not go where they wanted them to.  The republicans said that the votes in Florida had been counted three times because, first they were sent through the computer machine, and second they spot-checked them to see if it was reading the ballets correctly. The third was it was not reading them correctly so they hand counted them.  With all of the times that they went back to see, they could have been counted three times.
14. No, I do not think that that U.S. Supreme court told about everything they did tell every body what they were doing.  No, I did not read the courts decisions.  By the time it got almost over I was so sick of hearing about it.

15.  The 2000 election really made me sick. I think there were a lot of things that could have been prevented.  I was stupid; if it was up to I would through both candidates out and start over!                                                         [Back]