Centerville High
School
Centerville, South
Dakota
Teacher: Terri
Buechler
The Electoral College
By Tim Wellenstein
The Electoral
College has both positive and negative sides. About
30 years ago, on Monday, December 16th, 1968, the Electoral College was started as
“electors” cast votes for both President and Vice President. In that election,
during a time of deep stress within the country’s political and social organization,
the United States could have easily become held up in an election crisis. Still, the
Electoral College system remains the method for selecting Presidents, despite its
potential for creating serious problems. The
people who created our political system established the Electoral College process because
they did not trust the average voter to understand the issues or know the political
leaders of the new nation well enough to make informed choices. So originally, state
legislators chose electors, who were not to be professional politicians, but citizens of
excellent knowledge and sophistication. These “electors” would then choose the
President of the United States.
During the first
two elections there was no problem with the Electoral College, each time the electors
correctly chose George Washington to be President and since he opposed political parties,
they were not tested in the first few elections. But
the Electoral College was tested in the election of 1800 when a problem occurred. A two-party system had occurred when Thomas
Jefferson, Democratic-Republican, and John Adams, Federalist, were running against each
other, people started voting for both not specifying whether they were voting for
president or vice-president. So the
Democratic-Republican electors devotedly cast their two votes for Thomas Jefferson, and
the party’s choice for Vice President was Aaron Burr. When the votes were counted, there was a tie
between Burr and Jefferson. Jefferson was the clear choice of Democratic-Republicans, and
the best choice for President. The election went to the
House of Representatives because of the complicated vote.
Even though four states in the House voted for Burr, but Jefferson won the
position. By the 1804 election, a Constitutional amendment was adopted to have electors
specify their votes for President and Vice President.
I feel that the
process of electing a President through the Electoral College is not the correct way we
should elect our President. I feel this way
because it does not always give the people voting the right to vote for the candidate they
want to become president. Therefore the
people that are unsatisfied sometimes wonder why they even vote because the people that
choose who becomes President are the Electoral College.
There have been problems with the Electoral College on and off since it began in
1968. If we continue to use the same method
of electing our President in the future, we won’t be voting for the person that we
want since the Electoral College chooses.
The United States
is a free country, and we have the right to speak our own opinion. My opinion is that we
should change the voting system so we vote by popular vote.
The fact is that this is an easy problem to fix. All we need is a Constitutional
amendment that mandates choosing the President by popular vote. We would not have to
require a candidate to receive more than 50% per cent of the vote. We could have a run-off
election, if we want the winning candidate to have 50% or more of the votes cast. By having the popular vote system we would be able
to vote who we want and think will fulfill the position up for election. I also think that if we would change the voting
system, it would create an easier more understandable way to vote and the people would be
happier knowing that they are voting themselves and not the electors voting. I asked some of my grandparents what their
opinions were and they said the electoral college has been around for so long that they
really have not had a chance to experience anything different.
This last year was
really a mixed up election and therefore we should change the election process not just
because we want to but because it would help benefit everyone by hopefully making the
election more accurate and exciting.
Along with changing
the election process, I think that the U.S. citizens should be more educated with each
election creating an increase in citizen participation in voting. But on the other hand the electoral vote system
conveys an impression of authority to the popular vote mandate, and many believe it is
responsible for the political stability the U.S. enjoys and no one denies the inequality
in individual voting power that it creates, and thus may be a reason not to change the
voting system.
Required
Questions
1. How and when did the United States elect a
president and vice president of different parties? Name
them and their respective parties. In 1976
election John Adams, Federalist, was elected president and Thomas Jefferson, Republican,
was elected vice president. These were decided by giving the person with the highest
number of votes president and the runner up, vice president.
2. Describe four ways that were suggested to elect
the President between 1808 and 1846.Four ways that were used between 1808 and 1846 were
the direct vote plan, by lot, by regional election, and the automatic plan.
3. Name five U.S. Presidents who were elected with
less than a popular vote.
Five U.S. Presidents elected with less than a popular vote were Richard Nixon,
Harry Truman, Woodraw Wilson, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy.
4.
Describe the winner-take-all system. Which states
use this system? The winner-take-all system means that the candidate with the most popular
votes automatically wins the states electoral votes without sending elector’s to
Washington to vote. Every state except Maine
uses the winner-take-all system.
5. When do electors vote and when are the results
known? The first Monday after the second Wednesday in December is set throughout the U.S.
to be the day to vote and the results are shown and announced during the month of January.
6. What affect would substituting a direct popular
vote for the Electoral College have on third party candidates? Why? Third party candidates
would be encouraged because adding a direct popular vote would allow third party
candidates to receive more votes than they would with just the proportional plan and it
would create a more accurate voting system.
7. Give four arguments for and against a direct vote
system. The direct vote system was claimed to always ensure that the candidate with the
greatest popular vote would win the office of president, and would give equal weight to
every vote. Two arguments against the direct vote system are it would encourage minority
parties because there would be a greater probability that two major parties would not
receive a majority and the direct vote would weaken the power of the states and strengthen
the national government.
8. Describe the
differences between the district plan, the proportional plan and the winner-take-all plan.
The district plan is the states congressional district elects an elector to choose who
they choose to vote for. The proportional plan decides their vote by the states party
vote. The winner-take-all system is when a candidate receives more electoral votes than
that candidate receives president.
9. State the four points experts in 1969 agreed
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 the
peoples’ choice winner of the most popular votes 3.) the president-elect should have
a mandate to govern, a legitimacy which which comes from a good margin of victory and 4.)
the ideal system should not undermine the two-party system.
10. What did democrats mean when they claimed some
votes in Florida had never been counted: not even once? What did the Republicans mean when
they claimed these votes in Florida had been counted two or three times? Which party do you believe and why? The democrats
meant that they had voted but not all the votes were read by the machines because the
chads weren’t completely punched all the way through the ballot. The Republicans
meant that the democrats voted once and it was thought to be incorrect so a sample was
taken to see if the ballots were correct and recounted again so they saw it as the votes
being counted as two or three times.
11. Do you think Florida and the U.S. Supreme Courts
politicized their decisions posted on many sites on the Internet? No
12. Did the election in 2000 make you ashamed or proud
to be an American? Explain I feel that the
U.S. needs a new way of electing a president because this past 2000 election was very
inefficient and made many Americans angry and unsatisfied.