Concordia High School
Concordia, Kansas
Teacher: Timothy Berger
Electoral College Must Go
By Lorisa Wright
12th grade
Americans are faced with substantial decisions each day. One weighty decision we are currently focusing on is between the Direct Election and the Electoral College. There are people receiving the Presidency without being the American’s favorite candidate. A large majority of Americans agree that the Electoral College is unjust to presidential candidates. A candidate may receive more of the popular vote, yet still lose the election because of the Electoral College. The states have a larger voice to who becomes the next President than what individual citizens have. A Direct Election would allow each voter to vote for the candidate he or she supports. These votes would directly affect the outcome of an election. The majority of the popular vote would elect the President. The Electoral College unfairly elects the President by the most electoral votes each state contributes.
Americans
would love to have the ability to directly affect their government. Many people do not vote, because they think their
vote does not count. Casting a vote and
knowing that a vote makes a larger difference would increase voter turn out and American
pride. Opinion polls show the people’s
support for a republic has declined, but that sixty-nine percent of people would be more
likely to support a republic if the president was directly elected.1 If the American people are losing confidence in
their country, there needs to be a change. That
change is implementing the Direct Election.
The Electoral College is outdated and does not reflect the needs of the people.2 Presently, the 2000 Presidential election is under fire. The controversy continues between George Bush and Al Gore. Since the Electoral College was used, neither candidate won the minimum two-hundred-seventy electoral votes. This makes the presidential election extremely complicated and long. The Direct Election would make every vote have a more powerful standing. If Direct Election was implemented, the new 2000 President of the United States would have been announced the day of election instead of who knows when.
If a Direct Election would have existed in past years, America would have had some different Presidents. In 1876, Tilden had 4,288,670 popular votes, which equaled fifty point nine percent of the popular vote, and Hayes had 4,035,924 popular votes, which equaled 47 point nine percent of the popular vote. Tilden won 184 of the electoral votes, and Hayes won 185 of the electoral votes.3 This denotes that the American people wanted Tilden to be their President. The Electoral College interfered and with only one electoral vote, Hayes became President.
Direct Election would press presidential candidates to campaign in smaller populated states. This would increase party competition and voter interest. It would also cause candidates to cater more to these rural areas. Presently, larger populated states receive more attention than smaller populated ones. Larger populated states have a stronger voice, giving them too much power over the country.
Presently, campaigning is a huge expense. For years, financially influential people throughout the country have been contributing money to presidential candidates. This is illegal, except through a legal loophole. This loophole was established by the Federal Election Commission in 1978. The illegality is called “soft money.” This allows large amounts of money to be contributed for “party building” purposes. This money is often used in campaigning instead. A person cannot legally contribute more than one-thousand dollars to a federal candidate or more than twenty-thousand dollars to a political party per year.4 People who give large sums of money have advantages. One government official noted, “Some contributors may complain because they have to “pony-up” $300,000 during a presidential campaign. But when they think about doing something to bring reform they stop….They realize that the present way of doing things works to their advantage.”5 This affirms that campaign contributors are providing too much money. Campaign financing needs to be reformed. Senator Chuck Hagel introduced the “Open and Accountable Campaign Financing Act of 2000.” This reform would increase disclosure on campaign contributions and advertisements. Sixty-thousand dollars would cap soft money contributions to committees and adapt individual contribution limits for inflation.6
The Electoral College affects candidates and voters alike. It does not serve the immediate needs of citizens. The voices of the states are heard, but the peoples’ voices are too weak. Action needs to take place, and a reform in the Electoral College has to be made. The reform should bring about the Direct Election and do away with the Electoral College. We, the people, are calling out for one President, but given another. America deserves better and so do candidates. Direct Election would contribute to the justice of electing a President.
Work
Cited
1 Canberra, Gervase Greene. “Direct Vote on President a Non-Starter, ”Daily News.1999.20 October 2000. <http://www.therage.com.au/daily/990127/news/
news16html>.
2 “Reasons the Electoral College Must Go.” 3 November 2000. <http://www.angelfire.com /il2/EC/reasons.html>.
3 “Electoral College.” Reversal of Popular Vote Winners. 3 November 2000. <http://spot.coloado.edu/~mcguire/eleccol2.html>.
4 “In Political Campaign Contributions, what is soft money?” Ask Yahoo! 17 February 2000. 18 October 2000. <http://www.avagara.com/politics/ec_zine/1888.html>.
5 Dunn, Delmer D. Financing Presidential Campaigns. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1972. 59.
6 “Soft Money, Recent Developments in Campaign Finance Regulation.” 2000. 25 October 2000. <http://www.brook.edu.gs/cf/softmoney.html>.
1. How and when did
the United States elect a president and vice president of different parties? Name them and their respective parties.
According to Article 11 Section 1:2 of the United States’ Constitution, the candidate with the highest number of votes should be president and the runner-up, vice president. In 1796, John Adams, a Federalist, became president, and Thomas Jefferson, a Republican, became vice president.
2. Describe four
ways that were suggested to elect the President between 1808 and 1846.
One way Presidents were suggested to be elected, in 1808, was election by lot. The President was elected from a group of retiring Senators. Later it was proposed that the states elect a native-son candidate. In 1816, the direct-vote plan was suggested. This plan was proposed by Senator Abner Lacock. The direct-vote plan would have banished the Electoral College. This would have allowed “the people” to have more of a voice to whom became the next President. Another proposal, in 1822, was to choose the President on the basis of rotation between four regions. In other words, the United States would have been divided into four sections, and every four years a new President would be elected from a different region. In 1826, the automatic plan was introduced. All of a state’s electoral votes would be received by the candidate with most popular vote.
3. Name five U.S.
Presidents who were elected with less than a popular vote.
The five U.S. Presidents who were elected with less than a popular vote are John Adams, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln.
4. Describe the
winner-take-all system. Which states use this
system?
In the winner-take-all system, the candidate who receives the most popular vote in a state wins all of the electoral votes of that state. The winner’s opponent is left without any electoral votes. The winner takes everything and the loser, in turn, receives nothing. The states that use the winner-take-all system are Washington, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, California, Utah, Arizona, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Every state except Maine.
5. When do electors
vote and when are the results known?
The electors vote on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. The results are known in January.
6. What affects
would substituting a direct popular vote for the Electoral College have on third party
candidates? Why?
Substituting a direct popular vote for the Electoral College would give the third party candidates a better chance of winning an election. A direct popular vote would split the popular votes more equally. The third party candidates would not have to feel the shame of being “blown away by the competition.” Therefore; this benefit would increase the interest of other citizens becoming candidates for the Presidential elections.
7. Give four
arguments for and against a direct vote system.
Arguments for the Direct Vote System:
There is too much power in popular votes in low voting participation states, small states, and high electoral vote states. This gives minorities and people who live in more urban areas more power in Presidential elections.
Electoral votes are distributed according to the decennial census. This census becomes outdated after a short period of time. Then some states have more or less power to who may become President.
The present Electoral College endangers the two-party system. It encourages a third party to become more competitive and win because of a close race between the two main candidates.
Currently, the states use the direct vote system and have no trouble governing the states. Therefore, if the direct vote system works for the states, it should work for the national government. The main difference is that the President has more people to represent than Governors of individual states.
Arguments Against the Direct Vote System:
The direct vote system would dilute the leverage of the national government. It wold give more power to the states, causing an unequally balance government. Then the minorities would be outvoted, and their votes would be lost.
State borders would no longer exist during the voting process. Voting regulations would have to be equal throughout the country. Then voting qualifications for citizens would need to be changed so that every citizen would be equally represented.
During elections federal employees would have to tally the national vote. Since there would be no state borders for elections, state employees would become federal employees. This would increase the power of the federal government and diminish the power of the state government.
Many people believe that the present Electoral College is responsible for the United States’ strong political standing. It balances powers between urban and rural areas. The need for the direct vote system is unnecessary, because the legislative branch tends to over represent the rural areas and neglect the urban areas. The direct vote system, in turn, would make the United States’ political standing unstable.
8. Describe the
differences between the district plan, the proportional plan and the winner-take-all plan.
The district plan has electoral votes and is allocated by districts within the states. It breaks apart the power of larger states. The district plan also gives third parties a chance of winning some electoral votes. The proportional plan allows the division of each state’s Electoral College votes. This is only according to the popular vote received by each party. The candidates receive a portion of the electoral votes as long as at least one person voted for them. The winner-take-all plan is bias to rural areas, unlike the district and proportional plans. The candidate that is the winner of the popular vote takes all of the electoral votes. The opposing candidates receive nothing for their campaigning efforts.
9. State the four
points experts in 1969 agreed should be included in an ideal plan for electing U.S.
Presidents.
The American public needs a quick decision and a defined winner.
The President should be the peoples’ number one pick.
The best voting system should not ruin the two-party system.
The chosen President should have a mandate to over see the government and clearly win the election.
10. Write a
paragraph describing what is meant by one of the following:
Shrinkage Phenomenon
Americans prefer pragmatists to ideologues
The people most likely to be under represented
Crisis is opportunity
Great leaders seize the occasion to take charge during a crisis. Strong leaders view a crisis as an opportunity, an opportunity to change the views of others. When a leader successfully steers crisis into a positive direction, people listen. The people know that the leader can make negative occurrences into positive ones. The crisis leader grasped the opportunity to be remembered for making a difference.