Electoral College?

Question

State 2 important criticisms of the Electoral College

Answer 1

I have a really big one: that my vote doesn't count!! I live in Maryland, and I usually vote Republican. Maryland on the whole usually votes Democratic, so not only is my vote not counted for the candidate I voted for, it is actually counted as a vote for the other guy!! Not fair!! So that's one: it distorts the votes that are cast. Second, it discourages people like me from voting. If my vote isn't going to count, why should I bother? Probably not the answers you were looking for for your homework, but these are answers from the real world. Good Luck!!

Answer 2

The first problem is the 1952 decision by the United States Supreme Court in Roy v. Blair, holding that a state cannot constitutionally require its electors to vote for the candidates to whom they are pledged. Consequently, critics of the Electoral College suggest the possibility of some enormous mischief by which a significant number of electors would vote for some other candidate, thus frustrating the will of the voters. There have been at least four instances in which individual electors failed to vote for the candidate to whom they were pledged. One occurred in 1820, when an elector pledged to James Monroe voted for John Qunicy Adams instead. His rationale was that his vote would have made the election of Monroe unanimous and that no President other than George Washington was deserving of unanimous support. The other three instances – one in 1956, one in 1960 and one in 1968 – were equally peculiar to the individual elector. None affected an election’s outcome. While reformers argue that a simple constitutional amendment could remedy this potential problem of the "unfaithful elector," others hold that some carefully restricted elector discretion should be maintained. They point out that while the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution addresses the situation in which a President becomes disabled, and various statutes deal with the situation in which a presidential candidate becomes disabled after receiving his party’s nomination but before the general election, no provision is made for a disability that occurs between the general election and the meeting of the electors. At this time, the only constitutional solution is elector discretion.

The second charge against the Electoral College points out that it is possible for a presidential candidate to win a plurality of the popular vote but to lose in the Electoral College. This possibility results from two features of the system. First, each state, no matter how small, is guaranteed three electors. Second, the at-large, winner-take-all system means that a victorious candidate, no matter how narrow his margin of victory, is awarded all of a state’s electoral votes. There have been three cases in which it appears that the winner of the popular vote lost the presidency because of these mathematical problems with the Electoral College.3 The more normal pattern, however, is for the Electoral College vote to exaggerate the margin of victory in the popular vote.

Because of this mathematical problem, critics of the Electoral College tend to advocate one of two types of reforms. First, the often seek a system of awarding electors according to the distribution of the popular vote within a state, either by some system of proportional representation of by the election of electors within electoral districts. Either reform would require ending the current at-large, winner-take-all system. Proposals of this sort might encourage the formation of third parties and even throw presidential elections into the House of Representatives, where each state has one vote regardless of population. Attempts to address this issue by constitutional amendment have been defeated, largely because of the fear of third parties.

The other type of reform proposed by critics of the present Electoral College system is even more far-reaching. Some see the Electoral College as an eighteenth century anachronism, having no role in a modern nation state. These reformers would eliminate the Electoral College altogether and substitute a system of direct popular election. Direct election of the President, of course, would be a major departure from the federal character of the American republic

Answer 3

1: It does not actually represent the vote cast by the voters in a given state. If the candidate wins the state by just 1 popular vote he gets all the Electoral College votes from that state.

2. Because of the above it is possible and has happened several times were the candidate did not win the election by the popular vote but he win the election because of the Electoral College. One example of that was John F. Kennedy. vs Nixon. Nixon actually won the popular vote, but Kennedy won the election because of the Electoral College.