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The election system for a president and a vice president in the United States of America depends on only 538 persons who are members of the Electoral College system. Technically, the Electoral College members , called Electors, have the right to choose the president and the vice president with their decisions. In spite of making their own decisions, the Electoral College members who are voted by people in their states use the results of popular votes in their states to make conclusions in choosing for the president and the vice president.
Moreover, It is important to make sure that people who are going to choose the USA’s leaders have enough knowledge of the candidates’ dispositions and backgrounds that they can make good decisions. In contrast, the result of an election sometimes does not reflect the vote of the vast majority of the people in the nation. From my point of view, the Electoral College should be abolished and the result form the citizens popular vote should be used to elect a president and a vice president of the people.
For all the times that the USA has used the Electoral College, it has been proved that this system is good enough to use. Moreover, According to an article about the election system in the USA, “The Electoral College forces candidates to reach out beyond the large population centers and campaign in places that would be ignored in a direct election system” (“Has the Electoral,”). In this article, the electoral college system allows candidates to do their campaigning in every state because every state also has its own electoral college members.
Essentially, this system makes equally the balance between the power of big states and the power of small states. Moreover, the candidates can easily do campaigning and present their ideas in leading the country to the member of the Electoral College. In fact, it is somewhat like having a personal conversation together. Due to this advantage, the Electors can learn about the candidates and use this knowledge to make a good decision for choosing the leader of the USA.
However, according to a website article about the Electoral College , “most Americans believe that the person who receives the most votes should become president” ( Linder,). In fact, sometimes this does not happen. For example, in the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Albert Gore, the result of that election did not reflect the popular vote of the people in the USA because the total number of people who voted for Albert Gore was more than the votes for George W. Bush. However, the winner f the 2000 election was George W. Bush because he won the votes from the Electoral College members. In addition, according to the Wikipedia article about the elections in the history of the USA, “in the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000, the candidate receiving an aggregate plurality of the popular vote did not become president (although, in 1824, not every state held a popular election, so the true popular vote is uncertain; in those six states, the legislatures appointed the electors)” (“The Electoral College” 2008).
From the information in this article, the electoral college system states that a state that has more people has more power in choosing the president. However, it does not reflect the real number of people who vote because in some big states, there are fewer people casting votes than in smaller states. This condition sometimes weakens the election result for the Electoral College system. Moreover, according to the same article, “it is possible to win the election by winning eleven states and disregarding the rest of the country.
If one ticket were to take California (55 votes), Texas (34), New York (31), Florida (27) Illinois (21), Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), Michigan (17), Georgia (15), New Jersey (15), and North Carolina (15), that ticket would have 271 votes, which would be enough to win” (” The Electoral College” 2008 ). The information of this article points out the fact that a candidate can focus only on the main states that have more quantity of the Electoral College members. In fact, he or she can campaign hard only in those states in order to win the vote.
By doing that, it is unfair for minor states that have fewer Electoral College members. Moreover, the power of leading and ruling the country depends on only 11 states and sometimes makes the least seem not important. According to a piece of writing about the processes of election in the USA,” if the presidential and vice presidential candidates do not receive a simple majority of the Electoral College votes, the House of Representatives must choose the President and the Senate must choose the Vice president “(Kura,13).
This information means that the Electoral College system is not truly democratic because if this situation happens, the votes of the people in the nation will not be used to judge who is going to be the president. However, the decision belongs to a few people in the government. Moreover, it is easier to defraud the election if this situation happens because the House of Representatives can be easily corrupted by candidates.
In conclusion, with many conditions and problems in the Electoral College system, it implies that this system has to be modified to make it suitable for the present because some processes in Electoral College system are out of date. In the age of technology, the USA’s government has a lot of ways to collect votes directly from its citizens. For example, the government could use the internet system as a major election method to collect votes.
In this way, people who cannot easily get to a polling station can vote. In addition, it would encourage more people to vote because of the convince. The government could allow the use of television and radio to spread information about the candidates to make people know in depth about their campaigns and their ideas in leading the country. Moreover, with a good education system for American, people can make good decisions for choosing their president and vice president.
From my point of view, the USA should be concerned more about the problems of its election processes ,especially in the Electro College system, and educate its people to understand more in dept about it in order to find a solution which can improve the system and make it a more democratic system. References “Has the Electoral College Outlived Its Usefulness?. ” International information programs. U. S Department of State. 21 May 2008 ;http://usinfo. state. gov/journals/itdhr/1007/ijde/usefulness. tm;. Kura, Alexandre. Electoral College and Presidential Elections. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc. , 2001. Linder, Doug. “The Electoral College. ” Exploring Constitutional Conflicts Homepage. 21 May 2008 ;http://www. law. umkc. edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/electoralcoll. htm;. Wikipedia, “Electoral College (United States). ” 2008. 21 May 2008 ;http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29#Unequal_weight_of_voters;.