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Sam Ramirez
Mr. Hawkins
US Government period 5
October 8, 2015
Should the Electoral College be Abolished?
The Electoral College consists of members that are elected to vote for the President.
Citizens take part in the popular vote, after that the electors vote and decide who will be
President. The Electoral College is a widely criticized system. Senator Mitch McConnell
believes the Electoral College should be preserved because it is the linchpin of American
political prosperity. The main reason that citizens and senators want to preserve the
Electoral College is because it gives smaller states a voice against the larger ones. The
Electoral College is also believed to be an unfair system, it has promoted political
inequality, and after the popular vote the amount of electoral votes each state gets becomes
unbalanced.
All states begin with the same amount of Electoral Votes. The popular vote gives more
power to the states that receive the most votes. Each state receives one vote for each Senator and
both members of the House. The population of a state does not affect the number of electoral
votes a state will have. A Presidential candidate that wins the popular vote will not necessarily
win the election. The Electoral College gives the same amount of power to the small states as
it does to the big ones, since it is not based on population.

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The Electoral College is known for promoting political inequality. The Electors mostly
vote for either democratic or republican candidates. In the election of 1980, Ronald Reagan won
ninety-one percent of the electoral vote; Jimmy Carter won forty-nine percent. In the same
election, John B. Anderson who was part of the independent party won zero electoral votes. The
Same thing happened in the election of 1992, the independent candidate; Ross Perot won zero
electoral votes. The Electoral College shows political inequality candidates that won the
highest popular vote also won the electoral vote; the independent candidates lost both votes
in both elections.
Before the popular election, all states have the same amount of electoral votes. The states
can have no more than three electoral votes because there is one vote for each state Senator, and
two for the House members. After the popular vote, some states like Texas or California can have
the same amount of power as multiple states combined. This makes the smaller states that have a
small amount of electoral votes, be worth less in presidential campaigns. Candidates can get the
popular votes from the larger states and will not have to win in the smaller states because
they have less electoral votes.

The Electoral College is wanted to be preserved by some, and wanted to be abolished by

some. An argument to keep the Electoral College in use is that it is a known system and is
responsible for forming political parties and changing elements of some. Senators and citizens
both want to abolish the Electoral College for multiple reasons. Some include; the Electoral
College promotes political inequality because the popular parties that are running win over
independent candidates who typically receive zero electoral votes. The Electoral College has the

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same amount of voters in each state, after the popular vote; the larger states have more votes than
smaller states.