The Electoral College is the system used in the United States to choose the president and vice president. Instead of directly voting for a candidate, Americans vote for a group of people called electors, who then cast their votes for president.
Each state has a certain amount of points, which are allocated based on the number of federal house representatives that the state has, plus two votes for the state’s two federal senators.
270 points are required to win the election; however, many “swing states” are often the deciding factors in elections. If no one reaches 270, the House of Representatives picks the president from the top three candidates.
Over the previous elections, many Americans have become worried that the Electoral College is antiquated or in need of updating, according to Pew Research Center.
“The Electoral College is meant to be a rubber stamp for the opinions of the people,” said Benjamin Clark, a professor of political science. “So in that sense, it doesn’t work in the sense that it is intended to. That being said, I don’t necessarily have a problem with the electoral college, and I think that removing it to have some kind of direct national vote for the president would be more problematic for a couple of reasons.”
Clark remarks on the original intentions of the Electoral College, being an organized way to accurately and efficiently elect a leader based on the opinions of the people. Clark also recognizes the premise of the popular vote and explains his position on whether the popular vote should hold more weight than the Electoral College.
“Well, so as far as in the current system here, the winner of the presidential election should be whatever the rules say it to be,” Clark said. “Both campaigns are campaigning based on the assumption that they are going for the electoral college.”
Clark’s perception seems to be on the complexity of the game of campaigning, which is generally an extremely strategic process.
“I mean, I would keep it as it is, but I don’t like either system,” said Derek Kim, a junior political science and philosophy major. “However, I think it [the Electoral College] makes the election process and the campaign more strategic.”
Some GCSU students feel that the Electoral College should be revisited as a system and hold less weight than the popular vote in elections.
“I don’t think that states’ rights are as big a deal anymore,” said Margaret Bradford, a freshman accounting major. “We function as a whole country more than when the Electoral College was put in place. I think a popular vote would be a much better indicator of where everyone in the country stood.”
The Electoral College has been a way for the U.S. to elect the president through electors rather than a direct vote by the people, and it has been the national tradition to do so since the nation’s inception.
“I think that the electoral college works fine as far as a manifestation of our federal system; we are not a purely national federal system,” Clark said. “The people of America don’t ever vote on anything; we have never voted on anything. This would be a very radical departure in our system – to move toward a national vote for president.”
While the Electoral College plays a central role in the U.S. presidential election system, it remains a topic of debate due to concerns about fairness, representation and its impact on the democratic principle of one person, one vote.
