History: why Electoral College?
The whole notion of Electoral College originated in 1787, which is when the Constitution was written. The idea was quite simple: to now allow any particular group of citizens united by the same interests to manipulate the elections and violate the rights of other citizens. Well, this sounds quite silly now, but you have to remember the times when it was written. And then, a given candidate and proposal could not only violate some citizen’s rights, but could also harm the nation as a whole. Therefore the actual vote was given only to a selected group of people who could think rationally and act in the best interests on the nation.
And nowadays, it is pretty much used as a formality. Americans, similar to Europeans, love their traditions very much and thus would not be willing to change the entire voting system (which would cost billions of US dollars) unless it was absolutely necessary. Although, there were times, when a Candidate would win the popular vote, but not become POTUS. This has been the case in 1824 (Adams over Jackson), 1876 (Hayes over Tilden), 1888 (Harrison over Cleveland), 2000 (Bush over Gore) and again in 2016 elections.
The number of voters each state gets
|
State |
Number of Electoral Votes |
|
Alabama |
9 |
|
Alaska |
3 |
|
Arizona |
11 |
|
Arkansas |
6 |
|
California |
55 |
|
Colorado |
9 |
|
Connecticut |
7 |
|
Delaware |
3 |
|
District of Columbia |
3 |
|
Florida |
29 |
|
Georgia |
16 |
|
Hawaii |
4 |
|
Idaho |
4 |
|
Illinois |
20 |
|
Indiana |
11 |
|
Iowa |
6 |
|
Kansas |
6 |
|
Kentucky |
8 |
|
Louisiana |
8 |
|
Maine |
4 |
|
Maryland |
10 |
|
Massachusetts |
11 |
|
Michigan |
16 |
|
Minnesota |
10 |
|
Mississippi |
6 |
|
Missouri |
10 |
|
Montana |
3 |
|
Nebraska |
5 |
|
Nevada |
6 |
|
New Hampshire |
4 |
|
New Jersey |
14 |
|
New Mexico |
5 |
|
New York |
29 |
|
North Carolina |
15 |
|
North Dakota |
3 |
|
Ohio |
18 |
|
Oklahoma |
7 |
|
Oregon |
7 |
|
Pennsylvania |
20 |
|
Rhode Island |
4 |
|
South Carolina |
9 |
|
South Dakota |
3 |
|
Tennessee |
11 |
|
Texas |
38 |
|
Utah |
6 |
|
Vermont |
3 |
|
Virginia |
13 |
|
Washington |
12 |
|
West Virginia |
5 |
|
Wisconsin |
10 |
|
Wyoming |
3 |
The electoral college is great if you have a large population , but what about the states that aren’t overpopulated? I feel that at the end of the day each state should have one vote. This vote would come from the total of all the electoral college votes per candidate per state. This would eliminate any argument about who wo or lost. No more campaigning in the large population states only. The POTUS represents all states and every state should have the same vote authority.
Please, this would make the current inequities even worse. Why should Wyoming with a population of 569K have the same political authority as California with 80x more citizens?
Would have to agree with you
most countries in the civilised world have a system where the candidate with the majority number of votes is decaled the winner which is the way it should be.
the electoral collage is a joke.
We as country should have the legislature branch do away with the Electoral College!
Through the Electoral College, the USA has “indirect” democracy. This is unlike the UK, Australia, and Canada which have “direct’ democracy. Prime Ministers, the heads of their respective parties, are elected by popular vote. First across the ‘post’ wins.