Background Essay

Historical Perspective

1 Several years after the United States was founded, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. Government had been based on the Articles of Confederation, which had virtually no executive branch--that is, no single leader, such as a president or prime minister. It was clear that such a leader was necessary. The Convention created the offices of president and vice president. But the delegates bitterly remembered how Britain had abused its power when it ruled the American colonies. They knew the leader's power needed limits. They also knew that the leader must be chosen in an informed process that would consider the wishes of every citizen without giving too much weight to any one group.
2 In general, the delegates did not believe the president and vice president should be chosen by a direct popular vote of the people. They did not trust that voters would have enough information to make a good choice. Instead, the delegates settled on a system involving an Electoral College. In this system, the president and vice president are chosen indirectly. The Electoral College system works like this:
-All states and the District of Columbia get one electoral vote for each of their US senators and representatives. For example, California, the most populous state, has 53 members in the House of Representatives and 2 senators, so it has 55 electoral votes.
-Each state has a group, or "slate" of electors that represent each presidential candidate. When citizens vote in the presidential election, they are really voting for the slate of electors.
-In 48 states and the District of Columbia, whichever candidate wins the most votes in the state wins the state's electoral votes. This is called the winner-take-all method.
-A candidate must receive a majority (one more than half) of the electoral votes to be declared president. If no one obtains a majority, the US House of Representatives selects the president from the top three contenders. In that case each state gets one vote.
3 There are no set qualifications for being an elector. Members of Congress and certain other federal officeholders are not allowed to be electors. The Constitution lets state legislatures decide how the electors are chosen. In many states, the legislature leaves the decision up to the political parties or the candidates themselves. The political parties use the job of elector as a reward for important people in the party.
4 Following the popular vote, the electors cast their votes, one for president and one for vice-president. Electors are required to cast at least one of these votes for someone from outside their state. Since electors are chosen by the political parties, they are usually loyal to their party in their votes.
5 As with many compromises, the Electoral College solution leaves many people unhappy. Some people believe the Electoral College system undercuts the basic principle of representative government--that one person should have one vote. Other people believe that, like many other legacies of the founding fathers, the Electoral College may be flawed, but it's still the best system for our democracy.
6 Is the Electoral College a good system for electing the president and vice president in the 21st century? Some people think it is still a workable approach for our federal system. Others think it is undemocratic and should be abolished or changed. Read the documents and decide: Should the Electoral College be abolished?


Direct popular vote--Method of electing public officials in which citizens cast votes for those candidates and the candidate receiving the most votes (or a specified level) wins.
Electoral College--The indirect system of electing the president or, more specifically, the group of 538 electors who actually elect the president.
Winner-take-all--The system used to award electoral votes in 48 states and the District of Columbia, in which the winner of the popular vote gets all of the state's electoral votes.
Majority--One more than half





Are the people smart enough to choose their own leader? The framers at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 weren't so sure. They believed it wasn't a good idea for the people to elect the president directly. They were also working to balance the needs of small and large states, as well as slave and free states. Out of these concerns came the decision that the president would be elected indirectly. The method is known as the Electoral College.

Your task is to write an organized and coherent essay response to the question below, in which you make a claim and defend it with information from the background essay and supporting documents.



Should the Electoral College be abolished?