The Electoral College is not a place, but rather it is a process. It is a process that is established in the US Constitution and composed of qualified and elite citizens who participate in electing the president. For a president to be successful to take office, he or she must be voted by a majority of Electoral College members. It is made up of 538 members; these are 435 national representatives, 100 senators, and three electors given to the District of Columbia. A majority of 270 these electoral votes is required to elect the president ( Miller, 2013).
The US conducts its elections after every four years, during this exercise this the voters vote for their favorite presidential candidate and the vice president. The voting gives the states electors a direction on the candidate who is preferred in their region of representation. When they converge at the Electoral College, they use the indications from the voters to vote on who will become the president. The candidate who wins majority votes in a state wins the state electoral votes. However, in Nebraska and Maine, the candidate who wins the popular votes gets two electoral votes from these states for the two Senators the rest of the votes are allocated to congressional district by the congressional district ( Miller, 2013). The Electoral College members are not forced to vote for their party’s candidate. Moreover, the members are required to vote for the candidate who gets majority votes in the states they represent. If none of the candidates gets majority votes, the election will have to be done by the US, House of Representatives.
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There has been heated debate on the call to abolish the Electoral College. The proponents of this debate claim that Electoral College should be abolished because it is unfair and does not depict a right image of real democracy. The Electoral College was put on the spot when it came out as unfair and going against the will of the people ( Colomer, 2016) . For instance, in 2000, Al Gore had won popular votes, but the electoral college voted otherwise. Through their vote, Bush was declared as the winner, in this case, they were seen to go against the will of the people. Those opposing abolishing of the electoral college claim that this process is great it gives all states equal chance to participate in the election and have their voices heard. This gives the states from lower population and chance of significance ( Colomer, 2016). I am of the opinion that the Electoral College should be abolished as it does not represent the voice of the people as expected.
References
Colomer, J. (Ed.). (2016). The handbook of electoral system choice . Springer.
Miller, N. R. (2013). A priori voting power and the US Electoral College. In Power, Voting, and Voting Power: 30 Years After (pp. 411-442). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
