The Electoral College: Purpose, Operation, and Limited Government

This essay provides an evaluation of the Electoral College, clarifying that it is a process, not a place, within the United States' presidential election system. It emphasizes the Electoral College's role in determining the President and Vice President, distinguishing it from systems where popular vote dictates the winner. With a composition of 538 electors, the Electoral College is derived from the total number of representatives, senators, and electors from the District of Columbia. The analysis covers the purpose of the Electoral College, its operational mechanics, and its implications for democracy and limited government. It highlights the system's function as a check on federal power and the dominance of larger states. The essay further explains how electoral votes are assigned, with most states using a winner-take-all approach, while Maine and Nebraska use proportional representation. It concludes by asserting that the Electoral College has effectively preserved federalism, granted definitive electoral results, and prevented chaos, supporting the stability of the American presidential election system.

Running head: ELECTORAL COLLEGE
Electoral College
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1ELECTORAL COLLEGE
Before elaborating with this paper, it is to be noted that Electoral College is not a
place; in fact it is a process. It is a system that is nondemocratic in nature and is typically a
method of selecting nation’s president who ought to be replaced by declaration of the
candidate who gains the majority of the popular votes as the winner (Flanigan et al. 2014). It
is made up of a total number of 538 electors, whose main role is to cast the votes in order to
decide the President and the Vice president for the United States. The 538 members are the
total sum of 435 representatives, 3 electors and 100 senators of the nation who are given to
the District of Columbia. This paper will be focusing on the evaluating the purpose of
Electoral College and how does it operate. It will also shed light on the way Electoral
Colleges enables democracy and the intents for a limited government.
The main purpose of the Electoral College is to determine the President and Vice
president of United States. It also differentiates in system of the country from the rest other
systems where the candidate who has gained the majority of the votes automatically wins. It
is also known as the process of “indirect election” (Cox 2018). The Electoral College serves
as a check on the federal government’s power over the state and at the same time on the
dominance of the big states throughout the whole nation.
After every four years, the votes to the polls in order to select the candidates
according to their wishes for the position of President and Vice-President of the nation. The
candidate who gains the majority of the votes in the state then wins the electoral votes of the
state (Felsenthal and Nicholas 2015). In Maine and Nebraska, the electoral votes are assigned
by the proportional representation, which means that the top most candidate who has gained
the maximum number of votes in those two states wins the electoral votes while the rest other
electoral candidates receives the electoral votes from Maine and Nebraska unlike the other 48
states.

2ELECTORAL COLLEGE
The election systems of America have been operating smoothly for above 200 years
as the Electoral College achieves its intended purposes. The presidential election system of
America preserve the federalism, grants definitive electoral results, prevents chaos and
tyrannical, unwanted or unreasonable rules and regulation (Hoffer, Hoffer and Hull 2016).
The founding fathers have created a well-planned, well-designed and stable system and it
does works. The earlier elections along with the ones of the President that lost the majority
votes are evidences to the originality of founding fathers. In every case, the victor was able to
be successful only due to the fact that his opponents did not develop national coalition, which
is necessary for the Electoral College. In every case, the smaller states were saved from their
respective bigger neighborhoods. Along with this, the system of presidential election
functioned efficiently in order to provide a nation with a president and vice-president with a
broad-based support.
Hence, it can be said that Electoral College is one of the most notable political system
present in United States. It determines the president and the vice-president of the country and
it runs on a system of winner-take-all.

3ELECTORAL COLLEGE
References:
Cox, Anna M. "The Electoral College: A Constitutional Needle in a Political Hay
Stack." International Journal of Social Science Studies 6, no. 2 (2018): 94-107.
Felsenthal, Dan S., and Nicholas R. Miller. "What To Do about Election Inversions under
Proportional Representation?." Representation 51, no. 2 (2015): 173-186.
Flanigan, William H., Nancy H. Zingale, Elizabeth A. Theiss-Morse, and Michael W.
Wagner. Political behavior of the American electorate. Cq Press, 2014.
Hoffer, Peter Charles, Williamjames Hoffer, and N. E. H. Hull. The Federal Courts: An
Essential History. Oxford University Press, 2016.