electoral college paper

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Alex Covell
US Government AP
Mr. Styles
February 13, 2015
The Electoral College was comprised due to the country facing the difficult question of how to elect the president. The first proposed suggestion for solving the issue was to have congress choose, but that was quickly rejected. Then they wanted the state legislatures to choose, but that too was rejected. Finally, they decided on an indirect election of the president through a college of electors. In the Electoral College system, the states serve as the centurial groups and the number of votes each state receives is determined by the size of the state’s congressional delegation. The first design of the Electoral College allocated a number of electors equal to the number of its senators, always two, plus the number of US representatives. The manner of choosing electors was left to individual state legislatures, and each state elector was required to gather together in one great meeting. The person with the more electoral votes, provided it was a majority, would become president, and whoever received the next greatest amount would be vice president. The whole operation was designed to function without political parties and without national campaigns. The second design of the Electoral College, after four year with the first design, was created to prevent ties. The twelfth amendment of the constitution requires that each elector cast only one vote for president, and a separate for a vice president. Along with this change, the House of Representatives were held responsible for choosing a president in case of any further ties. Every other part remained the same from the first design. Through its history, the Electoral College has undergone a tremendous evolution. The first trend it encountered was towards choosing Electors by the direct popular vote of the whole state population, and the second being what is called the “winner-take-all” system of choosing electors. For the first fifty years of the federation, congress permitted the states to conduct their presidential elections anytime in a 34 day period before the first Wednesday in December which caused dramatic issues. To combat this problem, congress adopted a uniform day, the Tuesday following the first Monday in November in years devisable by four, on which states were to choose their electors. In 1888, the Elector College imposed two requirements on the candidate for president: the victor obtains a sufficient popular
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