Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Electoral College or Popular Vote?

Each state has at least three electoral votes- one for each of its two senators and one for each representative in Congress. Population determines how many representatives each state gets. Washington, D.C., has three electoral votes.

There are 538 electoral votes at stake. A candidate needs 270 to win.
Would it be more fair if the popular vote, rather than the Electoral College, decided the presidential election? Explain. (Read "Who Really Picks the President?" on page 6 of the TFK magazine for background information.)

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that popular vote should decide the president because then the people could have a voice. Then the people could choose who they want and speak up for their choice. I think it's better to choose for yourself then let some else choose it for you. It would be being left out of the game or activity in school, which doesn't make anybody feel good. Everybody should have a voice and a special part in the world that proves that they are somebody and not nobody.

Chrissy said...

Most states decide who gets the electoral votes by the popular vote in each state, right? So what is the difference by using electoral votes? Is it possible to win the popular vote for the entire U.S. and not win the electoral vote? Interesting. I would be impressed if someone could give us a mathematical example to help us understand how this works! Then I wonder which one you would choose. ;0)

Anonymous said...

I think that popular vote would be best because every one could feel that their vote counts.

Anonymous said...

I think that the president should be chosen by the popular votes.
Everyone gets to choose and speak up for what really they want,because their vote alone could count.It is also better because you get to know and see what people indivisually belive in rather then being grouped.When you vote by electoral votes you also get to feel proud of yourself.I am sure everyone wants to do that.When you have that paper in your hand you can ACTUALLY do something to make America the way you want.Then after you send the paper it sends you proudness and it makes you feel that the one vote you send in really counts.

Anonymous said...

I think that it should be popular vote because then the people get to vote for which candidate they want.They want to be part of the campaign too.We should all be able to choose who WE want, so it's our choice.

Anonymous said...

I think that it would be more fair that the president should be elected by popular vote because if the Congress men decided, the people might not like the person that was elected as president. But if the people decided, then it would be very fair because the people of the country gets to decide. That is why we should go by the popular vote rather then going for the Electoral College.

Anonymous said...

I think people should choose from popular votes so every vote would count. I don't think it would be fair to choose Electoral College because your vote will not count. It won't count because it depends on the Electoral Votes.

Anonymous said...

Like Meryem I think populer vote should decide who is the president for their country because people could have a voice. It would also include everybody and everyones vote will count.Electoral votes are unfair because it is not always the people's choice.

Anonymous said...

I think that popular vote should choose the president because with electoral votes you might get a president that the people didn't like. One example is the situation with Bush against Al Gore. Al Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the presidency. Bush got 50,456,002 votes and Gore got 50,999,897 votes but Bush got 271 electoral votes and Gore got 266 electoral votes. The popular vote reflects who the people like.

Anonymous said...

I think the president should be chosen by popular vote because thgen the people get a choice. If someone else said that they would take your place as president, you would feel really sad. Becoming president is an extremely good oppurtunity and you wouldn't want to miss it. In the book In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, Emily gives up her spot as introducing Jackie Robinson because Shirley helped her with so much things and she wasn't a true fan of Jackie Robinson. Otherwise, you shouldn't give up the spot.

Anonymous said...

I think it will be more fair if the president is chosen by popular vote. It will be more fair because if more people want a candidate to be the president and the other candidate wins by a little more electoral votes from other states. Then people might not want to vote because there candidate didn't win.

Anonymous said...

I think the president should be chosen by popular vote because then you would not have someone else choosing your president. you would chose! It would be much easier to who ever won the most would win.

Anonymous said...

I think that our president should be chosen by electoral vote because then the risk of having a tie could be much more.So then people won't demand recounts.So that proves no one can fight about it.

Anonymous said...

I think that popular vote should choose the president because otherwise some peoples votes won't count and those people won't want to vote again. Also if there is only 23 people who vote McCain in the state then that state would probably be Obama and the McCain fans will be very sad and won't want to be part of any community activity. This is why I think popular vote should choose the president.

Anonymous said...

I thik that popularvote would be more fiar because so that people could do what they want not what other people want.

Anonymous said...

I think popular vote is a better idea. I say this because there might be a lot of tiny colleges who might vote for McCain and then there might be a huge college who votes for Obama. Also, in popular vote every vote counts, unlike the colleges every college counts. The electoral colleges just makes BILLIONS of people into 538 votes.

Anonymous said...

I think popular vote should decide because that way people can pick which president they want. We have computers to find out about the candidates are going to do in the future.If the electoral college picked, people who want the other candidates might get mad and fight.

Anonymous said...

Hi guys! I think that the popular vote should decide who the president is because the popular vote actually gives the the people their say about who they want as the president.

Anonymous said...

I think popular vote should count because everybody can choose there president,because then everybody can have there own choice of who should be the president. Lets say you vote for Demorcrat but your state is Republican then it is basicaly like you did not get to vote for anyone.

Anonymous said...

I think that popular vote is better because then people would have a better voice. They already have a small voice but I think it would be nice to have a strong voice in the country.