There is much controversy over the Electoral College and whether there should be a new system of electing the President of the United States put into effect. Many people, especially after the 2000 election, believe that it's time for change. There isn't a time of day when a person doesn't hear something pertaining to how old and inaccurate the Electoral College is. Yet, no matter how much people complain, there is never any change. In this paper, the history and the workings of the Electoral College will be discussed. Also, this paper will discuss how the votes are distributed.
There were many ideas suggested when our Founding Fathers tried to find a way to elect the President that would be efficient, and that would work. According to Kimberling, "One idea was to have the Congress choose the president." This idea was rejected because many felt that this would lead to political bargaining, as well as corruption, as one could imagine. Another idea also proposed was "to have the State legislatures select the president" (Kimberling). Yet there are problems with this proposal also, people feared that the legislatures would undermine the whole idea of the federation. A third proposal was now made, this proposal was to "have the president elected by a direct popular vote" (Kimberling). This proposal was not rejected because of doubt that the people were not smart enough to make the right decision, but rather in the eighteenth century, there was not much traveling from colony to colony, or state to state, therefore, how would the people of Maryland know what the candidate from Virginia was like? There was no way for members of other states to know what all the candidates were standing for or against, therefore this proposal was also rejected.
The function of the Electoral College is to select a president based on honesty with no regard to other issues that might influence their decisions.