Choosing the president and vice president of the United States is a complicated process. A person may think that simply voting for the candidates directly would be the way that the process is done, but that is not the way that it is done. Instead, our founding fathers devised the Electoral College to elect the president and vice president for the people. Instead of being elected by popular votes of the people, candidates are elected by electoral votes. Basically the Electoral College is the "middle man". There are problems with this system though. The possibility of "faithless electors", the possibility that an election could be thrown into the House of Representatives is undemocratic, and the possible role of the Electoral College in depressing voter turnout. The Electoral College should be reformed. The Electoral College does not always really follow the people's wishes for who the president should be, so the system should be rid of so that the people can vote for who they really want to have in office.
The Electoral College was written into the United States Constitution in 1787 for electing the president and the vice president. The amendment states that each state is allowed to choose electors for president and vice president, the number always being the same as the combined number of U.S. senators and representatives selected to that state. With 100 senators and 435 representatives in the United States, plus three electors for the District of Columbia. The total amount of voters in the Electoral College is 538. The more people in the state the more representatives for that state. To be elected to the presidency a candidate must receive at least 270 of the electoral votes. If no candidate receives this, The House of Representatives picks the winner from the top three, with each state casting only one vote, regardless of its size. The Constitution strictly defines the Electoral College itself, but the method of choosing electors is left to the states.
