What is the role of the voters in determining the outcome of the election?

. Format: 12 pt. Times New Roman, with reasonable margins, double spaced

Briefly, in your first paragraph, explain the basics of the Electoral College system: What is the formula that determines how many electors each state gets? What is the role of the voters in determining the outcome of the election? How is it determined which candidate wins each states electoral votes? What does a candidate for President have to achieve in order to win the election? What if no candidate wins a majority of the Electoral College vote? [Dont go any deeper into the workings of the system here: these are the essentials.]

Then, spend the bulk of the paper discussing the pro and con articles about the Electoral College. Describe and explain what you determine to be the key points from the articles we read: Judith Bests argument for keeping the Electoral College, and Alexander Keyssars review of Prof. George Edwards book arguing for getting rid of it and having a direct popular vote to determine who becomes president. (A couple of notes to help you do well on this part of the paper):

Conclude by assessing the validity of the pro and con arguments and by explaining which author you believe is right and why. Provide strong reasoning for your conclusion. DO NOT BASE YOUR CONCLUSION ON STYLE dont agree with one author or the other because you prefer the way one sides article is written. TOO MANY STUDENTS IGNORE THIS PART OF THE PAPER OR TREAT IT AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT: NO! IT IS THE THINKING PART, WHERE YOU GET TO REACH A WELL-REASONED CONCLUSION. DONT IGNORE IT OR GIVE IT SHORT SHRIFT.
ADVICE ON PART 2 OF THE ESSAY:

First, to explain a point is to explain HOW the Electoral College system results in the positive or negative effects of the Electoral College system claimed by the authors. For example, if you want to use Keyssar’s argument that the Electoral College system gives too much weight to voters from less-populous states at the expense of voters in more-populous states, it is essential to explain how the formula determining each state’s number of electors causes this. If your going to use Best’s argument that the system forces candidates to try to build a “cross-national consensus,” you need to explain how the “unit rule” used by most states (awarding all of the state’s EC votes to the winner of the popular vote regardless of the margin of victory) forces candidates to have to win a wide variety of states to amass at least 270 electoral votes.

Second, don’t get lost in points that aren’t relevant as to whether the Electoral College system is a good way for CONTEMPORARY American to choose a president. Best uses a lot of analogies, and it’s best to ignore those unless you can draw a real connection between those analogies and their actual application to the workings of the EC system; and Keyssar discusses the deliberations at the Constitutional Convention about the EC system, but this is only worthy or your mention if you can draw a direct connection between that and how the system operates today. He makes other references to long ago history, but your question is about whether we should continue to use the EC system or change to a national popular vote IN OUR CURRENT TIMES!

An important note:

The debate between these two articles doesnt merely consist of arguments as to why the EC system is good and other arguments as to why the EC system is bad: the authors disagree with each others claims of fact. For example, Edwards disagrees with Bests premise that the EC system really helps people in smaller states, or that it really results in candidates who reflect a cross-national consensus. So you can make the discussion partly about disagreements over facts.

Another note: Keyssar states explicitly that faithless electors are a minor concern with the Electoral College system, and then moves on to what he regards as much more important issues. Thus, dont write about the issue of faithless electors unless you think it may be a particularly important issue in this election (which, if youve kept well up with the news, it might be).

Yet another note: Since our textbook does not go into depth on how the Electoral College works, you may use outside sources for background on this (although it has been thoroughly explained in class), but DO NOT PLAGIARIZE! Explain how the system works in your own words. Also, do not base your discussion of pros and cons on outside articles: the pro and con discussion must be based on the authors arguments.)

– the pro and con articles that are talked about in the directions are uploaded.

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