Electoral Reform and Voter Turnout in American Presidential Elections

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Title: Electoral Reform and Voter Turnout in American Presidential Elections
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Description: Though initially convened to fix the Articles of Confederation in 1787, the Constitutional Convention ended up creating an entirely new style of government under the Constitution. One of the items on the agenda was to devise how to elect the president, and after different proposals and amendments were brought to the table and voted on, the Electoral College of 1787 was born. Two hundred forty-four years and forty-six presidents later, the Electoral College still stands as the method by which the American president is selected. The Electoral College serves as an indirect method of voting, as the people vote for a group of electors who go on to vote for president, rather than voting for the president directly. While it was amended in 1803 (the Twelfth Amendment) and 1960 (the Twenty-Third Amendment) and states have made their own changes as time has gone on, the system has largely stayed the same. The biggest change since the Jeffersonians passed and ratified the Twelfth Amendment was the move away from majority rule (when a candidate for office receives more than 50.00% of the vote) to plurality winner- take-all (when a presidential candidate wins 50.00% or less of the vote in a state and receives 100% of electoral votes offered by that state).The debate over reforming or abolishing the Electoral College resurfaced with the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections, as the winner of the popular vote lost the electoral vote and thus the presidency., Honors Thesis Advisor : Dr. Craig Smith, PhD.
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Contributor: Lisle, Christopher M. (Author), California University of Pennsylvania. Honors Program.
Date: 2021-04-21
Type: Text
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Identifier: cali:2243
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