Election Day is not what it seems. Many people who vote in Election Day think they are voting for a president. However, they are actually voting for an elector. An elector is a delegate that promises to vote for the candidate chosen for presidency. This is called the Electoral College. In 1789, United State Congress established the Electoral College because it protects a state rights. Our founding fathers were afraid of majority rule because they assumed that new presidents will only come from bigger states like Texas or California. The Electoral College is a necessary component of democracy because it keeps small states relevant. It also promotes certainty of who is president after the election. The Electoral College also maintains a two-party system.
First, the Electoral College is necessary component of democracy because it keeps small states relevant. It forces candidates to focus on all of America not just its popular centers. In order to win presidency, they must achieve multiple regions. This ensures that our president has intentions of serving the country’s needs. The Electoral College make sure that each state has as many electors as they do in the House of Representatives and Senate. Without the electoral college, those who reside in states such as California would have massively more say in which president is elected, therefore giving smaller states like Delaware little to no say in US politics.
Secondly, the Electoral College is useful during elections because it creates a clear winner. If elections were direct rather than divided, it would open up more opportunities of potential fraud and national recounts. For example, the election of 1960 was the closet election in US history. 68 million citizens casted their vote for John F Kennedy versus Richard Nixon. After counting the popularity votes, Kennedy was ahead of Nixon by only two tenths of one percent. Many insisted on a recount. However, the Electoral College divided this national election into 50 state individual elections. Because of the Electoral System, only states that were close were recounted. Since the United States strongly believes in the Electoral College, John F Kennedy was in the lead and took the role as being 35th president of a United States. This is an example that having a divided rather than a direct election is more convenient and less stressful when it is time for counting the votes.
Last but not least, the Electoral College maintains the valuable two party system. The Constitution objectively avoids giving one party too much power, rather it opts to keep powers divided and balanced. Having two separate political parties with equal chances of controlling a branch of government is invaluable to this concept, as it gives different people with different perspectives and beliefs options for whom they support. Someone may not identify as entirely Republican or Democrat, but having the choice between those two belief systems gives the voter the power to decide the path it's government takes, for better or worse. For example, suppose there was no electoral college, and the President of the United States was determined solely on the popular vote. Typically cities tend to be more liberal, while rural areas fall more to the conservative side. This would give the Democratic Party a massive advantage, as they cater more to those who live in densely populated areas. Now imagine you're someone who lives in a rural community, and support the ideas of the Republican Party as they tend to be more supportive of rural America. Election after election your needs are being ignored in favor of the ideas of coastal elites and democratic voting cities because they have more voting power. It would feel almost as though the Democratic Party ruled all of government, defeating the purpose of a two party system. The electoral college stops this from ever happening. By giving states equal votes based on population, everyone from all kinds of different backgrounds is given an equal say for which party is elected into government and thus who represents the voters of America, keeping an effective two party system.
All in all, the electoral college is necessary in our democracy in plenty of ways. It has been in our system of government for many years. Not only does it protect small states, but it also clarifies who will be president after the election, and it maintains our two party system. The Electoral System gives small states a voice just like any other state. It protects a small state right by ensuring their vote matters. Having the electoral college, the voice of rural america would not be silenced compared to metropolitan area. States such as California would not hold too much of the voting power. In doing this, the electoral college also keeps the two party system effective, as well as determining clearly which party won in an election.Without This makes the electoral college necessary to American democracy.