Electoral College

The electoral college was created to create a filter between the votes of the citizens of the united states and the election of the president. Envision yourself at the beach playing in the sand, the electoral college acts as a sift, that has influence of which sand particles it chooses to fall through, but is heavily influenced by the weight of the sand. In the real world, the electoral college is heavily influenced by the popular vote, but ultimately gets to choose who they cast their vote for. I believe this is fair because some people who vote are not educated enough and may cast their vote willy nilly. For example, people may have voted for Romney because they are racist and did not want Obama, or vice versa. The electoral college is largely better educated in politics. Also, the electoral college runs parallel with the federal government as far as a republic goes, having a sort of screen between the public and their direct influence over the inner workings of the government. The electoral college generally succeeds in modern day elections because, typically, we have only two candidates. Most of the time the popular vote indicates how the electoral college will vote. The electoral college failed in the election of 1824 because there were 4 candidates who all received a respectable amount of electoral votes. It was left to the House of Representatives to decide, based on the will of the public, who to elect as president. In the end, John Quincy Adams was decided over Andrew Jackson to become the 6th president. In this example, we see how the electoral college initially failed to elect a president. Then, we see how he House of Representatives, with influence of the public, decided who to elect.