Civics Lesson 5: Extension Activity
Essential Question: Should the Electoral College Be Abolished?
The 2000 election and its aftermath prompted renewed debate over our
system for electing the President and Vice President
By Kay Maxwell, Robert Hardaway
YES
When the Constitution was written, the typical voter had few opportunities to learn about presidential candidates, so
the job of choosing the President was given to the Electoral College: Electors, who were appointed by their states.
were better educated than average citizens, who were not thought capable of making an informed choice.
Today, with universal education, TV, radio, newspapers, and the Internet, voters can learn about candidates for
themselves. And they should be trusted to choose their President.
The Electoral College is unfair in several ways. First, it gives more weight to votes cast in small states. (Each state's
electoral votes are equal to the number of members it has in the House and Senate combined.) Second, because the
Electoral College is "winner take all" in all but two states (Maine and Nebraska), people who disagree with the
majority in their state are not represented. Finally, the system allows the election of a President who does not have
the support of a majority of voters.
Without the Electoral College, candidates would campaign to get as many individual votes as possible in every state,
instead of focusing on states that provide key electoral votes. Each vote would make a difference and voters would
diel they truly had a stake in the elections, which could lead to increasted voting across the country. With a system of
direct election, all votes would be equally important and equally sought after. We need to abolish the Electoral
College and make our presidential elections one person, one vote.
-Kay J. Maxwell
President, League of Women Voters
Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: Read the above opinion that provides a “Yes”
answer to the essential question and answer the questions below:
1. What is the author claiming?
2. What evidence does the author use to support their claim?
3. What is the reasoning behind using the evidence to support the claim
(make a connection between the two):

What the author is claiming in this passage is that the use of the electoral college as the way of picking the president is outdated, unfair as well as disadvantageous to the people of the United States.
The evidence that the author used to back up the claim has to do with the use of these two states Nebraska and Maine. These are states that are small but may favor the president who may be elected even tough he is not the choice of the people.
The reason I used this evidence to support my claim is that the states mentioned may not even produce the same number of votes like other states if the president was to be picked by the citizens solely. But despite their sizes, they still have the ability to make same picks as the large states.

What is the electoral colleges?

This is the way that the president of the United States has to be chosen. This is different from the methods where the citizens are solely responsible for choosing the president.

Read more on the electoral college here: https://brainly.com/question/13474496

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