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102 Electoral College Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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The Electoral College is a unique system in the United States that determines the outcome of presidential elections. While some argue that it is an outdated and undemocratic method of electing a president, others believe it is a crucial part of our political system. If you're looking for essay topics on the Electoral College, look no further. Here are 102 ideas to get you started:

• The history of the Electoral College
• The purpose of the Electoral College
• The pros and cons of the Electoral College
• How does the Electoral College work?
• The impact of the Electoral College on presidential elections
• Should the Electoral College be abolished?
• How does the Electoral College affect third-party candidates?
• The role of swing states in the Electoral College
• The Electoral College and minority representation
• The Electoral College and voter turnout
• The impact of gerrymandering on the Electoral College
• The Electoral College and the two-party system
• The Electoral College and the popular vote
• The Electoral College and the Supreme Court
• The Electoral College and the 2000 presidential election
• The Electoral College and the 2016 presidential election
• The Electoral College and the 2020 presidential election
• The Electoral College and the Founding Fathers
• The Electoral College and the Constitution
• The Electoral College and the Civil War
• The Electoral College and the Voting Rights Act
• The Electoral College and the 12th Amendment
• The Electoral College and the 23rd Amendment
• The Electoral College and the 26th Amendment
• The Electoral College and the 27th Amendment
• The Electoral College and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
• The Electoral College and state laws
• The Electoral College and faithless electors
• The Electoral College and the will of the people
• The Electoral College and the role of Congress
• The Electoral College and the role of the president
• The Electoral College and the role of the vice president
• The Electoral College and the role of the Supreme Court
• The Electoral College and the role of state legislatures
• The Electoral College and the role of political parties
• The Electoral College and the role of the media
• The Electoral College and the role of interest groups
• The Electoral College and the role of lobbyists
• The Electoral College and the role of corporations
• The Electoral College and the role of foreign governments
• The Electoral College and the role of social media
• The Electoral College and the role of technology
• The Electoral College and the role of data analytics
• The Electoral College and the role of polling
• The Electoral College and the role of campaign finance
• The Electoral College and the role of super PACs
• The Electoral College and the role of dark money
• The Electoral College and the role of PACs
• The Electoral College and the role of grassroots organizations
• The Electoral College and the role of political action committees
• The Electoral College and the role of think tanks
• The Electoral College and the role of advocacy groups
• The Electoral College

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The Electoral College Explained

A national popular vote would help ensure that every vote counts equally, making American democracy more representative.

• Electoral College Reform

In the United States, the presidency is decided not by the national popular vote but by the Electoral College — an outdated and convoluted system that sometimes yields results contrary to the choice of the majority of American voters. On five occasions, including in two of the last six elections, candidates have won the Electoral College, and thus the presidency, despite losing the nationwide popular vote. 

The Electoral College has racist origins — when established, it applied the three-fifths clause, which gave a long-term electoral advantage to slave states in the South — and continues to dilute the political power of voters of color. It incentivizes presidential campaigns to focus on a relatively small number of “swing states.” Together, these dynamics have spurred debate about the system’s democratic legitimacy.

To make the United States a more representative democracy, reformers are pushing for the presidency to be decided instead by the national popular vote, which would help ensure that every voter counts equally.

What is the Electoral College and how does it work?

The Electoral College is a group of intermediaries designated by the Constitution to select the president and vice president of the United States. Each of the 50 states is allocated presidential electors  equal to the number of its representatives and senators . The ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 allowed citizens in the District of Columbia to participate in presidential elections as well; they have consistently had three electors.

In total, the Electoral College comprises  538 members . A presidential candidate must win a majority of the electoral votes cast to win — at least 270 if all 538 electors vote.

The Constitution grants state legislatures the power to decide how to appoint their electors. Initially, a number of state legislatures directly  selected their electors , but during the 19th century they transitioned to the popular vote, which is now used by  all 50 states . In other words, each awards its electoral votes to the presidential candidate chosen by the state’s voters.

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia use a winner-take-all system, awarding all of their electoral votes to the popular vote winner in the state. Maine and Nebraska award one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each of their congressional districts and their remaining two electoral votes to the statewide winner. Under this system, those two states sometimes split their electoral votes among candidates.

In the months leading up to the general election, the political parties in each state typically nominate their own slates of would-be electors. The state’s popular vote determines which party’s slates will be made electors. Members of the Electoral College  meet and vote in their respective states  on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December after Election Day. Then, on January 6, a joint session of Congress meets at the Capitol to count the electoral votes and declare the outcome of the election, paving the way for the presidential inauguration on January 20.

How was the Electoral College established?

The Constitutional Convention in 1787 settled on the Electoral College as a compromise between delegates who thought Congress should select the president and others who favored a direct nationwide popular vote. Instead, state legislatures were entrusted with appointing electors.

Article II  of the Constitution, which established the executive branch of the federal government, outlined the framers’ plan for the electing the president and vice president. Under this plan, each elector cast two votes for president; the candidate who received the most votes became the president, with the second-place finisher becoming vice president — which led to administrations in which political opponents served in those roles. The process was overhauled in 1804 with the ratification of the  12th Amendment , which required electors to cast votes separately for president and vice president. 

How did slavery shape the Electoral College?

At the time of the Constitutional Convention, the northern states and southern states had  roughly equal populations . However, nonvoting enslaved people made up about one-third of the southern states’ population. As a result, delegates from the South objected to a direct popular vote in presidential elections, which would have given their states less electoral representation.

The debate contributed to the convention’s eventual decision to establish the Electoral College, which applied the  three-fifths compromise  that had already been devised for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. Three out of five enslaved people were counted as part of a state’s total population, though they were nonetheless prohibited from voting.

Wilfred U. Codrington III, an assistant professor of law at Brooklyn Law School and a Brennan Center fellow,  writes  that the South’s electoral advantage contributed to an “almost uninterrupted trend” of presidential election wins by southern slaveholders and their northern sympathizers throughout the first half of the 19th century. After the Civil War, in 1876, a contested Electoral College outcome was settled by a compromise in which the House awarded Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency with the understanding that he would withdraw military forces from the Southern states. This led to the end of Reconstruction and paved the way for racial segregation under Jim Crow laws.

Today, Codrington argues, the Electoral College continues to dilute the political power of Black voters: “Because the concentration of black people is highest in the South, their preferred presidential candidate is virtually assured to lose their home states’ electoral votes. Despite black voting patterns to the contrary, five of the six states whose populations are 25 percent or more black have been reliably red in recent presidential elections. … Under the Electoral College, black votes are submerged.”

What are faithless electors?  

Ever since the 19th century reforms, states have expected their electors to honor the will of the voters. In other words, electors are now pledged to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state. However, the Constitution does not require them to do so, which allows for scenarios in which “faithless electors” have voted against the popular vote winner in their states. As of 2016, there have been  90 faithless electoral votes  cast out of 23,507 in total across all presidential elections. The 2016 election saw a record-breaking  seven faithless electors , including three who voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was not a presidential candidate at the time.  

Currently, 33 states and the District of Columbia  require their presidential electors  to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged. Only 5 states, however, impose a penalty on faithless electors, and only 14 states provide for faithless electors to be removed or for their votes to be canceled. In July 2020, the Supreme Court  unanimously upheld  existing state laws that punish or remove faithless electors.

What happens if no candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes?

If no ticket wins a majority of Electoral College votes, the presidential election is  sent to the House of Representatives  for a runoff. Unlike typical House practice, however, each state only gets one vote, decided by the party that controls the state’s House delegation. Meanwhile, the vice-presidential race is decided in the Senate, where each member has one vote. This scenario  has not transpired since 1836 , when the Senate was tasked with selecting the vice president after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.

Are Electoral College votes distributed equally between states?

Each state is allocated a number of electoral votes based on the total size of its congressional delegation. This benefits smaller states, which have at least three electoral votes — including two electoral votes tied to their two Senate seats, which are guaranteed even if they have a small population and thus a small House delegation. Based on population trends, those disparities will likely increase as the most populous states are expected to account for an even greater share of the U.S. population in the decades ahead. 

What did the 2020 election reveal about the Electoral College?

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential race, Donald Trump and his allies fueled an effort to overturn the results of the election, spreading repeated lies about widespread voter fraud. This included attempts by a number of state legislatures to nullify some of their states’ votes, which often targeted jurisdictions with large numbers of Black voters. Additionally, during the certification process for the election, some members of Congress also objected to the Electoral College results, attempting to throw out electors from certain states. While these efforts ultimately failed, they revealed yet another vulnerability of the election system that stems from the Electoral College.

The  Electoral Count Reform Act , enacted in 2023, addresses these problems. Among other things, it clarifies which state officials have the power to appoint electors, and it bars any changes to that process after Election Day, preventing state legislatures from setting aside results they do not like. The new law also raises the threshold for consideration of objections to electoral votes. It is now one-fifth of each chamber instead of one senator and one representative.  Click here for more on the changes made by the Electoral Count Reform Act.

What are ways to reform the Electoral College to make presidential elections more democratic?

Abolishing the Electoral College outright would require a constitutional amendment. As a workaround, scholars and activist groups have rallied behind the  National Popular Vote Interstate Compact  (NPV), an effort that started after the 2000 election. Under it, participating states would  commit to awarding their electoral votes  to the winner of the national popular vote.

In other words, the NPV would formally retain the Electoral College but render it moot, ensuring that the winner of the national popular vote also wins the presidency. If enacted, the NPV would incentivize presidential candidates to expand their campaign efforts nationwide, rather than focus only on a small number of swing states.

For the NPV to take effect, it must first be adopted by states that control at least 270 electoral votes. In 2007, Maryland became the first state to enact the compact. As of 2019, a total of 19 states and Washington, DC, which collectively account for 196 electoral votes, have joined.

The public has consistently supported a nationwide popular vote. A 2020 poll by Pew Research Center, for example, found that  58 percent of adults  prefer a system in which the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationwide wins the presidency.

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Unit 3 Essay Examples: "The Electoral College is the best way to elect a president. Discuss "

Last updated 22 Mar 2021

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This Study Note contains the key terms that you would need to include if you chose to answer this question, along with 10 great examples that you could use to support your arguments.

So, before having a go at answering the question, make sure you can explain what each of the following terms mean:

• Electoral College
• Presidential Election
• Article III of the Constitution
• Every Vote Counts Amendment
• Electoral College Votes
• Congressional District Allocation
• Bush v Gore 2000
• 12th Amendment
• Joint Ticket
• Balanced ticket
• State Electors
• Faithless Electors
• Constitutional Amendment

Contemporary Examples

The electoral college is the best way to elect a president

• In 2010 the Electoral College Votes were adjusted to account for population changes
• In 2008 and 2012 there were no faithless electors.
• The 2005 amendment titled Every Vote Counts failed, meaning people believe the Electoral College is good

The electoral college is not the best way to elect a president

• In 2000 George Bush won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote, and thus became President
• In 1992,19% of American’s voted for Ross Perot and he received no Electoral College representation
• In 2012 Obama won Florida by 0.88% and took all 29 of the Electoral College Votes

Historical Examples

• In 1972, Maine switched to the more proportional Congressional District Allocation method.
• In 2000, Washington DC Elector Barbara Lett-Simmons cast no electoral votes despite being pledged to the Democrats
• In 1824 John Quincy Adams was elected President despite not achieving a majority in the popular vote or electoral college
• In 1888, Benjamin Harrison was elected President despite losing the popular vote by 90,000.
• Electoral College Vote
• US Presidential Election (2016)
• Article 3 (US Constitution)
• Congressional District

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In Defense of the Electoral College

Allen guelzo, winter 2018.

There is hardly anything in the Constitution harder to explain, or easier to misunderstand, than the Electoral College. And when a presidential election hands the palm to a candidate who comes in second in the popular vote but first in the Electoral College tally, something deep in our democratic viscera balks and asks why.

Some argue that the Electoral College should be dumped as a useless relic of 18th-century white-gentry privilege. A month after the 2016 election, and on the day the members of the Electoral College met to cast their official votes, the New York Times editorial board published a scathing attack of this sort, calling the Electoral College an "antiquated mechanism" that "overwhelming majorities" of Americans would prefer to eliminate in favor of a direct, national popular vote. Others claim it is not only antiquated, but toxic — Akhil Reed Amar wrote in Time magazine that the Electoral College was deliberately designed to advance the political power of slaveholders:

[I]n a direct election system, the North would [have outnumbered] the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College...instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.

Still others argue that, while the Electoral College may not be any more antiquated than the rest of the Constitution, the mechanism is simply ridiculous. "The winner is picked not by the laws of elections but by the serendipity of the casino," complained E. J. Dionne, Jr., in the Washington Post . "If you're lucky to hit the right numbers, narrowly, in a few states, you can override your opponent's big margins in other states." Or, shifting the metaphor, the Electoral College is bad sportsmanship. "Imagine," Dionne demands, "basing the winner of a game not on the number of runs scored but the number of innings won, and with some innings counting more than others." Eric Maskin and Amartya Sen at the New York Review of Books joined the demand for these "majorities" to prevail over the Electoral College. "The system...fails to reflect voters' preferences adequately. It also aggravates political polarization, gives citizens too few political options, and makes candidates spend most of their campaign time seeking voters in swing states rather than addressing the country at large." 

Curiously, there have been only five occasions in which a closely divided popular vote for the presidency and the Electoral College vote have failed to point in the same direction. The first occurred in 1824, when Andrew Jackson won a plurality of the popular vote over John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry Clay, but failed to win a majority in the Electoral College. The election was then decided by the House of Representatives, which granted the victory to Adams. Samuel Tilden edged out Rutherford Hayes in the 1876 popular vote, only to see the laurel snatched away when a congressional election commission awarded Hayes enough contested electoral votes to give him a one-vote Electoral College victory. In 1888, the incumbent Grover Cleveland won the popular vote by less than one percentage point, but Benjamin Harrison won the presidency with 233 electoral votes to Cleveland's 168. In 2000, Al Gore edged out George W. Bush in the popular vote by about half a million votes, but (after a razor-thin victory in Florida, contested all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court) Bush won a narrow Electoral College majority. And in 2016, Donald Trump garnered 2.8 million fewer popular votes than Hillary Clinton, but won a decisive victory, 304 to 227, in the Electoral College.

So, having Electoral College decisions overshadow popular-vote victories is neither novel nor (as in the examples of 1876 and 2000) entirely the fault of the Electoral College. But 2016 set off a swell of complaints nonetheless. This is largely because it was the first time since 1888 that, in a two-major-candidate race, one candidate won the popular vote but lost the electoral tally. Hence the chorus of denunciation — the Electoral College is undemocratic; the Electoral College is unnecessary; the Electoral College was invented to protect slavery — and the demand to push the institution down the memory hole.

But these criticisms are misguided. The Electoral College was designed by the framers deliberately, like the rest of the Constitution, to counteract the worst human impulses and protect the nation from the dangers inherent in democracy. The Electoral College is neither antiquated nor toxic; it is an underappreciated institution that helps preserve our constitutional system, and it deserves a full-throated defense.

CONSTITUTIONAL ROOTS

The democratic energies behind these denunciations offer a hint of the key problem with them. This is, after all, a constitutional republic, and even the most casual reader of the Constitution cannot fail to notice that the Electoral College is the only method specified by that document for selecting the president of the United States. For all the reverence paid to the popular vote in presidential elections, the Constitution says not a word about holding a popular vote for presidents.

Here is the election mechanism as it appears in Article 2, Section 1 (in a slightly abbreviated form, as it is the single longest part of the Constitution devoted to a single action, accounting for nearly a tenth of the Constitution's original length):

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress....The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States....The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed....

This method was slightly altered by the 12th Amendment in 1804, but only slightly, and we have elected presidents in the same way ever since. There is no mention whatsoever of a popular vote, at any level. Each state is directed to appoint "a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress." The states may make these appointments by whatever means they choose, with a few restrictions on who can be appointed.

While it is true that, since the 19th century, each state has decided to appoint its electors by a popular vote, this is a compliment to our democratic predilections and is not required by the Constitution. And it should be noted that popular votes for electors occur only within each state; the electors then go on to do the presidential balloting. Ridding ourselves of the Electoral College would not automatically install a national popular vote for the presidency; that would require a highly complicated constitutional amendment specifying comprehensive details for casting such a national vote, and might even trigger calls for a complete rewriting of the Constitution by convention. Simply doing away with the existing process without putting a new one in its place could create the biggest political crisis in American history since the Civil War.

But the Electoral College system is not only embedded in the structure of our constitutional governance; it is also emblematic of the fact that we are a federal republic . The states of the American Union existed before the Constitution and, in a practical sense, existed long before the Revolution. Nothing guaranteed that the states would all act together in 1776; nothing guaranteed that, after the Revolution, they might not go their separate and quarrelsome ways (much like the German states of the 18th century or the South American republics in the 19th century). What is more, the Constitution's predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, very nearly invited such division. The Articles were, in their own terms, only "a firm league of friendship with each other," in which "[e]ach state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right." The Confederation Congress had repeated difficulties assembling a quorum just to do business; even the treaty of peace with Great Britain that ended the Revolutionary War nearly expired because an insufficient number of delegates showed up for its ratification. The genius of the Constitutional Convention lay in its successfully drawing the American states toward a "more perfect union." But it was still a union of states; we probably wouldn't have formed a constitution or a country at all had we not embraced federalism.

Abolishing the Electoral College now might satisfy an irritated yearning for direct democracy, but it would also mean dismantling federalism. After that, there would be no sense in having a Senate (which, after all, represents the interests of the states), and eventually, no sense in even having states, except as administrative departments of the central government. We structure everything in our political system around the idea of a federation that divides power between states and the federal government — states had to ratify the Constitution through state conventions beginning in 1787; state legislatures are required for ratifying constitutional amendments; and even the Constitution itself can only be terminated by action of the states in a national convention. Federalism is in the bones of our nation, and abolishing the Electoral College would point toward doing away with the entire federal system.

None of this, moreover, is likely to produce a more democratic election system. There are plenty of democracies, like Great Britain, where no one ever votes directly for a head of state. And there are federal republics that have maniacally complicated processes for electing leaders.

The German federal republic, for instance, is composed (like ours) of states that existed as independent entities long before their unification as a German nation, and whose histories as such have created an electoral system that makes our "antiquated" Electoral College look like a model of efficiency. In the German system, voters in 299 electoral districts each cast two votes in elections for the Bundestag (Germany's parliament): the first for a directly elected member and the second for one of 34 approved parties (in 2017), whose caucuses then identify candidates. A federal president ( Bundespräsident ) is elected every five years by a federal convention that reflects the party majorities in the Bundestag and the state parliaments of the 16 German states. Finally, the federal president proposes the name of the de facto head of state, the chancellor ( Bundeskanzler ) to the Bundestag . By contrast, the Electoral College is remarkably straightforward. It is also useful to bear in mind the examples set by some of the nations that do hold direct elections for their heads of state: Afghanistan, Iran, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe are just a few. Jettisoning the Electoral College for direct popular elections would not automatically guarantee greater democracy.

It's worth remembering, too, that in 1787, the Constitutional Convention did not inadvertently stumble upon the mechanics of electing a president — the delegates lavished an extraordinary amount of attention on the subject. Edmund Randolph's original "Virginia Plan" for the Constitution had called for the creation of "a National Executive...to be chosen by the National Legislature" with "a general authority to execute the National laws." But the great Pennsylvania jurist James Wilson believed that "[i]f we are to establish a national Government," the president must be chosen by a direct, national vote of the people. Wilson claimed that an executive appointed by either house of the new Congress would be beholden to the legislature and have no resources to restrain legislative overreach. Only "appointment by the people," he insisted, would guarantee a national executive free of such dependence and fully able to keep Congress and the states from careening off the republican track. Gouverneur Morris joined Wilson in arguing (over the course of two days) that

If the Legislature elect, it will be the work of intrigue, of cabal, and of faction; it will be like the election of a pope by a conclave of cardinals....The Legislature will continually seek to aggrandize & perpetuate themselves; and will seize those critical moments produced by war, invasion or convulsion for that purpose. It is necessary then that the Executive Magistrate should be the guardian of the people, even of the lower classes, agst. Legislative tyranny, against the Great & the wealthy who in the course of things will necessarily compose the Legislative body.... The Executive therefore ought to be so constituted as to be the great protector of the Mass of the people.

But wise old Roger Sherman of Connecticut replied that it might be better to have the new Congress select the president; he feared that the direct election of presidents by the people might lead to monarchy. As Madison noted of Sherman, "An independence of the Executive [from] the supreme Legislature, was in his opinion the very essence of tyranny if there was any such thing." Sherman was not trying to undermine the popular will, but to keep it from being distorted by a president who mistook a popular election for a mandate for dictatorship.

Most credit Wilson with being the first to propose a compromise — let the people vote, not for a national executive, but for a group of electors who would then select an executive (on the model of the princely electors of the Holy Roman Empire, who elected a new emperor at the death of an old one). But it was not until the formation of the Committee on Postponed Parts, near the conclusion of the Convention, that it was finally agreed, in the words of Pennsylvania delegate John Dickinson, "that the President should entirely owe his Elevation to the will of the people directly declared through their Organs the Electors." This would grant the president "a broad and solid Base for him to stand upon." And it was no less than James Madison who "took out a Pen and Paper, and sketched out a mode of Electing the President" by a college of "Electors...chosen by those of the people in each State, who shall have the Qualifications requisite."

ONE MAN, ONE VOTE?

Still, historical arguments often carry little weight against sound bites, so it is worthwhile to deal directly with three popular arguments against the Electoral College. The first, that the Electoral College violates the principle of "one man, one vote," is rooted in the constitutional stipulation that each state appoint "a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress." This means, for instance, that the 39 million Californians (who have 53 representatives in Congress, along with their two U.S. senators) are allocated 55 electoral votes for a presidential candidate. Meanwhile, the half-million or so Americans who live in Wyoming get three electoral votes — which means that each Wyoming voter gets 3.6 times more Electoral College clout than each California voter.

This may not be quite equal or, some would argue, quite just. But it is worth remembering that the phrase "one man, one vote" occurs nowhere in the Constitution. It is a judicial creation from Gray v. Sanders , a 1963 case in which the Supreme Court stepped in to end Georgia's use of a county-unit system of counting votes on the grounds that it violated the 14th Amendment. This principle was expanded the next year in Wesberry v. Sanders , which countered inequalities in federal congressional districts, and again a few months later in Reynolds v. Sims , similarly countering deliberate inequalities in state-drawn legislative districts. It was reiterated again four years later in Avery v. Midland County , which concerned municipal districts. Significantly, the Supreme Court has shied away from applying this rule to the U.S. Senate, since the Constitution mandates that every state, no matter its population, elects only two U.S. senators.

A far more likely candidate for judicial scrutiny under the "one man, one vote" rule would be the states themselves. California gave 61.5% of its popular vote to Hillary Clinton, and she collected all 55 of California's electoral votes as a result. But that majority was won in 33 counties, mostly clustered around San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The rest of the state — 25 counties — went for Trump. These counties had no say whatsoever in how California's electoral votes were cast, despite making up a solid block of the state north of San Francisco.  Is the best solution to such inequity, then, to break up the Electoral College? Or would it be just as equitable, not to say easier, to break up California into two states? Northern Californians could then be represented the way they want — as they have been demanding, in fact, since 1941, when the first proposals were put forward to create a new state from the rural counties of northern California and southern Oregon.  (In all likelihood, this would mean adding two more Republican senators and about 20 more Republican House members, which is why it is unlikely that this particular inequity will be corrected any time soon.)

The disparity in Illinois was even more dramatic. Of the 102 counties in that state, only 11 went Democratic in the 2016 presidential election. Nevertheless, Clinton won the state's popular vote, 3.1 million to 2.1 million, thanks mostly to the Democratic counties clustered in the Chicago area. She was thus granted all of Illinois's 20 electoral votes. Is that fair to the rest of the state? So, break up Illinois — and send still more Republican senators and representatives to Congress. Those who complain that the Electoral College subverts the "one man, one vote" principle should also object to the way the system operates within the states.

SLAVERY AND THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE  

The second popular argument against the Electoral College is that it was designed to protect slavery. The Constitution mandates that each state choose electors up to the combined number of its representatives and senators. The number of representatives is determined by state population, and the Constitution originally permitted states in which slavery was legal to include three-fifths of their slave populations for the purpose of determining the number of representatives they could send to Congress. Hence, states where slavery was legal could artificially inflate their representation in Congress by counting three-fifths of people who were held in bondage — and who had no political standing whatsoever.

Those states received extra, and illegitimate, political leverage. Because that "extra" representation also factored into the number of electoral votes a state could cast, it would seem that the infamous "three-fifths clause" gave slave states an advantage in presidential elections. The clincher for this argument against the Electoral College comes in Akhil Reed Amar's description of how Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1800:

Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority . As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.

What this leaves out of the equation, however, is the fact that in 1787 and 1788, as the Constitution was being ratified, slavery was practiced in all of the states (though the Massachusetts Supreme Court had ruled it to be in violation of the state constitution in 1780, and Vermont had officially banned it in 1777). If the three-fifths provision operated to give slave-holding states extra leverage in the Electoral College, it gave that leverage to every state, North and South alike. Pennsylvania adopted a gradual emancipation plan in 1780, but it still had slaves in 1840. New York didn't free its last slaves until 1840. And there were still 18 lifetime "apprentices" in New Jersey when the Civil War broke out. The three-fifths clause gave no advantage to slave states until the Northern states, one by one, abolished slavery.

It could perhaps be argued that there was a vast difference between Northern states, which allowed slavery but had tiny slave populations, and Southern states with mammoth slave populations. But would this have really made a difference in the Electoral College in 1787? Take New York and Virginia, the largest slave states in the North and South, respectively, according to the 1790 census, just after the Constitutional Convention. Subtract the slave population of New York entirely — in other words, no three-fifths clause  — and you would be left with a population of 319,000. Do the same thing for Virginia, and you would get a population of 404,000. Even without the three-fifths clause, Virginia would have been allotted more representatives in Congress and a larger electoral vote.

Amar seeks to find the hidden hand of slavery in the debates of the Convention itself, and it is true that the Convention had no shortage of acrimonious discussion of slavery. But none of it occurred in connection with the equally acrimonious and lengthy debates over the presidency, apart from one peculiar statement uttered by James Madison on July 19, 1787:

If it be a fundamental principle of free Govt. that the Legislative, Executive & Judiciary powers should be separately exercised, it is equally so that they be independently exercised. There is the same & perhaps greater reason why the Executive shd. be independent of the Legislature, than why the Judiciary should: A coalition of the two former powers would be more immediately & certainly dangerous to public liberty....There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.

This statement is exceptionally opaque, and it seems to have no logical connection to the speeches made either before or after concerning the method of electing a president. This has led some to doubt whether Madison even uttered it at the time; he may have interpolated it in one of the many revisions of his notes on the Convention debates. But even taking it at face value, the best sense that can be made of it is that Madison was complaining that Northern states had looser ("more diffusive") rules for determining voter qualifications than Southern states, and thus might have an unfair advantage in a presidential-election system based solely on a direct, popular vote (since, at least proportionally, more Northerners than Southerners would be eligible to vote).

Madison seems to have believed that the three-fifths clause would not adequately mitigate the effects of lenient Northern voter-eligibility rules because no-fifths of the slave population could vote. He appears to have concluded that an Electoral College system based on representation would improve this balance and keep presidential elections from becoming sectional affairs. The idea that the Electoral College was proposed to protect Southern slavery stretches the imagination; if anything, Madison seems to be suggesting that an Electoral College would mute unfair sectional advantages.

Ultimately, the Electoral College contributed to ending slavery, since Abraham Lincoln, having earned only 39.9% of the popular vote in 1860, nevertheless won a crushing victory in the Electoral College — leading many Southern slaveholders to stampede to secession in 1860 and 1861. They could run the numbers as well as anyone, and realized that the Electoral College would only produce more anti-slavery Northern presidents.

STABILITY AND LIBERTY

Finally, some argue that the Electoral College is simply too cumbersome. And it is cumbersome. But the Constitution never set out to create a streamlined national government. The Constitutional Convention was interested in liberty, not efficiency. As such, the Electoral College embodies a fundamental instinct in the founders: Slow down. Ours is a deliberately sedate government, prone to gridlock and unresponsive to immediate pressures. There is good reason for this: The members of the Constitutional Convention had seen how the Revolution produced hyperactivity in state governments eager to distance themselves from the past by making everything into "one man, one vote," all the time. This produced spontaneity; it also produced stupidity.

The Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 is a case in point. It proposed to govern Pennsylvania through a simple, unicameral "assembly of the representatives of the freemen." It abolished all property qualifications for voting (apart from paying "public taxes"), limited legislators to one-year terms and no more than four terms every seven years, and stipulated that elections be held annually every October. But without the checks and balances provided by a bicameral legislature, the new Pennsylvania Assembly bolted ahead to revoke a college charter, override judicial decisions, fix the price of grain, issue £200,000 in tax-anticipation notes, and revoke (temporarily) the charter of Robert Morris's Bank of North America.

This new legislature aligned with the side of the angels by inaugurating a long-term phase-out of slavery in Pennsylvania, but its angels could be inquisitorial: The Assembly passed legislation "for the suppression of vice and immorality" that criminalized "profane swearing, cursing, drunkenness, cock fighting, bullet playing, horse racing, shooting matches and the playing or gaming for money or other valuable things, fighting of duels and such evil practices which tend greatly to debauch the minds and corrupt the morals of the subjects of this commonwealth." It also seized the property of suspected Tories and pacifists, imposed loyalty oaths, and shut down the College of Philadelphia for "an evident hostility to the present Government and Constitution of this State, and in divers particulars, enmity to the common cause." It revived the English practice of passing bills of attainder, and its courts tried 28 people for treason against the commonwealth. Cooler heads in a second house might have tactfully pigeon-holed such legislation. Gouverneur Morris sarcastically asked whether any "man if he confides in the State of Pena...will lend his money or enter into contract? He will tell you no. He sees no stability. He can repose no confidence."

The Constitutional Convention, meeting in Pennsylvania, had a front-row seat for observing the impact of the state's constitution. They walked hurriedly away from it and deliberately diffused decision-making through a separation of powers and a series of checks and balances between the three branches of the new national government — expressly to prevent even well-intentioned power from endangering liberty.

And it bears recollecting that holding a direct presidential election might not be any less cumbersome than the Electoral College. Counting (and worse, recounting ) votes on a nationwide basis when the margin between two candidates is half a percent (as it was in 2000) would be even more unwieldy than the current system.

There are, in fact, some unsought benefits in the Electoral College (unsought in the sense that they formed no part of its original rationale). First, the Electoral College forces candidates to appeal to a wider range of voters. A direct, national popular vote would incentivize campaigns to focus almost exclusively on densely populated urban areas; Clinton's popular-vote edge in 2016 arose from Democratic voting in just two places — Los Angeles and Chicago. Without the need to win the electoral votes of Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, few candidates would bother to campaign there. Of course, the Electoral College still narrows the focus of our elections: Instead of appealing to two states, candidates end up appealing to 10 or 12, and leave the others just as neglected. But campaigning in 10 or 12 states is better than trying to score points in just two.

Another unsought benefit of the Electoral College is that it discourages voter fraud. There is little incentive for political parties to play registration or ballot-box-stuffing games in Montana, Idaho, or Kansas — they simply won't get much bang for their buck in terms of the electoral totals of those states. But if presidential elections were based on national totals, then fraud could be conducted everywhere and still count; it is unlikely that law enforcement would be able to track down every instance of voter fraud across the entire country.

A final unforeseen benefit of the Electoral College is that it reduces the likelihood that third-party candidates will garner enough votes to make it onto the electoral scoreboard. Without the Electoral College, there would be no effective brake on the number of "viable" presidential candidates. Abolish it, and it would not be difficult to imagine a scenario in which, in a field of dozens of micro-candidates, the "winner" would need only 10% of the vote, and would represent less than 5% of the electorate. Presidents elected with smaller and smaller pluralities would only aggravate the sense that the executive branch governs without a real electoral mandate.

The fundamental problem in all democracies is legitimacy — if sovereignty resides in the people, and all the people have a say, what is to keep the people from breaking up into tiny splinters of violent political difference? The Electoral College, then, is an engine of legitimacy: Since 1900, 17 out of 29 U.S. elections have been decided by 200 or more electoral votes.

A CONSTITUTIONAL BRAKE

The Electoral College has been a significant, if poorly comprehended, mechanism for stability, liberty, and legitimacy — all of which democracies can too easily come to undermine. There is little substance to the complaint that the Electoral College was intended as an elitist brake on the popular will, since electors have rarely bucked the popular vote in their states. (For example, one District of Columbia elector cast a blank ballot in 2000; one Minnesota John Kerry elector cast a vote for John Edwards in 2004; and in 2016 five Clinton electors and two Trump electors bolted for other candidates.) And the idea that a national popular vote would lead to clearer and more representative results ignores the nature of our constitutional republic and fails to contemplate the challenges that a truly national election in our vast country would involve.

If anything, the Electoral College was designed to act as a brake on over-mighty presidents, who might use a popular majority to claim that they were authorized to speak for the people against Congress. And from that, we may well have a lot more to fear than from the Electoral College.

Allen Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era, and director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College. 

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Home > Departments and Schools > English, Literature, and Modern Languages > The Idea of an Essay > Vol. 6 (2019)

The Electoral College and Its Electoral Impacts

Griffin Messer , Cedarville University Follow

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History and Government

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© 2019 Griffin Messer. All rights reserved

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About the author.

Griffin is an International Studies from Springfield, Ohio. The son of an English major mother and International Studies father, he believes he has found the ideal combination of his parents’ degrees with his father’s major and investment in the Spanish language with a Spanish minor, and his mother’s enjoyment of writing with a Creative Writing minor. Griffin is passionate about people, infatuated with music, and is secretly a hopeless romantic (he asks that you keep that detail to yourself). He is pursuing a career in international affairs and hopes to become a diplomat.

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Messer, Griffin (2019) "The Electoral College and Its Electoral Impacts," The Idea of an Essay : Vol. 6, Article 18. Available at: https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/idea_of_an_essay/vol6/iss1/18

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Why Biden Has a Narrower Path to the Presidency Than Trump, in 11 Maps

Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Images by PhotoObjects.net, Yuji Sakai, and THEPALMER/Getty Images

By Doug Sosnik Graphics by Quoctrung Bui

Mr. Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and has advised over 50 governors and U.S. senators.

While polls show the race for president is tightening, Joe Biden still has a narrower and more challenging path to winning the election than Donald Trump. The reason is the Electoral College: My analysis of voter history and polling shows a map that currently favors Mr. Trump, even though recent developments in Arizona improve Mr. Biden’s chances. The Biden campaign will need to decide this summer which states to contest hardest. Our Electoral College maps below lay out the best scenarios for him and Mr. Trump.

Seven states with close results determined who won both the 2020 and the 2016 presidential elections, and those same seven states will most likely play the same battleground role this fall: three industrial states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – and four Sun Belt states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

The seven states that will most likely decide the 2024 presidential election

Mr. Biden’s declining popularity in the Sun Belt states is the main reason Mr. Trump has an edge right now. He is especially struggling with young and nonwhite voters there. Let’s take a closer look:

According to 2020 exit polls , Mr. Biden won 65 percent of Latino voters, who comprised roughly a fifth of voters in Arizona and Nevada. And Mr. Biden won 87 percent of Black voters, who made up 29 percent of the Georgia vote and 23 percent of the North Carolina vote. He also won 60 percent of voters aged 18 to 29. Now look at this year: A New York Times/Siena College poll released last weekend showed support for Mr. Biden had dropped 18 points with Black voters, 15 points with Latinos and 14 points with younger voters nationally.

Abortion could be a decisive issue in Mr. Biden stemming this erosion of support in Arizona and Nevada. The Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling last week that largely bans abortions raises the stakes of a likely ballot initiative on the issue there in November. It also appears likely that there will be a similar ballot measure in Nevada.

Nevertheless, the key to Mr. Biden’s victory is to perform well in the three industrial states. If Mr. Trump is able to win one or more of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Mr. Biden’s path to 270 electoral votes becomes even narrower.

If Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump remain ahead in the states where they are currently running strongest, the outcome of the election could come down to who wins Michigan and the two Sun Belt states where abortion will very likely be on the ballot, Arizona and Nevada.

Based on past voting, Mr. Trump will start out the general election with 219 electoral votes, compared to 226 votes for Mr. Biden, with 93 votes up for grabs.

Voter history and recent polling suggest that Mr. Trump is in a strong position to win North Carolina . Republicans have carried the state in every presidential election since 1976 except in 2008. In a Wall Street Journal battleground poll taken in March, Mr. Biden had only 37 percent job approval in the state. By winning North Carolina , Mr. Trump would have 235 electoral votes and two strong paths to 270.

The first path involves carrying Georgia , a state he lost by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020. Before then, Republicans won Georgia in every election since 1992. If Mr. Trump carries North Carolina and Georgia , he would have a base of 251 electoral votes with four scenarios that get him to 270.

Scenario 1 Then all Mr. Trump needs is Pennsylvania …

Scenario 2 … or Michigan and Nevada …

Scenario 3 … or Michigan and Arizona …

Scenario 4 … or Arizona and Wisconsin.

The second and harder path for Mr. Trump would be if he carried only one Southern swing state – most likely North Carolina . He would have only 235 electoral votes and would need to win three of the six remaining battleground states.

Scenario 5 Then he would need to win Arizona , Michigan and Wisconsin …

Scenario 6 … or Arizona , Nevada and Pennsylvania .

How Biden Can Win

It is difficult to see how Mr. Biden gets re-elected without doing well in the industrial battleground states – the so-called “ Blue Wall ” for Democrats. This is particularly true of Pennsylvania, given the state’s 19 electoral votes and Mr. Biden’s ties there and appeal to middle-class and blue-collar voters. That’s why he’s spending three days in Pennsylvania this week.

Mr. Biden will most likely need to win at least one other industrial battleground – with Wisconsin the most probable, since his polling numbers there are stronger than in the other battleground states.

A combination of factors have made winning Michigan much more challenging for Mr. Biden. Hamas’s attack on Israel and the war in Gaza have ripped apart the coalitions that enabled Democrats to do so well in the state since 2018. There are over 300,000 Arab Americans there, as well as a large Jewish population. Both groups were crucial to Mr. Biden’s success there in 2020.

In addition, Michigan voters’ perception of the economy is more negative compared with the other battleground states. In the Journal battleground poll , two-thirds of Michigan voters described the national economy negatively; more than half had a negative opinion of the state’s economy.

Now let’s look at Mr. Biden’s map.

Mr. Biden’s best strategy is based on winning Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which would give him 255 electoral votes (assuming that he carries the 2nd Congressional District in Nebraska). By carrying these states, Mr. Biden has several paths to 270, but the first three scenarios are his most viable.

Scenario 1 He just needs to win Michigan …

Scenario 2 … or Arizona and Nevada …

Scenario 3 ... or Georgia .

There are two other scenarios where Mr. Biden loses Wisconsin and keeps Pennsylvania . But that would mean winning states where Mr. Biden is polling much worse.

Scenario 4 They involve Mr. Biden winning Georgia and Arizona …

Scenario 5 … or Michigan and Georgia .

A Look Ahead

With over six months to go until Election Day, given the volatility in the world and the weaknesses of Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, it would be foolish to make firm predictions about specific results. And other electoral map scenarios are possible: Recent polling shows Mr. Biden with a narrow lead in Minnesota, a state that usually votes for Democrats for president. While it is mathematically possible for Mr. Biden to win without carrying Minnesota, it is unlikely he will be elected if he cannot carry this traditionally Democratic state.

For the third election cycle in a row, a small number of voters in a handful of states could determine the next president of the United States.

If the election remains close but Mr. Biden is unable to regain support from the core group of voters who propelled him to victory in 2020 — young and nonwhite voters — then we could be headed to a repeat of the 2016 election. The outcome of that election was decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Last week’s abortion ruling in Arizona, and the likely abortion ballot initiatives in that state and Nevada, give Mr. Biden the possibility of being re-elected even if he loses Michigan. That’s why, if we have another close presidential election, I think Arizona, Michigan and Nevada will likely determine the outcome for Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump.

Based on my experience as Bill Clinton’s White House political director in his 1996 re-election campaign, I would take immediate advantage of Mr. Biden’s significant fund-raising advantage over Mr. Trump to focus on shoring up the president’s chances in Michigan and the must-win states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while at the same time trying to keep Georgia and North Carolina in play. Mr. Biden does not need to win either of those Sun Belt states to get re-elected, but draining Mr. Trump’s resources there could help him in other battleground states.

More on the 2024 presidential election

Democrats Need to Stop Playing Nice

Too often, Democrats litigate; Republicans fight.

By Joe Klein

One Purple State Is ‘Testing the Outer Limits of MAGAism’

North Carolina Republicans are “in the running for the most MAGA party in the nation.”

By Thomas B. Edsall

2024, Meet 1892, Your Doppelgänger

Great political change can unfold when the political system seems woefully stalled.

By Jon Grinspan

Doug Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and has advised over 50 governors and U.S. senators.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

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The Second Article of the Constitution established the Electoral College as a compromise between the founders who argued for the election of the President by a vote in Congress and those for the election of the President by a popular vote of all citizens. In 1803, the Twelfth Amendment was included, revising the procedures that the Electoral College had previously run on. Another goal of creating the Electoral College was to prevent the Southern States from over empowering the less […]

Political Participation in American Democracy

Democracy is defined as a system of government in which the people rule either directly or through elected officials. Democracy is participation, an opportunity to protect our rights, the voice of the people, coexistence, accountability, respect, justice, equality, and expression. Democracy can be interpreted in many ways, but most people agree on one thing- democracy means freedom. For a democracy to work everyone must actively participate. There are several ways to participate including being informed, starting/being involved in political discussion, […]

The Development of Cultural Racism Associated with American Politics

Abstract Politics in the United States have always been a heated issue, and never more so than now. The surprising election of Donald Trump has created a clear cultural divide on many levels that continues to cultivate hate, and gifts not just Americans but the entire world with cultural racism that we have not seen for a long time. The political divide in America affects every American, every day, so much so that you would be hard-pressed to find someone […]

Electoral College Alternatives

The Presidency and the election surrounding the Presidency it is one of the most essential events in American politics. The office of the President is the highest office in the United States. Given this stated fact, there is always controversy surrounding the Presidency and how people are elected into the position. Looking at the United States at face value it would be assumed that during elections, the citizens are deciding who becomes President. Surprisingly, this is technically not the case. […]

In the Name of Democracy

In today’s society the America people believe in the idea of democracy. From decade to decade, American people have fought wars and sung daily pledges of allegiance to honor the United State’s name and principles. Democracy is defined as having power held by the people, who may rule through the freedom of speech by electing governmental representatives. The U.S. is not a true democracy. In fact, the U.S. Constitution was intentionally written to prevent the expression of people’s will. Perhaps, […]

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The process of going to cast your vote for a Presidential election can be exciting yet nerve-racking to see the end results. We the people of America, our vote ultimately decides who is President or Vice President right? Contrary to the common belief, the electors appointed by the people in each state make up the Electoral College; they decide who is President and Vice President. This system of voting should be kept in place because it gives smaller states a […]

Electoral Process in the United States

The Electoral College was put in place September six, seventeen eighty-seven, in a debate over the president election within the United States of America. Over the years it has been in place there was four times it did not correctly choose the president over the popular vote. The flaw always comes up with it not always working out the topic of debate that usually comes of is the removal of the Electoral College. It should stay in place and express […]

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Why was the Electoral College Created?

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Reassessing the U.S. Electoral College: Time for Change?

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With tears running down their faces, Hillary Clinton supporters began to fester anger at the Electoral College after their preferred candidate lost to Donald Trump by 74 Electoral Votes despite the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by just under 3 million. The 2018 election came down to four swing states, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin, in which the combined margin of the popular vote was less than 250,000 (TheNation.com). Due to the Electoral College, states that are […]

An Electoral Update: a Case for Reform of the Electoral College

Following the controversial 2016 election, many unhappy Americans cried out, "Not my President!" to protest the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency. Although Trump currently sits as the forty-fifth President of the United States, these cries of anguish do hold some merit. Due to the setup of the Electoral College, it is possible to have a President that is not voted for by the majority of Americans. Throughout history, the Electoral College has proved controversial by limiting democratic virtues, […]

The Electoral College: Definition & Process

The Electoral College is an important process that was implemented into the Constitution to provide a compromise between Congress and citizens when voting for our nation's leader. When the Constitution was created, the purpose of the Electoral College was to ensure a democracy while also guaranteeing a qualified, well-rounded president. However, the Electoral College has proven that the popular vote does not secure a candidate's position as president. The current system of the Electoral College consists of many strengths and […]

Federalism and the Facilitation of Elections

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92 Women’s Suffrage Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best women’s suffrage topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 most interesting women’s suffrage topics to write about, 👍 good research topics about women’s suffrage, ❓ research questions about women’s suffrage.

• Women’s Suffrage Movement: Historical Investigation The historical event under investigation is the women’s suffrage movement and the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. First, the book Women’s Suffrage: The Complete Guide to the Nineteenth Amendment by Wayne presents a […]
• The Women’s Suffrage Movement It shows the cause-and-effect relationship between the lack of substantial funds for the campaigns of activists and the subsequent decision to accept money from the person ideologically opposed to the female participants with their agenda. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Women’s Suffrage and the Nineteenth Amendment Though the early Suffrage movement lacked diversity and the associated perspectives, it did lay the foundation for the 19trh Amendment despite quite vocal claims against change among some of the more racist Tennessee women, who […]
• American Women in History: Feminism and Suffrage It is important to note that the key sharp issues discussed in this chapter are: a finding of the independent women suffrage movement, the role of the constituency in this process, the role of war […]
• The Women’s Suffrage Movement in England in 19th Century It can also be claimed that the attempts of women to enter the sphere of politics have become the most important determinant in the construction of ideas about British democracy and culture. In this period, […]
• Women Suffrage in Carrie Chapman’s Rhetoric The paper is a bright example of the in-depth analysis of the problem and a perfect insight into the future of womens participation in the political life of the country.
• Women’s Suffrage: The Nineteenth Amendment The abolition movement, which dealt with the attempt to stop slavery, and the women’s rights movement, which was meant to allow females to enter the political life of the country.
• Sojourner Truth: Slavery Abolitionist and Women’s Suffrage The main aim of this step was to show that black people should also be given the right to participate in elections and chose the future of their own state.
• Women’s Suffrage Movement The struggle for women suffrage augmented in the middle of the nineteenth century with the establishment of diverse associations. The formation of the International Council of Women occurred in the year 1888.
• Views on Women’s Suffrage by E.Kuhlman, L.Woodworth-Ney and E.Foner They have presented similar examples as factors in the enactment of women’s voting rights; these examples include the participation of women in wars at the home front and the contribution women made to build the […]
• Women’s Suffrage in America Suffrage is the right to vote, and women’s suffrage is the right of women to take part in the process of voting.
• Women’s Suffrage Discussion The entrenchment of equal rights of women and men and more noticeably the right of every American woman to vote came into being after the enactment of the nineteenth amendment.
• How Did Women Change Their Stature in Society: Women’s Suffrage The status of women in society has been considerably changed and, now, women take leading positions in different spheres: women in education choose proper approaches to study children and help them develop their skills; women […]
• Partisan Competition and Women’s Suffrage in the United States
• The First World War and Women’s Suffrage in Britain
• The Right for Women’s Suffrage
• Emily Stowe and the Women’s Suffrage Movement of Canada
• Reconstruction, Progressivism, Labor Unions and Women’s Suffrage
• Did Women’s Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government
• Methods Used in the Women’s Suffrage Movement
• Women’s Suffrage Movement Throughout the History of the United States
• Latin American Feminism and Women’s Suffrage
• Political Practices, Women’s Suffrage and Changes in California
• Municipal Housekeeping: The Impact of Women’s Suffrage on Public Education
• Reconstruction Through Black Suffrage and Women’s Rights
• What Was the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and How Did It Change America
• The National League for Opposing Women Suffrage
• The Women Suffrage Movement in the United States History and the Ability to Vote
• Men, Women, and the Ballot Woman Suffrage in the United States
• Feminism and Its Impact on Women’s Suffrage Movement
• Local North West Indiana Groups in Support of Women’s Suffrage
• Ireland’s Women’s Suffrage Movement
• Historical Events Surrounding the Women Suffrage Movement in the U.S.
• Link Between Women’s Suffrage and Education
• Californian Women Suffrage During the Election of 1912
• Women’s Suffrage Movement During the Progressive Era
• Campaigns for Women Suffrage and Their Effectiveness
• The National American Women Suffrage Association
• The Reasons Behind the Development of Women’s Suffrage Campaign
• Women Leaving the Playpen: The Emancipating Role of Female Suffrage
• The Pros and Cons of the Women’s Suffrage Movement
• The American Legal System: Women’s Suffrage Movement
• Why Suffrage for American Women Was Not Enough
• 19th Century Women’s Suffrage in Europe
• The Foundation and Impact of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the United States
• Gender Roles, Sexuality, and Women’s Suffrage
• Frederick Douglass and the Fight for Women’s Suffrage
• Woman Suffrage: The Issue of Women’s Voting Rights
• The Life During the Women’s Suffrage
• The Women’s Suffrage and the Role of Women in Society
• 20th Century Women’s Suffrage Movement
• Chartism: Women’s Suffrage and National Political Movement
• The Fight for Universal Women ‘s Suffrage
• Women’s Suffrage and the Role of Women in Society
• The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Historical Perspective
• The Second Great Awakening and the Women’s Suffrage Movement: The Democratic Deals
• Campaign for Women’s Suffrage in 1870
• Women Suffrage Citizenship and Be Respected Just the Same as Men
• Early 20th Century Temperance and Women’s Suffrage
• Women’s Lasting Battle Towards Suffrage
• Katie Stanton and Susan Anthony Gave Women’s Right to Suffrage a Voice
• How Did the Industrial Revolution Influence Women Suffrage
• What Is a Consequence of Women’s Suffrage in New Zealand?
• When Did the Women’s Suffrage Movement Start and End?
• What Was the Main Purpose of the Women’s Suffrage Movement?
• How Did WWI Have an Impact on Women’s Suffrage?
• Was F.D. Roosevelt for or Against Women’s Suffrage?
• What Was the First Women’s Suffrage Movement?
• Who Ended Women’s Suffrage?
• What Changed After Women’s Suffrage?
• What Did the Women’s Movement Accomplish?
• Which Amendment Allowed For Women’s Suffrage?
• Did President Franklin Pierce Support Women’s Suffrage?
• Did Any States Vote Against Women’s Suffrage?
• What Was the Impact of the Women’s Suffrage Movement?
• What Was the Biggest Accomplishment of the Women’s Movement?
• What Were the Causes and Effects of Women’s Suffrage Movement in the US?
• Did Women’s Suffrage Cause the Collapse of Western Civilization?
• When Did the Women’s Suffrage First Start in India?
• Why Was Women’s Suffrage Granted in the West Before the East?
• What Were Some Challenges Women Faced During Women’s Suffrage?
• How Did the Civil Right Act Influence Women’s Suffrage, or How Are They Similar?
• Who Was the President During the Women’s Suffrage Movement?
• What Is the Cost of Progress in Women’s Suffrage Movement?
• How Did Irish Women Relate to the British Women’s Suffrage Movement?
• Why Was the Women’s Suffrage Movement So Important?
• What Were the Three Major Events in the Women’s Rights Movement?
• Who Started the Women’s Suffrage Movement and Why?
• What Is Controversial About Women’s Suffrage?
• Why Did the Women’s Suffrage Movement Fail?
• Which Party Voted for Women’s Suffrage?
• What Were Major Issues in the Women’s Movement?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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"92 Women’s Suffrage Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." IvyPanda , 2 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/womens-suffrage-essay-topics/.

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IvyPanda . 2024. "92 Women’s Suffrage Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/womens-suffrage-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "92 Women’s Suffrage Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/womens-suffrage-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "92 Women’s Suffrage Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/womens-suffrage-essay-topics/.

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