The Founding Fathers wrote the Electoral College into the United States Constitution as insurance against popular passion electing the chief executive into office. They believed there needed to be a buffer between the people and election of the president. Also a concern of the forefathers was they did not want the states with a larger population to completely overshadow the states with a smaller populace. The Electoral College system was devised to help cope with these problems. The Constitution was written and ratified in 1787 more than two hundred years ago. At the time of drafting the drafters of the Constitution never imagined there would be a two political parties that dominate our system of government or a national media that can readily bring each candidate before every citizen of this vast country. These were the problems of the time that faced those that wrote the Constitution. While some of the problems that faced the forefathers are no longer applicable to the year 2001, some problems still exist and others have cropped up.In the United States Constitution, each state selects a group of electors equal to the number of Senators and members of the House of Representative a given state has in Congress. The number of electors for each state can fluctuate every ten years due to population shifts determined by the national census. The political parties or independent candidates must submit a group of individuals who pledge support to their candidate, to each states chief election official. This number of individual is equal to the number of electoral votes in a given state. Members of Congress or any employees of the federal government are prohibited from serving as members of the Electoral College. On the Tuesday following the first Monday of November in years divisible by four, the people in each State cast their ballot for the party slate of electors representing the choice of the citizens for the president and vic...
