Should Presidents Be Elected Directly by the People?

Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement
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Institution:
Introduction
Pika and Maltese in their book The Politics of the Presidency assesses the institution of president and offers a comprehensive text giving examples from historical election times to the current administration. The eighth edition particularly has additional chapter that takes an analysis into president Obama’s second term in office and challenges facing Obama’s administration in an entrenched partisan environment.[Pika, Joseph August, John Anthony Maltese. 2014. The politics of the presidency Revised 8thed. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press]
The 8th edition of The Politics of the Presidency describes the nature of 2010 midterm election and the 2012 election. It also features the major policies that the Obama administration has proposed and/or implemented. A review of these issues together with an analysis of the historical Electoral voting system will help this paper to come up with a conclusion whether presidents should be elected directly by the people. Ellis and Nelson also look at this issue in their book Debating the Presidency book. Pika and Maltese’s book states in the chapter laws regarding the presidency that American president are indirectly elected by the people but elected directly by the Electoral College. Ellis and Nelson states that a political movement that will involve the Electoral College reform is under way. These reforms could result in a radical transformation of the political system in the United States.[Ellis, Richard J. and Michael Nelson. 2015. Debating the Presidency:Conflicting Perspectives on the American Executive, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.]
The Presidential Election Process
The United States’ constitution is drafted in such a way that Americans vote for an elector as opposed to electing a president directly. An elector is the representative who votes for the same candidate as his supporter’s choice. In the U.S there is a total of 538 electors who make up the Electoral College. There are 435 representatives in the Congress which represents the number of representatives for each state. In addition to the representatives, there are 100 Senators in the House with 3 additional electors being from Columbia District adding up to 538 members of the Electoral College. The drafters of the constitution made it in such a way that the electoral system of the United States is established in a convoluted system. Each state is awarded the number of Electoral College votes amounting to its representatives plus its number of senators.[Ellis, Richard J. and Michael Nelson. 2015. Debating the Presidency:Conflicting Perspectives on the American Executive, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.]
On the day of Election voters go chooses the electors but do not choose presidential or vice presidential candidates of their choice even though they can see their names on the ballot paper. The candidate of the party they vo...