Tracing origins of US Electoral College

The Electoral College system of electing presidents has been contested by the American population for quite some time. The people favour electing their rulers through popular vote in the general election every four years. 

There have been five instances where a candidate was made the US president after they lost the popular vote but won the majority of the electoral votes. However, this process is part of the US Constitution and can only be altered by an amendment in the law.

The state delegates met in Philadelphia in September 1787 for the Constitutional Convention. Among the central arguments was an argument over how the new country would elect its presidents.

The argument broke the delegates into two groups with one group advocating against the Congress having any part in electing the state leaders and the other group adamant on not letting the people elect the president by a popular vote because they thought the people of that time would not have necessary information or knowledge about the candidates and a president elected directly by the people would have an unnecessary amount of power that could be dangerous.

The discussion was drawn out for days and in the end, the gathered delegates compromised on the idea of an Electoral College. 

The electors would not be picked by the Congress or by the people; instead, the states would appoint neutral electors who would cast the actual ballots for the candidates. 

Nevertheless, the college was formed not because the delegates found it the best possible solution but because they could not agree to something else.

The distrust and inability to come to a conclusion can be attributed to the fact that America had just gotten out of a tyrannical colonial rule and they had to do everything in their power not to elect another similar ruler.

They argued over congressional representation and were not able to decide if the representatives should be based on population or if all states should be given equal representatives in Congress. 

In the end, they compromised on giving each state one representative in the House of Representatives for every 30,000 people in a state and two in the Senate.

The founding fathers formed the Electoral College with the belief that it would be the best possible solution to counter possible corruption in the presidential voting process. 

American history reflects how voting rights evolved through amendments to the Constitution, with changes over time to address disparities among states. 

The amendments granted voting rights progressively, including provisions for women and people of color. Additionally, the Voting Rights Act was expanded in 1975 to ensure non-English-speaking American citizens could participate in elections.