The Federalist Paper No. 68: The Electoral College
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The Federalists Papers were a set of eighty five essays written by Alexander Hamiltonian, John Jay, and James Madison describing their opinions on the political philosophy of the newly created United States Constitution (Roark, 2014). Known as one of the United States Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton was the first secretary of treasury and played a large role in creating the Constitution (“Alexander Hamilton Biography”, n.d.). The Federalist Paper No. 68 titled The Mode of Electing the President, written by Alexander Hamilton, focuses on the powers and regulations of the Executive branch, the manner of selecting a President and our modern day Electoral College. Alexander Hamilton's intent of the Federalist Paper No. 68 document is to reiterate the importance of the newly adopted American voting system. The year 1788 marked the first year of presidential elections under the newly drafted United States constitution (Roark, 2014). Throughout the document, Hamilton expresses the importance of the American people having the choice to elect a presidential candidate. He believed “it was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the…show more content… The Electoral College was established in the Constitution as a compromise between the election of a presidential candidate by a vote in Congress and the election of a presidential candidate by a popular vote of qualified citizens (Roark, 2014). The purpose of the Electoral College is that in a situation of a tie in the voting process the power would be given to the House of Representatives to choose the winner of the election. The members of the House of Representatives are selected from qualifying American voters. Therefore having the American people being able to vote for a President and selecting the members of the House of Representatives the voters always have their voices being