Under these laws, which states adopted to gain political advantage in the nations early years, even though it was never raised by the framers states award all their electors to the candidate with the most popular votes in their state. Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992 with only 43% of the vote, and then in 1996 with 49.2%. The political game in the United States would change dramatically without the Electoral College present. The threat is the effort to create a so-called . Beto O'Rourke Announces His Run For President In 2020, Moderate Democrats Under Pressure As Party's Left Grabs Attention. Under the current plan, states that join will not activate the compact until enough states have joined to total 270 electoral votes. This is because the president is not . While politicians continue to put major focus on highly-populated urban cities of many states, such as Cleveland, Ohio, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Electoral College pushes candidates to address issues in states as a whole and not just in metropolitan regions. Fully overhauling the way the president is selected would take a Constitutional amendment, which would require the votes of two-thirds of the U.S. House of Representatives, two-thirds of the Senate, and three-fourths of the states. Why? Adding even more candidates into this discussion without the protections of this structure could create circumstances where someone with less than 35% of the vote could potentially win a four-year term. The Electoral College consists of an elector selection, a group of people who will meet and vote for President and Vice President based on the results of their states election. Second, a national popular vote would eliminate the battleground state phenomenon that has now become the key feature of post-convention campaigning, leaving most Americans alienated from the decisive phase of presidential elections. Save Our States, The Status of National Popular Vote, https://saveourstates.com/threats/the-status-of-npv (accessed April 17, 2020). The reasons for the Electoral College may not be relevant any more. That position, shared by many Republicans, makes it highly unlikely that there would be sufficient support for changing the system. Map. These Americans, chosen for loyalty to their political party, will vote for the presidential candidate who won their states popular vote. But reforming the Electoral College does not rank high among our national problems. Swing or battleground states are mere accidents of geography. The electoral college ignores the will of the people. Without the Electoral College in place, presidential candidates would build platforms that would speak to their base. The size of a state does not affect our real political preferences, even though the Electoral College system imagines that it does. Note: A previous version of this post stated that awarding 2 electoral votes per state (plus D.C.) to the national popular vote winner would form a baseline of 138 votes. Today that system is threatened by a proposal called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, or. But as people moved and the economy changed so did that ratio. As we can see from questions posed in two respectable polls, Pew and Gallup, in spite of the fact that majorities support change it is Democrats who support it and Republicans who oppose it. Reagan also dominated in 1980, taking 489 votes to Jimmy Carters 49. It causes some votes to have greater weight than others. Throughout our nations history there have been many unwise attempts to abolish the Electoral College, but these proposed constitutional amendments saw little success and unsurprisingly failed to gain traction. Throughout history there have been over 700 attempts to reform or abolish the Electoral College, according to the Congressional Research Service. And while Electoral College winning/popular vote losing presidents are formally and technically legitimate holders of the office, the perception that a broken system is anti-democratic and anti-majoritarian can have wide-reaching, penetrating, long-term consequences for the health of a democracy. Instead of dealing with these complications, a simple majority vote would always speak of the will of the people. "It really does over-represent some sparsely populated states, and it provides some skew and bias to our system that I just don't think is healthy anymore," said Paul Gronke, a political scientist at Reed College. The Electoral College is outlined in Article II, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution. But swing states distort our national priorities, even when the president wins the popular vote. Tell us about it. Learn more about how to use our free daily writing prompts for remote learning. It would create problems when multiple candidates run. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public. When enough states join in this interstate compact, itll mean that the popular-vote winner will always become president. Instead of a politician trying to appeal to someone with specific needs, the adoption of a general platform that maximizes votes in urban centers would become the emphasis of each party. There have been three: John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush. Gronke notes, however, that there would be major administrative challenges if the U.S. ever got to the point of switching to a national popular vote. The great problems with our presidential selection system today stem from the haphazard way we choose the two major party presidential candidates. As the U.S. Government Archives likes to say, the Electoral College is a process, not a place. This structure was placed in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers of the United States as a compromise between having a vote in Congress to elect the President and the election of a candidate by qualified citizens. Because Donald Trump lost to Hillary Clinton in the popular vote, yet was the clear victor in the ultimately definitive electoral college, the strange, disproportionate nature of electoral. As the graph below illustrates, over the course of the 20th century the distance between the biggest state by population and the median state increased. When Americans are polled about the Electoral College, most of them say that they want it to disappear. Here are the yea and the nay. It no longer serves the intended job. Its just basic fairness. There were two additional votes for Sanders that were invalidated in Minnesota and one for Kasich in Colorado. The U.S. Census creates the allocations of electoral votes that each state receives. Under this option, Florida would give 15 Electoral College votes to Clinton and 14 to Trump. That meant more power for those states under an Electoral College system, and slave states didnt want to give up that power. .just the large States - the Cities would end up running the Country. The current system is weighted too heavily in favor of celebrity appeal, demagogic displays and appeals to narrow special interests. Changing or eliminating the Electoral College can be accomplished only by an amendment to the Constitution, which requires the. 1. The Constitution originally stipulated that the top vote-getter chosen by these electors would become president and the individual with the second-most votes would be vice president. Maintaining the Electoral College may seem like the most politically expedient position for the Republican Party in the short term, but it may cause significant damage in the long term. "And the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting and that means get rid of the Electoral College.". Nonetheless, it is likely the most viable alternative to the current Electoral College system. 2. Article V sets up the manner by which an amendment is passed. A party system was instituted really to fulfill that old function of the Electoral College's, which is to narrow people down and get responsible people to be candidates for the presidency. And because they created it, its a sacred work of constitutional genius. Well, American democracy operates on a whole collection of cherished ideas and practices, but our system also includes some dusty old artifacts from its founding two centuries ago. Were already letting women, former slaves, and 18-year-olds vote, changing the structure of the election since the countrys founding. Abolishing the Electoral College would get rid of this confusing process. So what would happen if we got rid of the Electoral College? Ive spent the past few years obsessively analyzing the Electoral College, trying to understand the concerns of the founding fathers, doing the math from different elections. Faith in elections, trust in government, and the legitimacy of elected officials and the offices they hold will be challenged by a system that consistently turns its back on the will of the voters. What happens if the President-elect fails to qualify before inauguration? In the ensuing 215 years, the Electoral College system itself has changed little, although the popular vote has been rightfully guaranteed to millions more previously denied on the basis of race, gender and age. Having a state-based system for electing both houses of Congress should be adequate to that task. If the remaining states with Democratic control of the legislature (Maine, Nevada, and Virginia) were to sign on, it would add an additional 23 Electoral College votes. The point is, even accounting for demographic changes, neither party has a built-in advantage under a popular-vote system. 5. Smaller States & the entire Midwest would end up losing all power - & we cant let that happen. Three happened in the 19th century; none in the 20th century and two in the 21st century. It gives each state in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct electors equal to its representation in Congress. Blue states give all their electors to the Democrat, no matter how many Republicans voted for their candidate; vice versa in the red states. But experts say reforming this practice isn't likely anytime soon for a number of reasons. They simply happen to be states that become competitive because of their demography, and which are readily identifiable as such because of the increasing sophistication of political polling. The effect is to erase all the voters in that state who didnt vote for the top candidate. List of the Pros of Abolishing the Electoral College 1. Currently, 15 states and DC have approved the NPVIC. But specifics vary. Abolishing the Electoral College seems to be the next logical step in that process. Despite what you may have learned in school, it was not the product of careful design by brilliant men. First, and most obviously, such a system would conform to the dominant democratic value that has prevailed in American politics ever since the one-person, one-vote reapportionment rulings of the early 1960s. Under the current system, voters in each state cast their ballots for electors, of which 270 are necessary to win. That could have happened even though Biden won the popular vote by 7,060,087 (and counting)a margin even larger than the margins won by George W Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2012. In the interactive diagram The Battleground States Biden and Trump Need to Win 270, you are able to build your own coalition of states to see how either candidate, President Trump or former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., can win the election. TheNational Archives reportsthat over the past 200 years more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College without any becoming law. A few states provide criminal penalties if an elector violates the requirement. Supporters of a national popular vote argue something must be done; the Electoral College disproportionately inflates the influence of rural areas while undervaluing the votes of cities. And even though it is widely acknowledged that the Electoral College is a ticking time bomb that could seriously erode American democracy, none of these attempts has been successful. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Researchby the National Association of Secretaries of State shows that 29 states and the District of Columbia require presidential electors, chosen through political party processes in each state, to cast their vote for the candidate they were selected by popular vote in that state to represent. The framers of the Constitution set up the Electoral College for a number of different reasons. How the Electoral College helps preserve our constitutional system. In the Electoral College, there are 51 voting jurisdiction (states) that includes D.C. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. In fact, there is already a movement brewing among states to agree to award their electors to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. And even when that doesn't happen, Wegman sees another problem with the . And this was an effort that was supported by the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, the American Bar Association, and progressive and liberal groups outside. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The small towns in the United States, along with all of the rural areas, would become marginalized if this system were to be entirely abolished. In the video above, we delve into the reasons people give for keeping the Electoral College and why theyre wrong. There are over 300 million people currently residing in the United States, but only 538 people actually get to choose who gets to be the president. Social change can seem sudden, as if millions awoke one day to the same realization. It took time for people to learn what was happening in the nations capital. In other words, the Electoral College isnt sacred, and theres no reason we cant change how it works today. Voting By Mail Is On The Rise, But Could Alleged N.C. Election Fraud Change That? It would stop the requirement to redistribute the electoral votes. The winner-take-all method is nowhere in the Constitution. The basis for the Electoral College is found inArticle II, Section 1of the Constitution, which spells out how the president shall be chosen. Back in 1787, when the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were trying to figure out how the President should be chosen, some wanted the Congress to choose, and . If such an amendment were to pass Congress, defeat in the states is likely. For instance, in 1900 New York was the biggest state in the union with 7,268,894 people and the state with the median population, Louisiana, had 1,381,625 people. The elected officials of both parties have incentives to choose candidates with an eye toward popular electability and governing skill. Our 230-year-old jerry-built system for picking the president, known as the Electoral College. If the Electoral College was eliminated, the power to elect the President would rest solely in the hands of a few of our largest states and cities, greatly diminishing the voice of smaller populated states. As Americans look at their election processes, a complete review of the pros and cons of abolishing the Electoral College is useful when taking this unique structure into account. This design promotes the two-party system. The group of 16 (as of August 2019) currently control 196 electoral votes together. They disagreed so strongly that the final system wasnt adopted until the last minute, thrown together by a few delegates in a side room. What I learned is it doesnt have to be this way. This system allows minorities to have a bigger microphone for their concerns as well. Not one was a first-rank president, but their selection did not seriously injure the democratic character of our system. Having the states play an autonomous role in presidential elections, it is said, reinforces the division of governing authority between the nation and the states. One of the ways that states are considering a way to go around the Electoral College is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Myth No. First, there's the Constitutional problem. Five times in our history, presidential candidates who have won more votes than their opponent have still lost the election. 3) The Electoral . Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. So, let me make the case for its abolition and its replacement by a simple national popular vote, to be held in an entity we will call (what the heck) the United States of America. Who verifies if a candidate is qualified to run for President? Eliminating this barrier could mean that some parts of the country never become part of the overall campaign. ), and the big state-small state divide no longer animates our politics, if it ever did. The Electoral College website now has an easy-to-remember address. Next week five hundred and thirty-eight American citizens will travel to their state capitals and elect the president of the United States. Under the current structure of the United States, there are 50 unique presidential contests instead of one nationwide affair to elect a President. We survived. The compact would only go into effect once the number of states involved surpasses the 270 Electoral College vote threshold that is required to win the presidency. No other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like it, and for good reason. 2. Do they outweigh the arguments that Mr. Wegman presents? Presidential elections have little if anything to do with the subject, even when some candidates claim to be running against Washington.. What are the positive arguments in favor of replacing the existing electoral system with a national popular vote? Most Americans, by a wide margin, believe the Electoral College should be abolished. But the reality is, right now neither the small states nor the big ones have the voice they should. Based on your understanding, do you believe the Electoral College is democratic? 260, February 19, 2020, p. 9, https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/destroying-the-electoral-college-the-anti-federalist-national-popular-0. And this year, who knows? 6. A presidential candidate who doesnt receive a majority of the votes can still win the Electoral College to get into the White House. Republicans especially worry about tipping the balance away from their party. George W. Bush won the Electoral College in 2000 even though he received 0.5% less of the popular vote against Al Gore. Because the Electoral College is based on the structure of state populations and representation in the House, some people have a vote that carries more weight per delegate than others. Thats because, regardless of its overall merits, change is always rooted in the politics of the day. After a long battle in Florida Bush won the state narrowly, giving him an Electoral College victory of 271 to 266 over Al Gore. These states currently total 196 electoral votes, although after the 2020 census is completed, projections suggest a net loss of two seats, lowering that number to 194. Thats not true either. The first is easily dismissed. No other mode of presidential elections would be fully consistent with our underlying commitment to the equality of all citizens. For years, a majority of Americans have opposed the Electoral College. Interestingly, the congressional caucus system is very close to the system the British used to replace Prime Minister David Cameron. "The game will not be any longer to be a [politician who is] liberal but be able to appeal to a rural Ohioan," he said. Myth No. The truth is . Iowa farmers might lose out to California union workers since their population numbers are larger. As we all know only too well, in practice this archaic system means that the person who wins the most votes may not win the election. In fact, lets tally up all the votes cast for president between 1932 and 2008. The issue that could make Joe Biden unelectable is not in his control and is a far greater threat to his re-election than any single policy question. So overall, while the Electoral College may not make much of a difference to the results of our modern elections, it forces our politicians to have a larger scope of the issues facing this country, rather than just focusing on the concerns people in areas with large populations care about. In the history of the United States, there have been five elections where the eventual winner didnt receive a clear majority of the vote. Switching to this standard system would not likely create an adverse result. [2] The compact would then be 43 Electoral College votes short of going into effect. This process means that each candidate must speak with the entire country instead of visiting the largest cities as a way to solicit for votes. Its possible the Supreme Court will ultimately decide who gets to decide how individual electors vote. In each state, electors meet after the presidential election on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December and cast their votes for president and vice president in separate ballots. What happens if a candidate with electoral votes dies or becomes Getting rid of the Electoral College would radicalize politics. Democratic presidential candidates are weighing in too. Thats when the Founding Fathers crafted a compromise between those who argued for the election of the president by a vote of Congress and the election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens. Recurring debt ceiling fights will only be solved by budget reform, Amend the Constitution so the candidate who receives the most votes wins. Those states do get a boost from their two Senate-based electoral votes, but that benefit pales in comparison to the real culprit: statewide winner-take-all laws. And finally, Myth 3: The Electoral College protects small states. That means the major party that can maintain its base could win elections without a clear majority. I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A. Gregg says that change would radicalize politics. Bernie Sanders, John Kasich, Ron Paul, and Faith Spotted Eagle received one each. The system calls for the creation, every four years, of a temporary group of electors equal to the total number of representatives in Congress. Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. So far, 15 states plus the District of Columbia have joined in for a total of 196 electoral votes, just 74 more. Right now, those circumstances tend to benefit Republicans in the Electoral College, while disadvantaging Democrats who have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight elections. They do not matter because they have any special civic characteristics. Given that a change would require a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of the state legislatures, it is not going to happen. That probably promotes a more national and less regional vision. The electors can vote their conscience as well, refusing to follow what their state elections guide them to do. It seems to me that the original system may have been superior to what we now have. Warren says she wants to get rid of the Electoral College, and vote for president using a national popular vote. Electoral vote totals will equal 538. It's another way the system ensures it's perpetuity. Although there are some advantages to this system, the disadvantages have been highlighted in recent elections. If a candidate wins the popular vote in a state, even by a single vote, they get all of that states electoral votes. {{currentYear}} American Bar Association, all rights reserved. Its primary function is to malapportion political power, and it does so indeed, has always done so with strikingly awful. "The game will be: Be a liberal to the extent I can maximize votes in major urban centers.". This spring, numerous candidates for president expressed support for either abolishing or changing the Electoral College, which ultimately picks the U.S. president. The way the Electoral College actually functions today isnt even enshrined in the Constitution. The Electoral College has elected a president who did not win the popular vote twice in the past 20 years, in 2000 and 2016. Editors Note: In 2016, we asked two professors to debate whether the Electoral College should cease to be the mechanism used for selecting the U.S. president. If you live in a state where youre in the political minority, your vote is effectively erased. In each case, the number of faithless electors who exercised that behavior would not have had a meaningful impact on the outcome. Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. Out of those visits, almost 70% of them happened in only four states: North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. If the Electoral College system begins to prevent, on a regular basis, the popular vote winner from becoming president, it will create systemic challenges. But in the end, Republicans and Democrats are virtually tied. Without the Electoral College, big states like California and New York would dominate elections. He disliked the practice so much he called for a constitutional amendment barring it. 326 Galvez Street Abolishing the Electoral College: Since the year 2000, there have been five presidential elections. States have the power to award their electors however they like. This isnt rocket science. Abolish the electoral college. Polls from FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast have predicted. The interests of the minority would no longer receive protection. And so each Electoral College vote in a small state like Delaware or Wyoming is worth more than an Electoral College vote in a big state like California. This has happened five times in American history. Hans von Spakovsky, Destroying the Electoral College: The Anti-Federalist National Popular Vote Scheme, Heritage Legal Memorandum No. Then in 2016, Donald Trump won the Electoral College despite receiving 2.1% less of the popular vote. It also stops the distribution process where California gets 55 votes, but a state like Delaware only gets 3. Stanford, CA 94305-6105 Click the links below for answers to these frequently asked questions. hide caption. Over 2.8 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump, but it was Trump who won the White House because of the results of the electoral map. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. But heres the important part. If this system were to be abolished, then every vote counted would have the exact same weight in the final tally. Plenty. 2? Thrown together at the last minute by the countrys founders, it almost immediately stopped functioning as they thought it would. US election 2020. 2) The Electoral College ensures that different parts of the country, such as Iowa and Ohio, are involved in selecting the president, rather than just the most populated areas. It's just not clear how you could do that.". There would need to be a Constitutional amendment if the compact idea doesnt work. Another 15 legislatures with varying degrees of Republican control would also need to ratify such an amendment for the Electoral College to be removed. John Kasich, a Republican, even though Colorado law required electors to cast their votes for state-winner Hillary Clinton, a Democrat. Every vote matters, commented Senator Elizabet Warren (D-Mass) in an early campaign stop in Mississippi in 2019, and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting and that means get rid of the Electoral College.. Hamilton believed that it would prevent the Office of the President from falling into the lot of a person who was not endowed with the requisite qualifications to serve the American people. This perception is reinforced by the red- and blue-state imagery that controls our view of the electoral process. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished? That means more people can feel like their government accurately represents their needs. RT @Valkary: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SHOULD BE ABSOLVED AND ABOLISHED. This action would allow the popular vote winner to take the White House. Some of the most important framers, including James Madison and James Wilson, wanted to write a direct popular vote into the Constitution. The primary benefit of the electoral college is that it works to protect the best interests of the minority in every election. "Precisely what it does is proportionately advantages where the people are," Levy said. Although he said that the system was far from perfect, it was at least excellent. Do you think any of these arguments, or others, are convincing reasons for preserving the Electoral College as it stands now?
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