5. The following table shows how this would have changed the outcome in two contested elections of the 21st century, and how a third would have remained the same. Two hundred years after James Madisons letter, the state winner-take-all rule is still crippling our politics and artificially dividing us. 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. Source: Daily Kos Elections. Today about 1.3% of those employed in the United States work directly in agriculture, and they manage to feed the entire country and beyond. That fall, former Vice President Richard M. Nixon defeated . Democracy is, at its core, about fair, equal representation one person, one vote. In 2016, Donald Trump won the White House by earning a majority of electoral votes, even though almost three million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton. Erdogan's 'polar opposite' wants to replace him as president of Turkey. As far as the 2016 election is concerned, Hillary Clinton would still be the likely winner if the Electoral College didn't exist. So lets put the power to select the president where it actually belongs, in the hands of all the people. The pros and cons of abolishing the Electoral College must go beyond the 65% of people who want it gone. It's just not clear how you could do that.". 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. When you know that one state will vote the same way in every election, there is no need to visit that place. In other words, the Electoral College isnt sacred, and theres no reason we cant change how it works today. The US presidential election takes place 3 November. With the divide between Democrats and Republicans currently in place, the likelihood that this idea will receive any movement any time soon is quite minimal. The only states that matter to either party are the battleground states especially bigger ones like Florida and Pennsylvania, where a swing of a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can shift the entire pot of electors from one candidate to the other. This action would allow the popular vote winner to take the White House. But the reality is, right now neither the small states nor the big ones have the voice they should. No other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like it, and for good reason. There are also circumstances where a majority of electors might not be available, which would throw the results of the election into the House of Representatives. 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. hide caption. The Electoral College has given one candidate a majority win in this political structure since 1992, but there have been four times when the winner of the election didnt receive a clear majority of the votes across the entire country. Presidential electors are not more qualified than other citizens to determine who should head the government. He makes the case that both Republicans and Democrats should support a change. Yet, ratification happens not by popular vote but by state legislature. 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. 7. It wasnt the first time a president won by losing or the second or even the fourth. Our 230-year-old jerry-built system for picking the president, known as the Electoral College. 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. From hair trends to relationship advice, our daily newsletter has everything you need to sound like a person whos on TikTok, even if you arent. The effort in Congress to overhaul America's election system followed the contentious 1968 presidential contest. But reforming the Electoral College does not rank high among our national problems. 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. It also stops the distribution process where California gets 55 votes, but a state like Delaware only gets 3. The reasons for the Electoral College may not be relevant any more. That means centrist ideas tend to be the ones that receive the most traction instead of the individual priorities of platforms on the extreme left or right. In 2000 Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote against Governor George W. Bush by 543,895. 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. It would stop the requirement to redistribute the electoral votes. And, as our colleague Bill Galston has written, the Electoral College continues to be a ticking time bomb. In the 2020 presidential election a shift of just 45,000 votes in three states, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona could have shattered Americans belief in the legitimacy of their political system by creating a tie in the Electoral College and sending the election to the House of Representatives. Americas auto industry auto industry auto industry At least in part because its located mostly in swing states, like Michigan and Ohio, states whose electoral votes he needed to win. Polls from FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast have predicted Clinton receiving a majority popular vote of 49.7 percent, with Trump behind at 43.3 percent. Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. But the Constitution and the courts have allowed the states some leeway to make changes to how their Electoral College representatives are chosen. That means if you live in a rural area, your vote may count more toward who gets to be the eventual president. 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. #Marianne2024 . The effect is to erase all the voters in that state who didnt vote for the top candidate. Around six-in-ten U.S. adults (63%) say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency, while 35% favor keeping the current Electoral College system, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 27-July 4, 2022. Most Americans would breathe a sigh of relief, I believe, if we had a system capable of choosing the U.S. equivalent of Theresa May instead of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. 1, that Democrats will win a popular vote every time. Then the 2020 census will be valid for the 2024 and 2028 elections. Warren Focuses On Policy, Which Looks Like A Tough Sell With Voters, Which Democrats Are Running In 2020 And Which Still Might. Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. Social change can seem sudden, as if millions awoke one day to the same realization. It is true that the Electoral College no longer serves its original purposes, and that it creates a grave risk that a candidate not favored by a majority of the people will, from time to time, be elected president. Gronke asks. We survived. Its no wonder the candidates fixate on issues that matter to specific groups of voters in swing states, like fracking in Pennsylvania This is my 13th visit. or prescription drug benefits in Florida. 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. Polls from FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast have predicted. To this day, people are still arguing that Al Gore was the real winner and debating whether the recount in Florida was accurate the state whose electors propelled Bush to the top. And the most recent major occasion took place in 1969, 1970, when there was a strong bipartisan effort to abolish the electoral college and have us utilize a national popular vote. The Electoral College Will Destroy America, The Battleground States Biden and Trump Need to Win 270, free daily writing prompts for remote learning. Plenty. There are three basic arguments in favor of the system the framers of the Constitution gave us, with little sense of how it would actually work. Abolishing the Electoral College: Since the year 2000, there have been five presidential elections. But experts say reforming this practice isn't likely anytime soon for a number of reasons. Save Our States, The Status of National Popular Vote, https://saveourstates.com/threats/the-status-of-npv (accessed April 17, 2020). The current structure limits Americans from pushing in this direction even though candidates tend to visit swing states more often. 7. Two of those elections have occurred since 2000. Debate renewed in 2016 after theelectionof the fifth U.S. president who won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992 with only 43% of the vote, and then in 1996 with 49.2%. Support of that magnitude has become rare for anything in a sharply divided United States. We need to think hard, and quickly, about how to reform three aspects of the presidential nomination process: the debates, the primary elections and the conventions. Sixty years later inRay v. Blair, the court ruled the Constitution, including the 12th Amendment, does not bar a political party from requiring electors to sign a pledge to support the nominees of the national convention. Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at an organizing event in February. 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.. That is not to say the Electoral College is without its advantages. For one thing, slavery. The tribalism and mob rule, of which the Founders warned would be realized, and the voices of smaller states would become marginalized. There are currently 538 electors up for grabs in an election, which means a majority of 270 is necessary to elect the President. 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. The party structureswhich, for all their faults, have a vested interest in candidates from the moderate middle who are able to work with Congress and other officials to governhave been sidelined. 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. Suddenly, every voter will count, no matter where they live. But really, scholars say, consensus is constructed through thousands of small acts over generations. Reagan also dominated in 1980, taking 489 votes to Jimmy Carters 49. The first is easily dismissed. While there are two different means to amend the founding document, this country has always used the same route: a 2/3rds vote in both houses of Congress, followed by the ratification of 3/4ths of the states. Why? The Electoral College thus presents democratic risks without serving any of its original purposes. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. 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. We have an Electoral College because thats what the founders added to the Constitution at the last minute. It can be fixed. What I learned is it doesnt have to be this way. Whether youre Republican or Democrat, your vote probably doesnt count the way it should. The interests of the minority would no longer receive protection. ## For the purposes here, all electoral votes in a given state were awarded to the proper winner, thus attributing faithless electors to the proper candidate. Now is the time for sober and spirited citizens from both parties to devise a new system for 2020. Even though proponents of the Electoral College want it to stay so that every state can have a specific say in the outcome of the election, the candidates are already starting to behave in the same ways that people fear they would when targeting a majority population groups. 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. 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. In the current Congress, this would require every Democratic House member to vote in favor of such an amendment and be joined by 59 Republicans and every Democratic Senator to be joined by 19 of their Republican colleagues. This process stopped the process that was used in England to select a Prime Minister. For example, in 1967, 58 percent favored its abolition, while in 1981, 75 percent of . It doesnt have to be this way. A split of electoral votes has occurred once in each of these states. Only Rutherford Hayes, with a 3% difference, won the electoral college despite being in the minority. This spring, numerous candidates for president expressed support for either abolishing or changing the Electoral College, which ultimately picks the U.S. president. Why? Under the current structure of the United States, there are 50 unique presidential contests instead of one nationwide affair to elect a President. It is a process that allows the people to choose who serves in the White House instead of throwing it into Congress. Not one was a first-rank president, but their selection did not seriously injure the democratic character of our system. So what would happen if we got rid of the Electoral College? Its also the only place where the District of Columbia functions as a state since the 23rd Amendment allocates 3 electors to it. This design promotes the two-party system. But the Electoral College is worse than merely useless. 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. The Constitution is silent on whether states or the electors themselves ultimately can decide which candidate gets the electors vote, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed that issue in the handful of cases it has considered related to the Electoral College. https://saveourstates.com/threats/the-status-of-npv, https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/destroying-the-electoral-college-the-anti-federalist-national-popular-0. Does It Need to Be Fixed? Our votes would count the same wherever they were cast. The election, as Mr. Trump would say though not for the right reasons is rigged. A second variation would be to award two Electoral College votes from each state to the winner of the national popular vote and award the remaining electors to the winner of each congressional district (CD). There would need to be a Constitutional amendment if the compact idea doesnt work. This is one reason why they created checks and balances, including the Electoral College. Theyre swing states. There are millions of Republicans in deep-blue states, like Massachusetts and California. Stanford University. The point is, even accounting for demographic changes, neither party has a built-in advantage under a popular-vote system. But heres the important part. Candidates focus on swing states because they actually have a chance of flipping them and winning a bucket of electoral votes. Throughout history there have been over 700 attempts to reform or abolish the Electoral College, according to the Congressional Research Service. But in the end, Republicans and Democrats are virtually tied. This is the heart of the problem with the Electoral College. Myth No. This perception is reinforced by the red- and blue-state imagery that controls our view of the electoral process. Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services, The Electoral College is a ticking time bomb, Its time to abolish the Electoral College, Two cheers for the Electoral College: Reasons not to abolish it, according to the Congressional Research Service, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/10/21/can-the-electoral-college-be-subverted-by-faithless-electors/, Policy lessonsand surprisesfrom the Reimagine Rural podcast, Justice Thomas, gift reporting rules, and what a Supreme Court code of conduct would and wouldnt accomplish, Why is federal spending so hard to cut? In this extraordinarily strange election year, debating the Electoral College might seem an odd pastime when so many other issues concern us. In each case, the number of faithless electors who exercised that behavior would not have had a meaningful impact on the outcome. It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. But it's possible the candidate with the most votes from the public won't be the winner. 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. Article V sets up the manner by which an amendment is passed. This Student Opinion prompt and a related Lesson of the Day will prepare students to participate in our live panel discussion about the Electoral College, on Oct. 22 at 1 p.m. Eastern. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke said there is a "lot of wisdom" in the idea and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., also said she's open to it. All parts of the country would not be involved in the selection of the president. Did you know that when Americans vote in the 2020 presidential election, theyre not actually voting for the next president? 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. We should be talking about other things. 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. Currently, 15 states and DC have approved the NPVIC. 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. Four of the electors came from the state of Washington. "You look at the Florida situation we had in 2000 that already took a lot of time and effort, but imagine if that was done across the country. This scenario is very different from what happened in 2000 when Gore and Bush were separated by less than 1 percent of the popular vote. It is no secret that the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all suffered, from the outset, from efforts to imply that there was something improper and unworthy or even suspicious in their elections. It gives each state in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct electors equal to its representation in Congress. 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. Such an effort would likely receive little or no Republican support. A second argument holds less populous states deserve the further electoral weight they gain through the senatorial bump giving each state two electors, because their minority status entitles them to additional political protection. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. 3. That line garnered one of her largest roars of applause for the evening. This has happened five times in American history. We will focus on elections in the 20th and 21st centuries. The group of 16 (as of August 2019) currently control 196 electoral votes together. President Trump once supported abolishing the Electoral College he previously felt it was a "total disaster for democracy" but since his 2016 presidential victory over Hillary Clinton, in which Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, but Trump received 304 electoral votes, he has changed his mind. There will always be a concern about the tyranny of the majority in the United States. Each of those states has Democratic control of the state legislature. The framers of the Constitution set up the Electoral College for a number of different reasons. 1. Why? Which states do matter? Today the pact has the support of states and Washington D.C. that total 181 electoral votes, largely those that have gone for Democrats in recent years. Yes. 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. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished? Getting rid of the Electoral College would radicalize politics. 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.
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