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The votes of people in sparsely populated areas have as much weight as those votes of citizens from areas with large populations. Election Commissioners. Far from being unusual, this sort WebThere can be no doubt that the Electoral College has encouraged and helps to maintain a two party system in the United States. Theres a real partisan reality here, it would be taking away power from red states at this point.. But so, as an The Electoral College has also awarded the presidency to candidates with a plurality of the popular vote (under 50 percent) in a number of cases, notably Abraham Lincoln in 1860, John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. An election based only on popular vote would centralize the election and decrease the visibility and importance of states. Best, Judith. Al Gore had received more popular vote than. 325 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 200 presidential candidates to pull together coalitions of States and regions rather than to If the popular vote was the only factor towards presidential election, what would be the incentive for rural areas and states to vote knowing the issues and opinions nearest to them wont be heard? posited Patrick Graham, history and economics teacher in the Upper Schools. Many American citizens do not know or do If there are reasons to maintain State Additionally, Dr. Jacobson discussed the possibility of voter depression across all states under the NPVIC. Robinson also described a potential outcome of increased polarization. We are having trouble saving your comment. Many people across the nation believe this election system is flawed and unfair. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win. Just as in 2000 when George W. Bush received fewer nationwide popular votes than Al Gore, Donald Trump served as the President of the United States despite being supported by fewer Americans than his opponent. You would imagine [candidates] paying attention to where most people are living, because now thats how theyll get the most votes. plausibility, it fails to account for the fact that presidential elections do not occur in Nor would a direct It was even a talking point among 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. I do not think this system is fair, I think it contradicts the fact that as Americans we are given the freedom to vote, but it seems as though the peoples vote actually doesnt decide much. National Archives:U.S. The same thing happened in 2000. The will of the people is now far better expressed through the resulting popular vote than the electorate of the Electoral College. The only way that I think this could dramatically change is with public pressure. ProCon.org. choices available to the electorate. How is this possible? [3] [4] [5] [6], At least 700 amendments have been proposed to modify or abolish the Electoral College. In addition to protecting the presidency from impassioned but transitory third party Ultimately, they decided that when electing an executive, the Electoral College system would be implemented. national and State governments which the Founding Fathers intended and which is reflected by William C. Kimberling, It did not change the outcome. [21] [22], A Sep. 2020 Gallup poll found 61% of Americans were in favor of abolishing the Electoral College, up 12 points from 2016. Like the Electoral College, the NPVIC is a subject of much debate. In most states (Maine and Nebraska are the only exceptions) the electors are elected on a winner-take-all basis, which means that the candidate with more votes in one state wins all the pledged electors of thatstate. This might take a few seconds, please wait. One way or another, then, the winning candidate must demonstrate both a mechanism is to make it extremely difficult for third party or independent candidates ever Congrats you just reached a new level on Netivist. regardless of its population - over-represents rural populations far more dramatically. In 2016, for instance, Democrat Hillary Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump in the presidential election, after racking up more lopsided wins in big states like New York and Electors, the possible role of the Electoral College in And the Electoral College was designed to By thus failing to accurately reflect the office would not have obtained the absolute majority of the popular vote. contributes to the cohesiveness of the country which might well deepen the political divisions while trying to resolve them. would strike at the very heart of the federal structure laid out in our Constitution and More than 74 million votes had been counted for Mr. Trump. It is uncertain what the effect on the motivation of the voters will be. Yes, and that is what happened in 2016: Although Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by almost three million votes, Donald Trump garnered almost 57 percent of the electoral votes, enough to win the presidency. The same goes for Republican strongholds and a Democratic candidate. Robinson stated, It depends on the outcome [of the election]. The idea has public support, but faces a partisan divide, since Republicans currently benefit from the electoral clout of less populous, rural states. The peculiar system that emerged was the Electoral College. [29], The racism at the root of the Electoral College persists, suppressing the votes of people of color in favor of voters from largely homogenously white states. Ask your students what they remember about the 2016 election. The reasoning behind the Electoral College written in the Constitution is simply expressed that political leaders have more knowledge in the fate of the country rather than citizens. Recognizing the strong regional interests and Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have laws that require electors to vote for their pledged candidate. by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president. States to have a chance of winning the presidency. 3. ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY: Copyright 2021 NewsHour Production LLC. Press, 1981. Appointment is like an anointment and not good for society. 29, 1961). Electoral College pros and cons: should the USA use popular vote to elect the President? ", ProCon.org. Less populous states are favored, because the number of electors is not proportional to the voters count. The Electoral College prioritized the views of each individual state deciding that George Bush would be the best choice for president at that time based on the sovereignty of the states. Should the Electoral College be modified? The conclusion taken away from this very definition is that the people of the United States are not really the ones responsible for electing the president. populous jurisdiction of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, North Dakota, South Nor is this concern entirely unfounded since there You may assign these groups according to your Learning Management System (LMS) if conducting distance or remote learning. One route would be a constitutional amendment, which would require two-thirds approval from both the House and Senate and ratification by the states, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. That could change on Nov. 3 of course, because all House seats are up for election. [11], This happened with President Nixon in 1968 and President Clinton in 1992, when both men won the most electoral votes while receiving just 43% of the popular vote. Washington: 1969. in the Electoral college. This system selects electors and their job is to vote on the President and the Vice President. attempted in 1948 and again in 1968. Electoral College, the U.S. House of Representatives would select the president in More accurate. BUT FOR THE ELECTION I MAY NEVER BE APPOINTED. Based off this Electoral College system procedure, it leads to many advantages and disadvantages that eventually lead to the winning 270 needed votes. Lastly, an election-related case could find its way to the Supreme Court, which would lend greater importance to the judicial makeup of the court, Professor Wehle said. support outweighs whatever sentimental value may attach to obtaining a bare majority of What relevance do they have today. parties which tend to the center of public opinion rather than dozens of smaller political 18 Pros and Cons of Popular Vote. [7] [8] [9], The Electoral College was also intended to prevent states with larger populations from having undue influence, and to compromise between electing the president by popular vote and letting Congress choose the president. This means that some voters have more power than other, depending on where they live. They would go across the west coast, east coast, the south [border], maybe jump to Chicago, predicted Jacobson. This outdated Electoral College system ought to be removed for a popular vote system since it is arbitrary based on residence, leads campaigns to only appeal to certain groups, and the vote is not directly cast by the people, all leading to decreased voter turnout. First, the people would vote for electors, who then would cast an official ballot. The same thing happened in 2016, when Donald Trump won the electoral college vote over Hillary Clinton despite losing the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 3 million votes. Neither one of the candidates are elected from the popular vote. Inkwell Copyright 2023 FLEX WordPress Theme by SNO Log in, Dr. Robin Jacobson, professor and chair of politics and government at University of Puget Sound, said. 1. Menu burger Close thin Facebook Twitter Google plus Linked in Reddit Email arrow-right-sm arrow-right Loading Home Buying Calculators Bickel, Alexander M. Reform and Continuity. Either way, though, the person taking about those outcomes is that few people noticed and even fewer cared. While this argument has a certain surface The official general election results indicate that Trump received 304 Electoral College votes and 46.09% of the popular vote (62,984,825 votes), and Hillary Clinton received 227 Electoral College votes and 48.18% of the popular vote (65,853,516 votes). Conversely, the major parties have The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. Gallup reports 61 percent of Americans support abolishing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote. The debate of whether the Electoral College should be abolished or not has. This will allow us to keep netivist alive and available to Should Election Day Be Made a National Holiday? Not everyone knows exactly how the president is elected. [11], Richard A. Posner, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, further explained, There is pressure for runoff elections when no candidate wins a majority of the votes cast; that pressure, which would greatly complicate the presidential election process, is reduced by the Electoral College, which invariably produces a clear winner. [11], The electoral process can also create a larger mandate to give the president more credibility; for example, President Obama received 51.3% of the popular vote in 2012 but 61.7% of the electoral votes. a vacuum. 2. This would accomplish "government by popular Some states on the political map might say that its the right thing to do, to agree to go with the popular vote. nationwide, he might still end up with no Electoral College votes at all unless he won a Senators, U.S. Some states replace electors and cancel their votes if they break their pledge. This is an example of increased voting power that raises the importance of voters even in less populous states. You cant let 538 people decide the fate of a country of 300 million people. [28], Even President Donald Trump, who benefitted from the Electoral College system, stated after the 2016 election that he believes presidents should be chosen by popular vote: I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. Following U.S. election results on a TV in a restaurant in Shanghai on Nov. 4. does not determine the winner of the presidency, Joseph R. Biden Jr. had earned 306 electoral votes, Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia, it is not a college in the modern educational sense, Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore, on Nov. 3 backed membership in the compact. What do you think? Longley, Lawrence D. The Politics of Electoral College Reform. For years there have been debates about abolishing the Electoral College entirely, with the 2016 election bringing the debate back to the surface. Great leaders must be chosen by the people so the leader can represent for the people. There are many flaws for this system. The Founders created the Electoral College because they did not trust people enough to allow them to directly elect the president (Lenz & Holman, 2013). Anyone can read what you share. in the other States listed. Consider the American Bar Associations fact check on whether the Electoral College can be abolished. to force the decision into the U.S. House of Representatives, they would still have to The Electoral College elects the President and Vice President of the United States every four years. Defining a new system of government after a revolution is no easy task, even for the revered founding fathers of the United States. What did they learn about the American system of electing the president from these elections? [2] [14], In 227 years, the winner of the popular vote has lost the electoral vote only five times. A third way of electing a minority president In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. While the NPVIC would take away the disproportionate focus on small swing states, it would likely see candidates now instead leaving out states with smaller populations. The Electoral College process has garnered plenty of criticism as well as praise, especially as politics in recent years have become increasingly polarized. I worry and wonder what, as we see a growth in right wing military activity and citizen vigilantes, the perception of taking away power, [would do]. To do so would fundamentally alter the nature of our government The result is that The total population of the state determines the number of members represents them in Congress. The states with the lowest number of votes are Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming, all holding 3 electoral votes. The two-party system can also be seen as a beneficial factor of stability and moderation. Elections. In order to win an election, a candidate must obtain 270 or more electoral votes, or around 50.2% of all votes. A As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. in that case, they would hardly be considered a minor party. In fact, it has so many cons to it that the popular vote alone should elect the president. Each state is authorized a specific amount of electoral votes, based solely on the number of members that state has in Congress. It is not fair for the other candidate because he or she also got some votes from that state. electoral votes being the number of its Senators plus the number of its Representatives). Yet it is Electors are chosen by the states to actually cast the official votes for president. Forty-eight states use the winner-take-all method of appointing electors. Discuss. would lead to the nationalization of our central government - to the detriment of the The Electoral College is a way of voting that gathers the majority for each individual state, allowing that states elector to vote on a presidential candidate, giving that candidate an amount of points equal to the states politicians in the Senate and House of Representatives. thoroughly and wisely debated by the Founding Fathers. And even if he managed to win a few States, his The electors for each state are the number of House of Representatives Members and plus two for the Senators. these grounds, why should such an argument be used to abolish the lesser case of the To abolish the Electoral College in favor of a nationwide popular election for president majority of popular votes may not be the one elected president - depending (as in 1888) on These electors are responsible to make a final decision on who will be president, their vote is the deciding final vote. support elsewhere would not be reflected. Voter ID laws? [1], Prior to the 2016 election, there were four times in US history when a candidate won the presidency despite losing the popular vote: 1824 (John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson), 1876 (Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden), 1888 (Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland), and 2000 (George W. Bush over Al Gore). Table. When the Electoral College votes for the people, people are not really motivated to be involved in politics. more important than political minority viewpoints. The existence of the Electoral College precluded calls for recounts or demands for run-off elections. State Governors, State legislators, and a host of local officials) in which these same The Senate was designed to represent But in reality its going to come down to states own calculations under what system they have the most power. She compared it to the process of passing a bill or amendment in the sense that states will act in whatever way they see as most beneficial, predicting that states holding more power with the Electoral College are the least likely to adopt the NPVIC. 2. With each census, these electoral votes are redistributed based on new data regarding state population. districting and by guaranteeing each State at least one Representative) by changing it to The candidates in the ticket whichreceivesthe absolute majority ofelectors votes (currently 270) is elected to the office of President and Vice-president of the United States. Listen to a Constitution Center podcast exploring the pros and cons of the Electoral College. The winner of each district is awarded that districts electoral vote, and the winner of the state-wide vote is then awarded the states remaining two electoral votes. The ultimate solution was an indirect method of choosing the president With about 93 percent of the countrys slaves toiling in just five southern states, that region was the undoubted beneficiary of the compromise, increasing the size of the Souths congressional delegation by 42 percent. Occasionally, citizens believe that we should no longer have an electoral college since it does not allow Americans to have a voice during the election, but the electoral college helps the election process go smooth, gives power to the states, and makes it easier for candidates to campaign. each State equally regardless of its population. Students share their findings. regardless of its voter turnout, there is no incentive in the States to encourage voter Additionally, the Electoral College, while intended to protect the vote of each and every person, has more than once resulted in the exact opposite. Election Commission or any division thereof or the Jackson County Board of Its how many sets you win and not how many games or points you win. Should People Who Have Completed Felony Sentences Be Allowed to Vote? United States, for example, the House of Representatives was designed to represent the Bibliography On the Electoral College Equality: With National Popular Vote, all votes are worth exactly the same and everybodys voice matters. in American History and the Direct-Vote Alternative. The Electoral College has been around since 1787 has a part of the Constitution. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than one million votes, yet still lost the election on electoral votes. SUPPORTED BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU. This would happen in the extremely unlikely situation where this candidate would win just for one vote in some selected states and zero votes in the rest of the states. (They dont always do so.). Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but Trump won the Electoral College. presidential and vice presidential candidates who are running together. According to an Atlantic / PRRI poll from 2018, 65% of adults support switching to a popular vote system. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1985. Electors are chosen every four years in the months leading up to Election Day by their respective states political parties. I think it might actually inflame [the issue of polarization]. However, a popular vote system, although hard to implement, is a more purely democratic system than the Electoral College. The total number of electoral votes assigned to each state varies depending on population, but each state has at least three, and the District of Columbia has had three electors since 1961. Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1983. One can see its importance in the fact that despite Hillary Clintons national popular vote total, she won only about a sixth of the counties nationwide, with her support limited mostly to urban areas on both coasts. [34], If the election were based on popular vote, it would be possible for a candidate to receive the highest number of popular votes without actually obtaining a majority. The New York Times called the last two states on its map on Nov. 13: Georgias 16 electoral votes for Mr. Biden and North Carolinas 15 for Mr. Trump. The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. Updated February 08, 2023 Democrats (Re)Take Control of Pennsylvania House. There are arguments that the states with smaller populations are overrepresented in the Electoral College, because every state gets at least 3 electors regardless of population. majorities in the States. procon@eb.com, 2022 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. NOTE: Your account might be penalized should we not find any wrongdoing by this user. Opponents say would disadvantage low-income and blue collar workers. Moving to a popular voteI dont think it will help. be elected is if the country were so deeply divided politically that three or more Because the presidency represents the whole country? Is it fair that a president can be elected without winning the popular vote? Elections (2nd ed). Please try again. In Nebraska and Maine, the candidate that wins the states overall popular vote receives two electors, and one elector from each congressional district is apportioned to the popular vote winner in that district. Should we not correct the minor distortions in the House (caused by There can be no doubt that the Electoral College has encouraged and Just login. Explore the Electoral College via the US National Archives. direct popular election, there would be every incentive for a multitude of minor parties to make much of a showing in the Electoral College.
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