what would happen if the electoral college was abolished
As far as the 2016 election is concerned, Hillary Clinton would still be the likely winner if the Electoral College didn't exist. The primary benefit of the electoral college is that it works to protect the best interests of the minority in every election. 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. By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. ** Adjusted Maine to act as one state rather than separate EV districts. In part, that is because theElectoral Collegeis constitutionally mandated, and abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. When a state passes legislation to join the National Popular Vote Compact, it compels the state to award its electoral votes to whomever wins the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate won in that state. 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. Warren says she wants to get rid of the Electoral College, and vote for president using a national popular vote. Suddenly, every voter will count, no matter where they live. The reasons for the Electoral College may not be relevant any more. 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. If you submit a question as a comment on this article, we might use it during the live event. Having the person who loses the popular vote win the presidency will seriously undermine the legitimacy of our elections. The reason we even have swing states is because almost all states award their electoral votes using a winner-take-all system. This means that every election, 80 percent of American voters, roughly 100 million people, get ignored. 6. Each of those states has Democratic control of the state legislature. Theyre swing states. Not one was a first-rank president, but their selection did not seriously injure the democratic character of our system. How the Electoral College helps preserve our constitutional system. Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. Having an election in which victory went to a candidate carrying a single national constituency might not wholly cure this problem, but it might well work to mitigate it. 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.. Students, watch the video and read Mr. Wegmans Op-Ed, and then tell us: What does democracy mean to you? The effort in Congress to overhaul America's election system followed the contentious 1968 presidential contest. One of the ways that states are considering a way to go around the Electoral College is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. 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. 61% of Americans Support Abolishing Electoral College by Megan Brenan Story Highlights 61% prefer amending Constitution to use popular vote to elect president 89% of Democrats, 23% of Republicans. List of the Pros of Abolishing the Electoral College 1. No other mode of presidential elections would be fully consistent with our underlying commitment to the equality of all citizens. Under the current plan, states that join will not activate the compact until enough states have joined to total 270 electoral votes. The crisis of 1824 then, represented really the collapse of the old system, and an effort to re-institute it in other terms. **Here, we treat the District of Columbia as a single congressional district (as the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution does for the purposes of the Electoral College). When the Founding Fathers built the idea of the Electoral College into the structure of the American government, their idea of information management was very different than what we have today. 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. The electors can vote their conscience as well, refusing to follow what their state elections guide them to do. 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. ), and the big state-small state divide no longer animates our politics, if it ever did. Redirecting to https://m.startribune.com/one-clear-result-of-the-2020-election-at-last-let-s-abolish-the-electoral-college/. Yes. 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. Places like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan. Support for direct popular election. In the U.S., 65 percent of adults think whoever wins the popular vote should hold the nation's highest office, according to an Atlantic/PRRI poll last year. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished? The winner-take-all method is nowhere in the Constitution. As discussed above, the only practical way of ending the Electoral College is by changing the ways in which states use the popular vote to award electors to the presidential candidates. It would stop the requirement to redistribute the electoral votes. Does It Need to Be Fixed? They do not matter because they have any special civic characteristics. It creates 50 individual contests. Myth No. Hans von Spakovsky, Destroying the Electoral College: The Anti-Federalist National Popular Vote Scheme, Heritage Legal Memorandum No. But the reality is, right now neither the small states nor the big ones have the voice they should. As we begin the third decade of the 21st century, change benefits the Democrats. 4. The outcome has prompted some to question whether the Electoral College the body of officials that formally elects the nation's president every four yearsis good for democracy, and even compelled outgoing California Sen. Barbara Boxer to file legislation to abolish the 229-year-old system. States have the power to award their electors however they like. # Because the District of Columbia is awarded Electoral College votes under the 23rd Amendment, we include its votes here as if it were a state. The great problems with our presidential selection system today stem from the haphazard way we choose the two major party presidential candidates. However, a constitutional amendment is not the only means by which an alternative to the current Electoral College can be implemented. Spend some time moving states into the Biden and Trump circles and make notes about what you notice and wonder. Electors manage the needs of the state and community instead of following the will of the general public throughout the country. As Madison wrote in an 1823 letter, states using the winner-take-all rule are a string of beads and fail to reflect the true political diversity of their citizens. 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. 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. Under the current structure of the United States, there are 50 unique presidential contests instead of one nationwide affair to elect a President. But its logic, its distortion of the democratic process and its underlying flaws will still strongly influence the conduct of the election. 2. Not this year. It causes some votes to have greater weight than others. The presidential election in 2016 saw a modern-era record for faithless electors, but five of them came from the Clinton camp. The effect is to erase all the voters in that state who didnt vote for the top candidate. Stanford, CA 94305-6105 The general threshold that an election result must reach to trigger an automatic recount is a difference of 0.5% of the vote or less. Article V sets up the manner by which an amendment is passed. Would the federal government get into the business of administering the elections, or leave that up to state and local officials, as it does today? As a result, most are considered safe, that is, comfortably in hand for one party or the other. 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. This is just one way the legacy of slavery still taints our politics today. "Precisely what it does is proportionately advantages where the people are," Levy said. Could Washington administer a national recount in the event of a close result? To understand why, lets start from the point we make above: the Electoral College system currently benefits Republicans, as two Republican presidents in the last 20 years have been elected despite losing the popular vote and that nearly happened a third time this year. For example, in 1967, 58 percent favored its abolition, while in 1981, 75 percent of . 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. Instead, theyre voting for their states representatives in the Electoral College, who will then vote for the president. Even though some Americans dont like the gridlock that a two-party system creates, the electoral college keeps this design healthy with each 4-year cycle. John Locher/AP In fact, there is already a movement brewing among states to agree to award their electors to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. Without the Electoral College, big states like California and New York would dominate elections. So far, 15 states plus the District of Columbia have joined in for a total of 196 electoral votes, just 74 more. The voices of small states, like Rhode Island and Wyoming, would be drowned out. For one thing, slavery. But the Electoral College is worse than merely useless. Bible Commentary Bible Verses Devotionals Faith Prayers Coloring Pages Pros and Cons, 7 Uplifting Prayers for Desperate Situations, 50 Biblically Accurate Facts About Angels in the Bible, 50 Most Profitable Youth Group Fundraising Ideas for Your Church, 250 Ice Breaker Questions for Teen Youth Groups, 25 Important Examples of Pride in the Bible, Why Jesus Wept and 11 Lessons from His Tears, 25 Different Ways to Worship God and Praise the Lord. In the 20th century there were 25 presidential elections and none of them resulted in an Electoral College winner who lost the popular vote. There are millions of Republicans in deep-blue states, like Massachusetts and California. That means the major party that can maintain its base could win elections without a clear majority. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. Gary Gregg, who leads the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville, says that if today's system over-privileges rural states, a national popular vote would be just as unfair in the opposite direction. This ensures that smaller rural and industrial communities will have their issues addressed by those seeking office. 3. This perception is reinforced by the red- and blue-state imagery that controls our view of the electoral process. There would need to be a Constitutional amendment if the compact idea doesnt work. Bernie Sanders, John Kasich, Ron Paul, and Faith Spotted Eagle received one each. Only one election was so close that it had to go to the House of Representatives, which is how John Quincy Adams won over Andrew Jackson. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 326 Galvez Street Electoral vote totals will equal 538. Today, 48 states use winner-take-all. "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. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/learning/is-the-electoral-college-a-problem-does-it-need-to-be-fixed.html. Source: Daily Kos Elections. hide caption. Keeping the electoral college restricts the voting to acknowledged states only. The compact requires states to pass laws that would award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationally. The chances of a recount would increase dramatically with election. 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. But specifics vary. But in the end, Republicans and Democrats are virtually tied. 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 lot of people dont even want to talk about changing the Electoral College because of this idea. Our votes would count the same wherever they were cast. Thats almost 1.5 billion votes. A split of electoral votes has occurred once in each of these states. 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. 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. Abolishing the Electoral College would get rid of this confusing process. 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. 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. It probably reduces the cost of presidential campaigns by confining television advertising to the battleground states (and spares the rest of us the tedium of endless repetitive ads). 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. In May, the Washington State Supreme Courtuphelda state election law that said an elector who did not vote for the candidate he pledged to support could be fined up to $1,000 in civil penalties. [2] Both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature are currently controlled by Democrats; however, the 2020 elections shifted both chambers to Republican control. These arent small states. Sticking to the electoral college format allows us to use electors as intended instead of relying on all of the votes counting. The elected officials of both parties have incentives to choose candidates with an eye toward popular electability and governing skill. Then in 2016, Donald Trump won the Electoral College despite receiving 2.1% less of the popular vote. But its worth taking a closer look at arguments in favor of keeping the status quo. Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center Both times in 2000 and 2016 it was the Republican candidate who got fewer votes but ended up in the White House. We will focus on elections in the 20th and 21st centuries. We should be talking about other things. The size of a state does not affect our real political preferences, even though the Electoral College system imagines that it does. Another 15 legislatures with varying degrees of Republican control would also need to ratify such an amendment for the Electoral College to be removed. The amendments Fully overhauling the way the president is selected would take a Constitutional amendment, which would require the votes of two-thirds of. And thats it. In fact, lets tally up all the votes cast for president between 1932 and 2008. Why did President Obama spend so much money bailing out the auto industry? As a result, Republicans and Republican state governments are incentivized to maintain the current system. The three-fifths clause became irrelevant with the end of slavery (thankfully! 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. It gives a slight edge to candidates with broad-based support in many states over those who rack up huge majorities in just a few large states. 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. In the video above, we delve into the reasons people give for keeping the Electoral College and why theyre wrong. Seventy percent of Americans between the ages of 18-29 said that the president should be chosen through a popular vote model, while just 56 percent of those over the age of 65 agreed. This is one reason why they created checks and balances, including the Electoral College. The point is, even accounting for demographic changes, neither party has a built-in advantage under a popular-vote system. Today that system is threatened by a proposal called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, or. But heres the important part. And this year, who knows? You may have heard this one in high school. That is, the compact does not go into effect until there is a critical mass of states for it to be effective. In part, that is because the Electoral College is constitutionally mandated, and abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. But dont forget, Bush won the popular vote four years later by three million votes. Candidates had to go to each state to talk about what they wanted to do for the country because there was no other way to let people know what was happening. If that occurs, the court might provide states additional guidance on just how much leeway they have to impact the Electoral College vote that decides the presidency of the United States. Hillary Clinton won. The two-party system solves the fractured vote problem more effectively than the Electoral College ever did, and the electors never exercised genuine independence. This cant go on. It provides for separate votes for president and vice president and specified that those individuals must be from different states. 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. The NPV would effectively abolish the Electoral College and co-opt even those states who did not join the compact into accepting an electoral regime they never agreed to or approved. If you live in a state where youre in the political minority, your vote is effectively erased. Interestingly, the congressional caucus system is very close to the system the British used to replace Prime Minister David Cameron. Even when it is against the law for these folks to vote for someone other than what the electoral results in their state indicate, there is always an option to become a faithless elector under the American structure.
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