We already see gridlock and partisanship in Congress that limits the opportunities for collaboration. As American leadership falters, scholars say, autocrats are on the rise. In other words, the Electoral College isnt sacred, and theres no reason we cant change how it works today. . And because they created it, its a sacred work of constitutional genius. What I learned is it doesnt have to be this way. In recent years, a new scheme has emerged that claims it can bypass the seemingly insurmountable impediment of a constitutional amendment process but have the same result of nullifying the Electoral College: The National Popular Vote Compact (NPV). 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. 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. 326 Galvez Street For instance, if a hotly contested state like Wisconsin broke for the candidate who lost the popular vote, eight of its ten electoral votes would be added to their tally. Rural Americans would be serfs if we abolished the Electoral College Hillary Clinton won. John Locher/AP In winner-take-all states, all electoral votes cast for the state are assigned to the candidate who gets the most electoral votes. After a long battle in Florida Bush won the state narrowly, giving him an Electoral College victory of 271 to 266 over Al Gore. 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. 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. That means the information receives an update every 10 years. In most cases this should prevent the popular vote loser from becoming president. This system allows minorities to have a bigger microphone for their concerns as well. 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. 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. FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast have predicted. The tribalism and mob rule, of which the Founders warned would be realized, and the voices of smaller states would become marginalized. In this case, 19 state legislatures are currently controlled solely by Democrats. 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. The winner-take-all method is nowhere in the Constitution. Republicans especially worry about tipping the balance away from their party. They are simply party loyalists who do not deliberate about anything more than where to eat lunch. 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. 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. 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. The correct number is 102. Mr. Wegman argues that reforming the Electoral College isnt a partisan issue its a fairness issue. Students 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. 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. 6. If such an amendment were to pass Congress, defeat in the states is likely. Instead, theyre voting for their states representatives in the Electoral College, who will then vote for the president. In two of these elections, a. Christine Stenglein and Saku Gopinath provided research support for this post. During the 2020 election cycle, there are several candidates who are promising to work on doing just that. Jesse Wegman, a member of the New York Times editorial board and author of the book Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College, explains: American democracy isnt just quirky its also unfair. This year is the poster child for the need for reform. Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at an organizing event in February. So if the results of most presidential elections tend to reflect the choice of the people, why do we still have the Electoral College? PDF It's time to abolish the Electoral College - Brookings .just the large States - the Cities would end up running the Country. 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. In each case, the number of faithless electors who exercised that behavior would not have had a meaningful impact on the outcome. The most popular alternative is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). What do you think of Mr. Wegmans arguments? Presidential elections have little if anything to do with the subject, even when some candidates claim to be running against Washington.. Jacob Levy, of McGill University, disagreed with that argument. There can be distinctive advantages to one party in a decade where three election cycles are possible. The point is, even accounting for demographic changes, neither party has a built-in advantage under a popular-vote system. It doesnt have to be this way. Iowa farmers might lose out to California union workers since their population numbers are larger. (John . Throughout history there have been over 700 attempts to reform or abolish the Electoral College, according to the Congressional Research Service. The effort in Congress to overhaul America's election system followed the contentious 1968 presidential contest. There is a trigger for NPV to go into effect, and we are creeping ever closer toward it.10 When enough states have entered the compact to reach a majority of the electoral votes270 out of 538the compact will then kick in. Places like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan. Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992 with only 43% of the vote, and then in 1996 with 49.2%. Reagan would almost make a clean sweep in 1984 as well, taking 525 of 538 electoral votes and only losing Minnesota and DC. Redirecting to https://m.startribune.com/one-clear-result-of-the-2020-election-at-last-let-s-abolish-the-electoral-college/. Majority supports changing Electoral College system for U.S Although there are some advantages to this system, the disadvantages have been highlighted in recent elections. You may have heard this one in high school. It is extremely difficult to amend the Constitution. 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 amendments Fully overhauling the way the president is selected would take a Constitutional amendment, which would require the votes of two-thirds of. Out of those visits, almost 70% of them happened in only four states: North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. 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. ** Adjusted Maine to act as one state rather than separate EV districts. In his video, Mr. Wegman offers counterarguments to what he calls myths about the Electoral College. Under the current plan, states that join will not activate the compact until enough states have joined to total 270 electoral votes. 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. So lets put the power to select the president where it actually belongs, in the hands of all the people. It was replaced by party conventions, which eventually were replaced (almost) with strings of single or multiple state primaries and caucuses. 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. But its worth taking a closer look at arguments in favor of keeping the status quo. That fall, former Vice President Richard M. Nixon defeated . The only difference is that in this unique structure, the voice of the minority can actually shout down the desires of the majority. Does this interactive influence how you feel about the Electoral College? In each case, the number of faithless electors who exercised that behavior would not have had a meaningful impact on the outcome. 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. 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. For one thing, slavery. In part, that is because theElectoral Collegeis constitutionally mandated, and abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. Social change can seem sudden, as if millions awoke one day to the same realization. In his recent Op-Ed The Electoral College Will Destroy America, Mr. Wegman provides further evidence to support his claim that the Electoral College is unfair: The Electoral College as it functions today is the most glaring reminder of many that our democracy is not fair, not equal and not representative. Our 230-year-old jerry-built system for picking the president, known as the Electoral College. But as people moved and the economy changed so did that ratio. ## 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. Students, watch the video and read Mr. Wegmans Op-Ed, and then tell us: What does democracy mean to you? In a polarized political environment, such an institutional structure remains entrenched. 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. 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. Maine and Nebraska, however, have enacted the congressional district method, which allocates one electoral vote to the winner of the popular vote in each state-drawn district. 4. It also stops the distribution process where California gets 55 votes, but a state like Delaware only gets 3. The presidential election in 2016 saw a modern-era record for faithless electors, but five of them came from the Clinton camp. Not one was a first-rank president, but their selection did not seriously injure the democratic character of our system. Support of that magnitude has become rare for anything in a sharply divided United States. If the Electoral College system begins to prevent, on a regular basis, the popular vote winner from becoming president, it will create systemic challenges. 2: The founders wanted it this way. 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. So it's possible for a candidate to win more votes overall across the country than a rival but not be inaugurated because of insufficient support from the Electoral College: a scenario that has occurred twice in the past two decades. In August, a panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appealsruleddifferently in a case raising similar issues. Do you think any of these arguments, or others, are convincing reasons for preserving the Electoral College as it stands now? Do you agree with him that the winner-take-all system that most states use for the Electoral College is undemocratic and unfair? Who verifies if a candidate is qualified to run for President? It is the formal body that elects the President and Vice President of the United States. The Electoral College website now has an easy-to-remember address. This spring, numerous candidates for president expressed support for either abolishing or changing the Electoral College, which ultimately picks the U.S. president. Opinion | Abolish the electoral college - The Washington Post Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College - New York Times The voices of small states, like Rhode Island and Wyoming, would be drowned out. 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.
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