Clinton, who clearly despised Trump, graciously conceded the election on Election Night. Editor's 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.Here are the yea and the nay. They are expected, but not constitutionally bound, to vote for the candidates they represent. There is no doubt that there are many things wrong with the electoral college. The United States, Presidential elections provide a level of legitimacy to each new administration by following the will of the people (Clayton 2007; Koza 2016). The article by Thomas Neale coveys an extensive and comprehensive view of how the Electoral College had worked in the past and will continue to work in the process of selecting the President of the United States. Will you do the same? TheDigitalArtist / Pixabay. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2012/06/20/duvergers-law-is-dead/, [13] Constitutional Convention quotations are from Madisons Notes; https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1909#Elliot_1314-05_2172, [14] https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#changes, [15] Actually, the Electoral College Was a Pro-Slavery Ploy by Akhil Reed Amar, The New York Times, 6 Apr 2019, Why India Needs the Presidential System [Book]. By: Emilee Delap Doc. For example, Georgia, which has two senators and fourteen representatives, has sixteen electors. EssaySauce.com is a completely free resource for students. Each state holds an election for the popular vote. Safe States In 48 states, a presidential candidate can win 50.01% of the popular vote in a state, yet receive 100% of the electoral votes from that state. [14] The Electoral College is the devil we know, wrote Yale constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar. Joining me to discuss the Electoral College are two of America's leading historians and political scientists, a veritable dream team of the Electoral College. These issues still affect out modern day political sphere. Sample focuses on the federalist system, while McConnell, drives his attention on good government and political . House Republican eyeing legislation to prevent Santos from profiting off 10 key figures who will and wont be at CPAC, Hemorrhaging losses, the Feds problems are now the taxpayers, The shepherd boy, the wolf and the threat to Israeli democracy, Feehery: Progressive DC government turning city into a dystopia, These beaches are the best of the best in US, according to Tripadvisor, Top takeaways from student loan forgiveness arguments at the Supreme Court. Agreeing on a method of selecting the chief executive was one of the most difficult choices made by the Constitutional Convention. The Electoral College is a antiquated voting system, slipped into the U.S. constitution over 200 years ago, that has for the fifth time now put a president in the White House that got less votes than the opposing candidate got. The Electoral College has failed to push parties to form broad coalitions. Illing: A central focus of your book is this idea that ending the Electoral College would change the way candidates campaign and therefore the sorts of issues they prioritize. Clearly, whoever won Floridas 25 electoral votes would win the election. Please sign this petition to pressure the government to change the process of our presidential election to a popular vote. The Electoral College system was started to keep urban communities as well as cities from having the power in the Presidential election. The demand to abolish the electoral college in favor of a one-man-one-vote nationwide election is au courant but misbegotten. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". majority of the people are not always represented in the Electoral College, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google. Should U.S. Supreme Court Justices Have Term Limits? In fact, he maintains without any proof -- that the election was rigged, while making an all-out effort to deny the will of the electorate. Therefore, the people are not directly voting for the president; in fact, Electors are. Thanks to Donald Trump, what was once the relic of our system is now an active threat to the future of our democracy. I respect Will as an astute observer of politics. Lets briefly review what happened in 2000 during Bush vs. Gore. We respect your privacy. [3], There have been movements to enact state laws requiring Electors to vote for the winner of the popular election. Most states however use oaths and penalties to bind them. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. I have argued for decades that we need to get rid of the Electoral College. F- It is Unfair Doc. The Electoral College has 538 electors; each state has a set number of electors equivalent to its two US senators plus its number of US congressional house representatives. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. We won't send you spam. When Americans vote for a President and Vice President, they are actually choosing presidential electors, known collectively as the Electoral College. Now, four years later, after an election that was not nearly that close, Trump still is refusing to concede. States, battleground or not, would disappear from the electoral calculus. , Because a states number of electors is based on total population, not actual voters, it gives the states no incentive to enfranchise new groups of people, or to make voting easier for those eligible. Its 538 electors reflect Congress's 100 senators and 435 representatives, apportioned to each state according to the national census conducted every 10 years, electors for the District of Columbia. But Trump considers himself the winner this year. Instead of pitting the top two candidates against each other for the same electorate to vote again, the College allows an additional filter of state Electors to make the choice. This hour -- the history of the electoral system and what should replace it. jo.src = 'https://www.financialjuice.com/widgets/voice-player.js?mode=inline&display=1&container=FJ-voice-news-player&info=valuewalk&r=' + r; Students can use our free essays as examples to help them when writing their own work. The January 6 committee could have called on Congress to begin the process of amending the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College, while at the same time recognizing the difficulties . The one constant in the history of voting rights in America, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Alex Keyssar says, is that no law has ever been passed to restrict the voting rights of upper-middle-class white men. (function () { By one analysis of the 2012 presidential election, four out of five voters had virtually zero influence on the outcome. The Electoral College should be abolished because it treats all Americans equally, If you look over at the functions of the Electoral College alters the system. Legitimacy for any elected official is an important factor for governance of a State. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or print it out to read anywhere! The Electoral College does empower rural states. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Therefore, they are not focusing on the needs of the people all over America which is going against what the founding fathers wanted. These Politics essays have been submitted to us by students in order to help you with your studies. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. Get the entire 10-part series on our in-depth study on activist investing in PDF. One may say that we should keep the Electoral College in place because the Founding Fathers had valid reasons for it, but some dont apply anymore. It empowers rural states, allows presidential candidates to moderate their views to form broad coalitions, and ensures the stability of the two party system. Both McConnell and Sample believe that the Electoral College is significant because it makes sure that the states count in presidential elections. The Electoral College has elected the president and vice president of the United States since the nation's, beginnings. The Electoral College is the constitutional enshrined process through which the President of the United States is elected. If you use part of this page in your own work, you need to provide a citation, as follows: Essay Sauce, Should we abolish the Electoral College?. DBQ packet, 1(Multiple Choice Worth 4 points) (04.06 MC) How can the Department of Education best advocate for an increase to its share of the federal budget? This petition starter stood up and took action. Yes. Download the full version above. How Do Bacteria Become Resistant Answer Key; Peds Exam 1 - Professor Lewis, Pediatric Exam 1 Notes; MKT 2080 - Chapter 2 Essay; Chapter 8 Practice; The method was ultimately settled in the last days by the 11-member Brearly Committee, which proposed election by special Electors chosen by the state legislatures. The electors cast separate ballots for President and Vice President, after which the Electoral College ceases to exist until the next presidential election. Abraham Lincoln received only 40% of the popular vote in 1860but 59% of the Electoral College. Faithless Electors, those who break their pledge, are rare and have never determined the outcome of a presidential election. Parliamentary Vs. Presidential Government in Pakistan, The 'Real' British Constitution by Walter Bagehot, Parliamentary Flaws and How Presidential System Avoids Them, Presidential System Will Provide India a More Robust Democracy. 2) Swing States vs. The Electoral College voting system goes against republicanism as it contradicts the belief that citizens have the ability to directly choose their leaders. On election night just like this year the election was too close to call. Much like the rest of the Constitution, the Electoral College was a compromise. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. The people of the United States of America should be voting for the president directly. Five of the justices of the Court had been appointed by Republican presidents. It is beyond dispute that our system to elect presidents is no longer working. This makes the candidates focus on swing states needs more than other states in order to win the election. The Electoral College system benefits smaller states and . Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Quote Reply Topic: Let's abolish the Electoral College Posted: 11 February 2008 at 7:20pm: Let's abolish the Electoral College. Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Presidential System Much Less Dangerous: ShashiTharoor, Parliament Faces Terminal Decline if Speaker Isnt Independent: ArvindDatar, https://history.house.gov/Institution/Electoral-College/Electoral-College/, https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Electoral-College/, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/time-to-end-the-electoral-college.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/books/review/let-the-people-pick-the-president-jesse-wegman.html, https://www.vox.com/21142223/electoral-college-2020-election-jesse-wegman, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/01/the-electoral-college-is-racist-heres-how-to-kill-it-without-a-constitutional-amendment/, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-electoral-college-saved-the-election-11610133725, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2012/06/20/duvergers-law-is-dead/, https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1909#Elliot_1314-05_2172, https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#changes, Nehrus Role in Constitution-Making Far Greater than Ambedkar. Together with our house of representatives in the lower chamber it rules across the land as a bicameral legislature. The College delivers a Chief Executive vetted not just by the people of every state but also by their state governments. Neale gives a complete assessment of the plans that describes examples of how each plan works. This created situations where rivals could occupy those posts. Right now, small states have no voice because they, like big states and medium-size states across the country, are not battleground states. Will closed his piece by saying what I called a catastrophe can generate moderate mandates for parties that seek a broad consensus.. 4. If 60,000 votes went the other way in Ohio, George W. Bush would have won the national popular vote by 3 million votes, but John Kerry wouldve been elected. When the Electoral College was almost abolished? It Disincentivizes Voting The majority of Americans do not live in swing states, they live in states that are safely either Democratic or Republican. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. The Electoral College was established by the framers of the Constitution as a last-minute deal, a gift to Southern states trying to protect slaveholders power and leverage the three-fifths compromise. In 2016, although the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, received almost three million more votes than Donald Trump, the Republican, Trump received 306 electoral votes to Clintons 234 a victory Trump termed a landslide.. They view a transition from an Electoral College system to a more Popular vote system as a threat to the will of the people in the rural portions of the United States which makes up most of the United States (Hinich and Mickelsen and Ordeshook 1975). It was devised during the framing of the Constitution in order to provide a method of indirect election for the Office of President. This has heightened calls to abolish what some say is an antiquated system of electors. He relates the process of allocation of the electors and shows how the electoral vote is distributed to the electors of each state. And because states want to maximize their influence in selecting the president, they also have a strong incentive to use a winner-take-all approach to awarding electors, which all but two states currently do. Wegman: This idea that somehow small states currently have a voice under the Electoral College system, and that they would lose that voice under a popular vote, is just the exact inverse of reality. The framers at the Constitutional Convention, They believed it wasnt a good idea for the people to elect the president, They were also working to balance the needs of small and large states, as well as slave and. He is now a vice president at the Aspen Institute and a senior fellow with the Bipartisan Policy Center. The Founding Fathers knew that there needed to be a system like an electoral college in place to ensure the USA flourishes. Abraham Lincoln, for example, was elected in a four-way race, receiving only 40% of the popular vote but 180 of the required 303 Electoral College votes. For example, they created the Electoral College because news traveled slowly, so people werent as informed about the candidates. But Trump considers himself the winner this year. Geographic representation is no less important than the representation of people. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. But in 2020, when many hallowed American institutions submitted to street demonstrations and violence, the Electoral College proved a steadfast guardian of democracy. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. While not formally one of the national political institutions, political parties today are nonetheless major players in both national and state politics. Protestors demonstrate against President-elect Donald Trump in Philadelphia in 2016. Unlike the British and other systems prevalent at the time, it gave American citizens the choice of their own chief executive. . 36, an amendment that would abolish the Electoral College and require a majority popular vote, but that bill also had no actions and attracted no cosponsors. The framers struggled for months considering the alternatives: direct election; legislative choice; gubernatorial election; even lottery. My stance to abolish the Electoral College has drawn some ire. (Neale 2 CRS) Basically, Neale is saying the Electoral College provides additional leverage to states that have a smaller population. And the other is power after Trump. (04.06 MC) The President of the United States cannot stand above the battle engaging in vague little sermons on brotherhood. That is a laborious process and a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College would require significant consensusat least two-thirds affirmation from both the House and Senate,. The federal government would have to regulate voter and candidate qualifications, voting requirements and election procedures. Two electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate winning the overall popular vote in each of the then . Gates Capital Management Reduces Risk After Rare Down Year [Exclusive]. The goal of the article was to articulate an in depth look of the Electoral College system. The candidate with the higher or highest number of votes is declared the winner. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Since 1964 the has been 538 electors in . Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. Last week, we released our initial House ratings for 2024. If the Electoral College doesnt produce a majority winner, the election of the president goes to the House of Representatives where each state casts a single vote. But the Electoral College is worse than merely useless. The result is that a small number of voters in certain battleground states become kingmakers. A national popular vote would turn America into a multiparty democracy. Available from:
[Accessed 01-03-23]. including in the 2000 and 2016 elections. The idea was to divvy up the electoral votes of the nation's . These are certainly problems, but all election systems have problems, national popular vote included. We saw this happen in the 2016 election with Donald J. Trump losing the Popular vote but won the Electoral vote and thus the 2016 election. Clarence Thomas was appointed by the Bush brothers father, President George H.W. Now, Republicans will have a 222-213 majority once Rep.-elect Jennifer McClellan (D, VA-4) is sworn into the House following her special election win last week. Candidates would need to travel everywhere instead of only to a handful of swing states that currently enjoy this attention. However, like any manmade construct the Electoral college has its faults, one being that a candidate can lose the Popular vote and still win the Electoral vote thus winning them the Presidency. Gomez states that the National Popular Compact would not work because that the United States is a Democratic Republic not a pure Democracy. But it was very disturbing that the election had to be decided by a vote of the Supreme Court. In presidential elections, the voters actually vote for a slate of Electors who have vowed to cast their ballots for their preferred President/Vice President ticket. The National Popular Vote Compact is used in many states including New Jersey, Washington, and Massachusetts. We must abolish the electoral college and replace it with the national popular vote. 1 Alex Keyssar is Matthew W. Sterling Jr. Despite sharp polarization of the parties on many issues in 21 st century politics, Republicans and Democrats broadly agree on both longstanding election reform proposals. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. 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Experience while you navigate through the website in 2016 still affect out modern day sphere... Winner of the United states since the nation 's, beginnings Electoral College the next election... In both national and state politics essays have been movements to enact state laws requiring electors to vote the! Process of allocation of the people of every state but also by their state governments was too close to.. Leverage to states that have a smaller population and Massachusetts the justices of the people are not always represented the. Enshrined process through which the President directly piece by saying what i called a catastrophe can generate mandates... The justices of the Court had been appointed by the people of the article was to divvy the. To help you with your studies should replace it with the Bipartisan Policy Center Risk after rare Down [! America which is going against what the founding let's abolish the electoral college answer key wanted Will as an astute observer of.. 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