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. Source: Daily Kos Elections. But the real interests of small-state voters are never determined by the relative size of the population of their states. 1. The crisis of 1824 then, represented really the collapse of the old system, and an effort to re-institute it in other terms. But specifics vary. Do you think any of these arguments, or others, are convincing reasons for preserving the Electoral College as it stands now? 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. And yet we have generally accepted it for centuries on the assumption it serves an important purpose. ), and the big state-small state divide no longer animates our politics, if it ever did. But dont forget, Bush won the popular vote four years later by three million votes. ** Adjusted Maine to act as one state rather than separate EV districts. No other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like it, and for good reason. "Every vote matters," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in Mississippi on Monday. Thats almost 1.5 billion votes. That means more people can feel like their government accurately represents their needs. Places like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan. Smaller States & the entire Midwest would end up losing all power - & we cant let that happen. Four of the electors came from the state of Washington. There would need to be a Constitutional amendment if the compact idea doesnt work. This is because the president is not . There are currently 538 electors up for grabs in an election, which means a majority of 270 is necessary to elect the President. Paul Krugman, my Opinion colleague, wrote Thursday that "the idea that the economy is going to pose a huge problem for Democrats next year isn't backed by the available data.". 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. Abolish the electoral college. But reforming the Electoral College does not rank high among our national problems. 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. Whether youre Republican or Democrat, the Electoral College is unfair. Why, or why not? The voices of small states, like Rhode Island and Wyoming, would be drowned out. It wasnt the first time a president won by losing or the second or even the fourth. It is within a states authority under Article II, Section 1 to impose a fine on electors for failing to uphold their pledge, the court said in an 8-1 opinion. But in the end, Republicans and Democrats are virtually tied. Including prescription drug benefits and all seniors at every income level. But they spend almost no time talking about issues that matter to millions of voters elsewhere, like public transportation in New York or climate change in California. 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. Warren says she wants to get rid of the Electoral College, and vote for president using a national popular vote. 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. 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. That means there must be a majority of states that agree with a specific candidate instead of allowing the people to decide who they want to have as president. Polls conducted by Gallup over the past seven decades, with the most recent being from 2013, clearly show the American public's desire to get rid of the whole system. We already see gridlock and partisanship in Congress that limits the opportunities for collaboration. Supporters of a national popular vote argue something must be done; the Electoral College disproportionately inflates the influence of rural areas while undervaluing the votes of cities. All parts of the country would not be involved in the selection of the president. We survived. That fall, former Vice President Richard M. Nixon defeated . The great problems with our presidential selection system today stem from the haphazard way we choose the two major party presidential candidates. Does It Need to Be Fixed? First, there's the Constitutional problem. 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. Myth No. Some of the most important framers, including James Madison and James Wilson, wanted to write a direct popular vote into the Constitution. Two closely watched cases arising from the 2016 electoral process, however, might provide the justices with an opportunity to do just that. The U.S. Census creates the allocations of electoral votes that each state receives. 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. They are simply party loyalists who do not deliberate about anything more than where to eat lunch. This perception is reinforced by the red- and blue-state imagery that controls our view of the electoral process. It is the formal body that elects the President and Vice President of the United States. Beto O'Rourke Announces His Run For President In 2020, Moderate Democrats Under Pressure As Party's Left Grabs Attention. Democratic presidential candidates are weighing in too. These Americans, chosen for loyalty to their political party, will vote for the presidential candidate who won their states popular vote. This isnt rocket science. 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. For one thing, slavery. Our votes would count the same wherever they were cast. If you live in a state where youre in the political minority, your vote is effectively erased. How the Electoral College helps preserve our constitutional system. Debate renewed in 2016 after theelectionof the fifth U.S. president who won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. Source: Daily Kos Elections. But its worth taking a closer look at arguments in favor of keeping the status quo. 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.. The effort in Congress to overhaul America's election system followed the contentious 1968 presidential contest. 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. Throughout history there have been over 700 attempts to reform or abolish the Electoral College, according to the Congressional Research Service. If the Electoral College system begins to prevent, on a regular basis, the popular vote winner from becoming president, it will create systemic challenges. It also prevents candidates from going into states where the electorate typically votes for the other party. 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. Why did President Obama spend so much money bailing out the auto industry? 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. That probably promotes a more national and less regional vision. But the court has not tackled to what extent states can enforce such a pledge. No amount of campaigning will change that. So if the results of most presidential elections tend to reflect the choice of the people, why do we still have the Electoral College? It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. It doesnt have to be this way. The framers of the Constitution set up the Electoral College for a number of different reasons. The Constitution provides no express role for the states after appointment of its presidential electors, the 10th Circuit panel said, adding, Once appointed, (electors) are free to vote as they choose.. The elected officials of both parties have incentives to choose candidates with an eye toward popular electability and governing skill. The point is, even accounting for demographic changes, neither party has a built-in advantage under a popular-vote system. Interestingly, the congressional caucus system is very close to the system the British used to replace Prime Minister David Cameron. The effect is to erase all the voters in that state who didnt vote for the top candidate. The presidential election in 2016 saw a modern-era record for faithless electors, but five of them came from the Clinton camp. 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. Colin Powell was the primary beneficiary, receiving three votes. Switching to this standard system would not likely create an adverse result. Third, defenders of the Electoral College also claim that it supports the underlying value of federalism. It seems to me that the original system may have been superior to what we now have. Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. James Madison, known as the father of the Constitution, was very disturbed by the state winner-take-all rule, which he considered one of the central flaws of the Electoral College as it took shape in the early 19th century. 1, that Democrats will win a popular vote every time. 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. 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. If this system were to be abolished, then every vote counted would have the exact same weight in the final tally. Now is the time for sober and spirited citizens from both parties to devise a new system for 2020. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Under the current plan, states that join will not activate the compact until enough states have joined to total 270 electoral votes. Electoral vote totals will equal 538. I think it would make more sense to split the electoral votes based on the state-wide vote so if a state has 10 electoral votes and the election goes 60% to 40%, the candidates gets 6 votes and 4 votes respectively. Which states do matter? That system worked well until the two-party system briefly died with the Federalist Party. Yet, ratification happens not by popular vote but by state legislature. Today, 48 states use winner-take-all. Mr. Wegman argues that reforming the Electoral College isnt a partisan issue its a fairness issue. But the Electoral College is worse than merely useless. The threat is the effort to create a so-called . The chances of a recount would increase dramatically with election. The reason we even have swing states is because almost all states award their electoral votes using a winner-take-all system. 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. ## 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. Thanks to the Internet, telephones, email, social media, and every other form of communication that we have today, people can choose for themselves whether a new story has an underlying sinister bias. That means that the national winner would start out with 102 Electoral College votes. In the history of the United States, there have been six presidential elections that would have qualified for this issue and three of them have occurred since 1968. Abolishing the Electoral College: Since the year 2000, there have been five presidential elections. Currently, 15 states and DC have approved the NPVIC. [1] Over the years some of them, so-called faithless electors, have deviated from this norm but in 29 states and the District of Colombia state laws exist which bind the electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote. The places where there are more people become the top priority, especially if there is a chance to swing some votes. Article II, section 1 of the Constitution establishes the Electoral College. We should be talking about other things. A few states provide criminal penalties if an elector violates the requirement. It causes some votes to have greater weight than others. On September 18, 1969, the U.S. House of Representatives voted by an overwhelming 338 to 70 to send a constitutional amendment to the Senate that would have dismantled the Electoral College,. So lets put the power to select the president where it actually belongs, in the hands of all the people. 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. The electoral college ignores the will of the people. 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. Britannicas ProCon.org lists three reasons: 1) The founding fathers thought the Electoral College was the best method for electing the president.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.3) The Electoral College guarantees certainty, whereas a popular vote system might lead to no candidate getting a majority. If a candidate wins the popular vote in a state, even by a single vote, they get all of that states electoral votes. The politicians are tapping into what's become a popular position with many voters, especially Democrats. Most Americans, by a wide margin, believe the Electoral College should be abolished. In addition to the NPVIC discussed above, there are two variations on this theme that could reduce the odds that someone could win the presidency without winning the national popular vote. 7. 11. Were already letting women, former slaves, and 18-year-olds vote, changing the structure of the election since the countrys founding. If the U.S. were to abolish the electoral college, then the restrictions that territories experience against voting in this election would disappear. In part, that is because the Electoral College is constitutionally mandated, and abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. **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). Instead, theyre voting for their states representatives in the Electoral College, who will then vote for the president. 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. It would stop the requirement to redistribute the electoral votes. Its how we run every election in the country, except the most important one of all. But it's possible the candidate with the most votes from the public won't be the winner. What Is the Electoral College? Critics of the system would argue that the elections of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump are evidence that this impact is no longer present in U.S. politics. So what would happen if we got rid of the Electoral College? Popular vote is a direct vote. Most states have a winner-take-all system that awards all the votes of a states electors to the presidential candidate who obtains the most votes in that state. Still, the advantages are uncertain and relatively minor. In the video above, we delve into the reasons people give for keeping the Electoral College and why theyre wrong. 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. The current system for electing a U.S. president traces back to 1787. 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. Stanford University. Its complicated, outdated, unrepresentative in a word, undemocratic. Under this option, Florida would give 15 Electoral College votes to Clinton and 14 to Trump. In the history of the United States, there have been five elections where the eventual winner didnt receive a clear majority of the vote. Under the current structure of the United States, there are 50 unique presidential contests instead of one nationwide affair to elect a President. "Precisely what it does is proportionately advantages where the people are," Levy said. Third, defenders of the Electoral College also claim that it supports the underlying value of federalism. Here, again, there are three main points to make. 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? The Electoral College website now has an easy-to-remember address. 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. That means the major party that can maintain its base could win elections without a clear majority. 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. Reagan would almost make a clean sweep in 1984 as well, taking 525 of 538 electoral votes and only losing Minnesota and DC. And finally, Myth 3: The Electoral College protects small states. This imbalance is primarily a 21st century phenomenon and it could, of course, change in the years to come as some states grow and other states shrink in population. There have been three: John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush.

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