what would happen if the electoral college was abolished

It doesnt. The Electoral College consists of an elector selection, a group of people who will meet and vote for President and Vice President based on the results of their states election. Jesse Wegman, the author of the Opinion pieces above, is one of the guests on our Oct. 22 live panel for students. [1] Only when they sign the certificate of ascertainment and the votes are tallied in the United States Congress is the presidential race officially over. But the real interests of small-state voters are never determined by the relative size of the population of their states. Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. In 2000 Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote against Governor George W. Bush by 543,895. We survived. 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. 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. Currently, 15 states and DC have approved the NPVIC. Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992 with only 43% of the vote, and then in 1996 with 49.2%. Why did President Obama spend so much money bailing out the auto industry? This cant go on. But reforming the Electoral College does not rank high among our national problems. So if the results of most presidential elections tend to reflect the choice of the people, why do we still have the Electoral College? The voices of small states, like Rhode Island and Wyoming, would be drowned out. 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. But the court has not tackled to what extent states can enforce such a pledge. Thats not true either. Why, or why not? Is the Electoral College a Problem? Reagan would almost make a clean sweep in 1984 as well, taking 525 of 538 electoral votes and only losing Minnesota and DC. In each case, the number of faithless electors who exercised that behavior would not have had a meaningful impact on the outcome. [2] Both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature are currently controlled by Democrats; however, the 2020 elections shifted both chambers to Republican control. 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,. It no longer serves the intended job. 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. As far as the 2016 election is concerned, Hillary Clinton would still be the likely winner if the Electoral College didn't exist. The founders opted for the Electoral College because the two leading alternatives, election by Congress and by popular vote, were thought to have serious defects. 2: The founders wanted it this way. However, it is possible to win the presidency without winning the popular vote. 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. It also stops the distribution process where California gets 55 votes, but a state like Delaware only gets 3. This ensures that smaller rural and industrial communities will have their issues addressed by those seeking office. How the Electoral College helps preserve our constitutional system. How the Electoral College Was Nearly Abolished in 1970 - History PDF It's time to abolish the Electoral College - Brookings What Might Make Joe Biden Unelectable Is a Very Scary Threat Instead of dealing with these complications, a simple majority vote would always speak of the will of the people. Switching to this standard system would not likely create an adverse result. Faith in elections, trust in government, and the legitimacy of elected officials and the offices they hold will be challenged by a system that consistently turns its back on the will of the voters. 6. Anyone can read what you share. If the Electoral College is a racist relic, why has it endured? "And the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting and that means get rid of the Electoral College.". Having this structure go away would encourage more third-party development. 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren calls for abolishing the Electoral College and moving to a national popular vote: Every vote matters #WarrenTownHall https://t.co/pPFMVywETf pic.twitter.com/yy0J0HgAjc. 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. That meant more power for those states under an Electoral College system, and slave states didnt want to give up that power. Mr. Wegman argues that reforming the Electoral College isnt a partisan issue its a fairness issue. "You look at the Florida situation we had in 2000 that already took a lot of time and effort, but imagine if that was done across the country. When Americans are polled about the Electoral College, most of them say that they want it to disappear. Throughout our nations history there have been many unwise attempts to abolish the Electoral College, but these proposed constitutional amendments saw little success and unsurprisingly failed to gain traction. Does the Electoral College need to be reformed? Save Our States, The Status of National Popular Vote, https://saveourstates.com/threats/the-status-of-npv (accessed April 17, 2020). 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. In other words, the Electoral College isnt sacred, and theres no reason we cant change how it works today. Abolishing the Electoral College stops swing states from having sway in the election. 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. In this case, 19 state legislatures are currently controlled solely by Democrats. While politicians continue to put major focus on highly-populated urban cities of many states, such as Cleveland, Ohio, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Electoral College pushes candidates to address issues in states as a whole and not just in metropolitan regions. Rural Americans would be serfs if we abolished the Electoral College "The game will be: Be a liberal to the extent I can maximize votes in major urban centers.". 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. Some of the most important framers, including James Madison and James Wilson, wanted to write a direct popular vote into the Constitution. Make sure to update your bookmarks! This is the result of an amazing technological revolution, but what does it have to do with the Electoral College? 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. (John . Sometimes one party does better for a few election cycles. Could Washington administer a national recount in the event of a close result? Here are the yea and the nay. Then the 2020 census will be valid for the 2024 and 2028 elections. .just the large States - the Cities would end up running the Country. If the U.S. were to abolish the electoral college, then the restrictions that territories experience against voting in this election would disappear. As Americans look at their election processes, a complete review of the pros and cons of abolishing the Electoral College is useful when taking this unique structure into account. 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. Imagine a Florida-style recount in every precinct in America. The group of 16 (as of August 2019) currently control 196 electoral votes together. Based on your understanding, do you believe the Electoral College is democratic? ## 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. Why? A split of electoral votes has occurred once in each of these states. There can be distinctive advantages to one party in a decade where three election cycles are possible. But specifics vary. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished Its primary function is to malapportion political power, and it does so indeed, has always done so with strikingly awful. That, critics say, means devaluing the votes of many non-white voters too. 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. Blue states give all their electors to the Democrat, no matter how many Republicans voted for their candidate; vice versa in the red states. "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. And sure, the last two times the Electoral College has awarded the White House to the popular-vote loser, its been to the Republican Donald Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000. Alexander Hamilton was a significant supporter of the Electoral College. Trump made a similar argument earlier this week, warning that "smaller states & then entire Midwest would end up losing all power.". Plenty. Opinion | Abolish the electoral college - The Washington Post But really, scholars say, consensus is constructed through thousands of small acts over generations. They simply happen to be states that become competitive because of their demography, and which are readily identifiable as such because of the increasing sophistication of political polling. 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. A few states provide criminal penalties if an elector violates the requirement. Do you support this movement? So, the state at the median had 19% of the population of the largest state. The current structure limits Americans from pushing in this direction even though candidates tend to visit swing states more often. Despite what you may have learned in school, it was not the product of careful design by brilliant men. The politicians are tapping into what's become a popular position with many voters, especially Democrats. Ive spent the past few years obsessively analyzing the Electoral College, trying to understand the concerns of the founding fathers, doing the math from different elections. But after the presidential election in 1800 resulted in an acrimonious tie vote between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the12th Amendmentwas ratified in 1804. Beto O'Rourke Announces His Run For President In 2020, Moderate Democrats Under Pressure As Party's Left Grabs Attention. This process means that each candidate must speak with the entire country instead of visiting the largest cities as a way to solicit for votes. 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. For instance, in 1900 New York was the biggest state in the union with 7,268,894 people and the state with the median population, Louisiana, had 1,381,625 people. Moreover, the electoral college method preserved the two compromises over representationthe three-fifths clause and the big state-small state compromiseand guarded against a fracturing of votes for many candidates, which they thought might occur once George Washington was no longer available as a nationally respected consensus candidate. Swing or battleground states are mere accidents of geography. In the history of the United States, there have been five elections where the eventual winner didnt receive a clear majority of the vote. Is the way Americans choose the president undemocratic and unfair? That position, shared by many Republicans, makes it highly unlikely that there would be sufficient support for changing the system. Stanford University. This polling reflects why a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Electoral College will not pass the U.S. Congress any time soon, nor would it have anywhere near the necessary support in state legislatures. Why? It is not simply Republican elected officials who want to maintain the Electoral College system; Republican voters support it as well. 11. The Current Threat | The Heritage Foundation This reflects how uncommon it is to reach the Oval Office without winning the popular vote; it has only happened four times in United States history. In 1892, the court upheld inMcPherson v. Blackerthat Congress can set the date nationally for the Electoral College to meet, but it also said that the states could determine how electors were apportioned and chosen. Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. 3) The Electoral . It also prevents candidates from going into states where the electorate typically votes for the other party. But reforming the Electoral College does not rank high among our national problems. That line garnered one of her largest roars of applause for the evening. That system worked well until the two-party system briefly died with the Federalist Party. Which states do matter? Without the Electoral College in place, presidential candidates would build platforms that would speak to their base. Our 230-year-old jerry-built system for picking the president, known as the Electoral College. It is the formal body that elects the President and Vice President of the United States. It causes some votes to have greater weight than others. It should be noted, there is debate about the permissibility of such a proposal and its going into effect would likely face a flurry of lawsuits. 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. Even if all 25 of the states that Mr. Biden won in 2020 were to ratify such an amendment, nine additional states that President Trump won would need to ratify it as well. The electors can vote their conscience as well, refusing to follow what their state elections guide them to do. I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A. Gregg says that change would radicalize politics. It can be fixed. 3. Both times in 2000 and 2016 it was the Republican candidate who got fewer votes but ended up in the White House. They are simply party loyalists who do not deliberate about anything more than where to eat lunch. [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 Electoral College Is At The Heart Of Debate Over Vote - NPR And yet we have generally accepted it for centuries on the assumption it serves an important purpose. This is the heart of the problem with the Electoral College. It channels presidential politics into a two-party system, which is superior to multiparty systems where fringe factions can exercise too much leverage. When you know that one state will vote the same way in every election, there is no need to visit that place. Article II, section 1 of the Constitution establishes the Electoral College. He disliked the practice so much he called for a constitutional amendment barring it. These imbalances effectively ensure that some votes in presidential elections are worth more than others, and as that imbalance scales up across the entire Electoral College, it can (under the right circumstances) provide the recipes for popular vote winners losing the Electoral College. 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. Adding even more candidates into this discussion without the protections of this structure could create circumstances where someone with less than 35% of the vote could potentially win a four-year term. In each case, the number of faithless electors who exercised that behavior would not have had a meaningful impact on the outcome. Although there are some advantages to this system, the disadvantages have been highlighted in recent elections. Take the Electoral College, Americas system for picking the president. What does arthur schlesinger, jr. say would happen if the electoral No other mode of presidential elections would be fully consistent with our underlying commitment to the equality of all citizens. An amendment hasn't been adopted since the 27th, in 1992, and one hasn't been adopted relatively quickly since the 26th, which took 100 days from proposal to adoption in 1971. Using bots can streamline some law firm work, American Bar Association 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. Sticking to the electoral college format allows us to use electors as intended instead of relying on all of the votes counting. In part, that is because theElectoral Collegeis constitutionally mandated, and abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. Two hundred years after James Madisons letter, the state winner-take-all rule is still crippling our politics and artificially dividing us. But the Constitution and the courts have allowed the states some leeway to make changes to how their Electoral College representatives are chosen. Without the Electoral College, big states like California and New York would dominate elections. That means centrist ideas tend to be the ones that receive the most traction instead of the individual priorities of platforms on the extreme left or right. The Electoral College website now has an easy-to-remember address. Stanford, California 94305. Most people in America want the Electoral College gone, and they want to select a president based on who gets the most votes nationally, polls say. 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. The size of a state does not affect our real political preferences, even though the Electoral College system imagines that it does. What do you think of Mr. Wegmans arguments? 7. Recurring debt ceiling fights will only be solved by budget reform, Amend the Constitution so the candidate who receives the most votes wins. Opinion | Will the Economy Make or Break Biden in 2024? But it's possible the candidate with the most votes from the public won't be the winner. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished? The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The political game in the United States would change dramatically without the Electoral College present. The main problem with the Electoral College today is not, as both its supporters and detractors believe, the disproportionate power it gives smaller states. Remember what we said back in Myth No. The elected officials of both parties have incentives to choose candidates with an eye toward popular electability and governing skill. In part, that is because the Electoral College is constitutionally mandated, and abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. Polls from FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast have predicted Clinton receiving a majority popular vote of 49.7 percent, with Trump behind at 43.3 percent. 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? But as people moved and the economy changed so did that ratio. 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. Do you agree with him that the winner-take-all system that most states use for the Electoral College is undemocratic and unfair? Two of those elections have occurred since 2000. But dont forget, Bush won the popular vote four years later by three million votes. Changing or eliminating the Electoral College can be accomplished only by an amendment to the Constitution, which requires the. Its complicated, outdated, unrepresentative in a word, undemocratic. Do you agree? The Electoral College has been the subject of debate since it was first implemented centuries ago, but when George W. Bush won the presidential election in 2000 despite Al Gore winning the popular vote, controversy surrounding the institution rose to a much more intense degree. In winner-take-all states, all electoral votes cast for the state are assigned to the candidate who gets the most electoral votes. If this system were to be abolished, then every vote counted would have the exact same weight in the final tally.

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