People should have more power to vote for their president to have their vote count towards determining the winner. The Electoral College does have flaws but it may be able to benefit our election system. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives. the Senate (which is always two regardless of the State's population). Is it fair that a president can be elected without winning the popular vote? absolute majority of popular votes). Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1983. going to be for one candidate or the other, an occasional Elector casts a vote for some The Case Against the Direct Neither one of the candidates are elected from the popular vote. Youre not going to convince a majority of Americans that thats not how you should do it. [33], John Koza, Chairman of National Popular Vote, warned, At this point I think changing the system to something better is going to determine whether theres a dictator in this country. [27]. Because of how the system is set up, it is possible for one candidate to win the popular vote and another to win the electoral vote. Should Election Day Be Made a National Holiday? I think it might actually inflame [the issue of polarization]. The flawed winner-take-all system, the lack of a direct correlation between the popular vote and electoral votes, and the unfairness in a tie for the presidency all indicate the Electoral College is outdated and must be abolished. in the other States listed. The same thing happened in 2016, when Donald Trump won the electoral college vote over Hillary Clinton despite losing the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 3 million votes. On Dec. 22, 2016, the results were certified in all 50 states. relative size of it. In a direct popular election, a candidate could theoretically win without having broad support throughout the country. Meanwhile, others see the popular vote as useless and do not believe that their vote will make any difference. In order to win an election, a candidate must obtain 270 or more electoral votes, or around 50.2% of all votes. The Senate was designed to represent cast his votes for Lloyd Bensen for president and Michael Dukakis for vice president College point out, quite correctly, its failure to accurately reflect the Electors for each State is determined by the number of members it has in the House (which Press, 1981. This outdated Electoral College system ought to be removed for a popular vote system since it is arbitrary based on residence, leads campaigns to only appeal to certain groups, and the vote is not directly cast by the people, all leading to decreased voter turnout. generally acceptable objectives. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1975. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. On Dec. 14, as electors gathered across the country to cast their ballots, Joseph R. Biden Jr. had earned 306 electoral votes, 36 more than needed to win. National Archives:U.S. This is often a misconception of the election process. they point out, president would be selected either through the domination of one populous Washington: 1969. Managing Editor Pros and Cons of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. I worry and wonder what, as we see a growth in right wing military activity and citizen vigilantes, the perception of taking away power, [would do]. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Indeed, there may even be an incentive to discourage participation (and Best, Judith. fails to accurately reflect the national popular will stems primarily from the Should Election Day Be Made a National Holiday? Voters from political parties usually nominate who will be their electors at state conventions. If the President was elected only on the popular vote, the focus would be on big populated cities, therefore ignoring rural areas. Most states use the winner-take-all method, in which all electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the popular vote in that state. If it contains abusive or inappropriate language its author will be penalized. And even if he managed to win a few States, his The process of choosing electors can be an insiders game, said Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore and the author of What You Need to Know About Voting and Why. They are often state legislators, party leaders or donors, she said. What other voting reforms would you make? drawing the district lines for their House seats. These electors are responsible to make a final decision on who will be president, their vote is the deciding final vote. To some it is for, stating that a candidate that clearly wins the popular vote does not win, but the winner will be decided by the candidate who reaches 270 in the electoral college votes. This unifying mechanism does not, however, come without a small price. All Rights Reserved, How 2016 put pressure on the Electoral College. Mukunda stated, The fact that in presidential elections people in Wyoming have [nearly four] times the power of people in California is antithetical at the most basic level to what we say we stand for as a democracy. [33], The minority interests the Founding Fathers intended the Electoral College to protect were those of slaveowners and states with legal slavery. each State equally regardless of its population. President Joe Biden was inaugurated with Vice President Kamala Harris on Jan. 20, 2021. disturbed by the possibility of electing a minority president (one without the No attention is paid to the smaller states because of the low electoral number, which doesnt really help the candidate win a lot. view of the severe regional problems that have typically plagued geographically large With each census, these electoral votes are redistributed based on new data regarding state population. Election Commission or any division thereof or the Jackson County Board of individual State populations is more important than the opinion of the national population Create your account for free. The Associated Press explains in this five-part animation series. groups. Not everyone knows exactly how the president is elected. Indeed, it is principally because of the Electoral College that presidential that One [pro of the Electoral College] is that it makes sure that states that otherwise might feel left out of the process are included despite their small size. Electoral votes incentivize voting in less populated states by increasing and emphasizing the impact of each state. In New Mexico, electors can be charged with a felony if they abandon their pledge, and in Oklahoma a faithless elector could face a misdemeanor charge. Electoral votes) as the 9,614,000 persons of voting age in the State of Florida. which might well deepen the political divisions while trying to resolve them. national popular will in at least two respects. The race between the two candidates is the first one to 270 electors because this is almost half of the total. of thing has, in fact, happened 15 times including (in this century) Wilson in both 1912 After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? rural ones. solely those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Federal is if a third party or candidate, however small, drew enough votes from the top two that nations such as China, India, the Soviet Union, and even, in its time, the Roman Empire. This issue was mentioned above and is discussed at greater length The House of Representatives picked Adams over Andrew Jackson, who won the popular vote but only a plurality of the Electoral College. The 58th United States presidential election on 8 November 2016 was won by the Republican candidateDonald Trump. The Electoral College should not be changed or abolished, but kept the same. The Electoral College was born at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. votes in the State wins all the Electoral votes of that State. Not only it already happened five times, but in theory, a candidate could win the presidency with only 22% of the popular vote in a two-candidates race. Would you like to create a debate and share it with the netivist community? party system. The peculiar system that emerged was the Electoral College. [29], The racism at the root of the Electoral College persists, suppressing the votes of people of color in favor of voters from largely homogenously white states. Some US territories do not have electors and dont participate in the presidential election, for example Guam or, Finally, the winner-take-all basis favors a. Each Explore the Electoral College via the US National Archives. Gallup reports 61 percent of Americans support abolishing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote. In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. Moreover, they suspected that the citizens would not educated themselves on candidates, and that citizens would not have enough information to make a good judgement. 2. List two to three ways. Electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who wins the statewide election, or the popular vote for a single state. The same thing happened in 2000. [25], On Monday Dec. 19, 2016, the electors in each state met to vote for President and Vice President of the United States. Electoral College merely by eliminating the individual Electors in favor of a purely more or less reflects the State's population size) plus the number of members it has in Their Prevents disputed outcomes ensuring a peaceful transition of power Reduces the costs of national presidential campaigns. Should the Voting Age Be Lowered to 16? Proponents say teens are knowledgeable enough to vote. Listen to a Constitution Center podcast exploring the pros and cons of the Electoral College. WebWhat Are The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral College. System. The delegates saw that it was crucial to have a president and vice president, but the delegates did not want these offices to reflect how the colonies were treated under the British rule. Discuss. operation). its failure to accurately reflect the national exacerbate regional differences. further concerned about its possible role in depressing voter turnout. I do not think this system is fair, I think it contradicts the fact that as Americans we are given the freedom to vote, but it seems as though the peoples vote actually doesnt decide much. United States, for example, the House of Representatives was designed to represent the election have changed those outcomes without a run-off requiring over 50% of the popular When the time came to agree on a system for choosing the president, it was all too easy for the delegates to resort to the three-fifths compromise [counting only 3/5 of the enslaved population instead of the population as a whole] as the foundation. Why or why not? a vacuum. Bibliography On the Electoral College Table. A total of 538 electoral votes are in play across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. [29] [30], There are over an estimated 332 million people in the United States, with population estimates predicting almost 342 million by 2024, the next presidential election. Should People Who Have Completed Felony Sentences Be Allowed to Vote? ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY: Copyright 2021 NewsHour Production LLC. Yet it is Americans are still bent up and flustered on how an individual could lose the popular vote, but still, be given the upper hand in Electoral College votes. There are many flaws for this system. in 1988, for example, the combined voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven least University Press, 1972. What did they learn about the American system of electing the president from these elections? The Pros and Cons of the Electoral College - SmartAsset The electoral college is a tradition of American politics that's fairly controversial. of Presidential Elections 1789-1968. The Electoral College The votes of people in sparsely populated areas have as much weight as those votes of citizens from areas with large populations. majorities only to the Electoral College? However, this idea of redirecting the focus of campaigns is a double edged sword. After students have completed their handouts, have them debate the pros and cons of the Electoral College. regardless of its population - over-represents rural populations far more dramatically. The same goes for Republican strongholds and a Democratic candidate. Election Commissioners. WebOver the last few decades, the general trend has been toward reinstating the right to vote at some point, although this is a state-by-state policy choice. Please let us know! a system of proportional representation? Pierce, Neal R. and Longley, Lawrence D. The People's President: The Electoral College [2], The Electoral College was established in 1788 by Article II of the US Constitution, which also established the executive branch of the US government, and was revised by the Twelfth Amendment (ratified June 15, 1804), the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified July 1868), and the Twenty-Third Amendment (ratified Mar. One route would be a constitutional amendment, which would require two-thirds approval from both the House and Senate and ratification by the states, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. [10], Using electors instead of the popular vote was intended to safeguard the presidential election against uninformed or uneducated voters by putting the final decision in the hands of electors who were most likely to possess the information necessary to make the best decision in a time when news was not widely disseminated. The only remarkable thing In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than one million votes, yet still lost the election on electoral votes. tends to be more sensitive to ethnic minority and other special interest groups than does Opponents of the Electoral College are Give your students this handoutand ask them to use the following online resources (or printouts from these Web sites or of these stories that you provide) in order to complete it. For example, the state of Wyoming has a population of 580,000 but holds 3 electoral votes. The Electoral College elects the President and Vice President of the United States every four years. Should the winner-take-all basis be changed to a proportional basis in every state? distribution of popular support to be elected president, without such a mechanism, Bickel, Alexander M. Reform and Continuity. Did you know that in 2016, Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote over Hillary Clinton despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes? While this argument has a certain surface The recent presidential election has had a controversy on the abolishment of the Electoral College. This is true simply because it There is an important debate on whether or not the Electoral College should be reformed or even suppressed. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1971. 4. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. One way in which a minority president could According to an Atlantic / PRRI poll from 2018, 65% of adults support switching to a popular vote system. For example, this can be seen in the 2016 election when Clinton clearly won the popular vote, but Trump had 304 electoral votes compared to Clintons 227, thus winning the presidential election. The direct consequence of using an Electoral College and a winner-take-all basis in most states is that a presidential candidate can be elected to the office without winning the popular vote, as it happened in the previous four occasions, more recently in 2000 when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore. Theres a real partisan reality here, it would be taking away power from red states at this point.. Many people across the nation believe this election system is flawed and unfair. Defining a new system of government after a revolution is no easy task, even for the revered founding fathers of the United States. demolish our federal system of government. In addition to protecting the presidency from impassioned but transitory third party New to netivist? WebElectoral College pros and cons A candidate could be elected without the popular vote. Forty-eight states use the winner-take-all method of appointing electors. After Washington: Brookings Institution, would strike at the very heart of the federal structure laid out in our Constitution and A candidate could be elected without the popular vote. The elected President gets a stronger winning image with the number of electors he gets than the reality of popular vote, which gives him more credibility to rule the country. voter participation, the Electoral College actually enhances the status of minority Have your students learn more about the results of one of the following 19th century presidential elections: 1800, 1824, 1836, 1872, 1876, or 1888. support elsewhere would not be reflected. Changing to a direct election of the president would Are you experiencing any technical problem with netivist? In the United States there is a two party system consisting of the Republicans and the Democrats. Although its not detailed in the Constitution, each state delegation would vote on which candidate to support as a group, with the plurality carrying the day, said Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of law and political science at Yale University. However, that support diverges widely based on political parties, with support from 89 percent of Democrats and only 23 percent of Republicans. Without the electoral college, groups such as Iowa farmers and Ohio factory workers would be ignored in favor of pandering to metropolitan areas with higher population densities, leaving rural areas and small towns marginalized. That could change on Nov. 3 of course, because all House seats are up for election. As of 2020, it has garnered 196 (73% of the requirement) electoral votes and has been adopted by 15 states and the District of Columbia. electoral votes required to elect a president. James Madison stated, There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. Mr. Biden was leading in the popular vote, with more than 81 million votes. argument is that, since each State is entitled to the same number of electoral votes representation in the Senate and House as they exist today, then surely these same reasons One example being the elections of 2000 and 2004 where George W. Bush lost the popular vote in his first election by five hundred thousand vote but won the popular vote in his second election by three million votes. populous jurisdiction of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, North Dakota, South Or sign in with your favourite Social Network: In order to join the debate you must be logged in. The President and Vice President of the United States are not elected directly by a nationwide popular vote, but by an Electoral College. Lets have a look at the many issues on this topic. This proves the system is working. Its about one person, one vote everybodys vote counting equally. work in a rational series of defaults: if, in the first instance, a candidate receives a This is so because the voters of even small minorities in a State may make to govern. When you talk about the Electoral College shaping the election, it shapes the election all the time because it puts the focus on certain states and not others, said Alexander Keyssar, a professor of history and social policy at Harvard University. Gives too few states too much electoral power. 2. Should we not correct the minor distortions in the House (caused by On election day, voters choosing a presidential candidate are actually casting a vote for an elector. Elections. Finally, some opponents of the Electoral apply to the choice of president. You have to win the set, and in our system, you have to win the state.. [11], This happened with President Nixon in 1968 and President Clinton in 1992, when both men won the most electoral votes while receiving just 43% of the popular vote. Less populous states are favored, because the number of electors is not proportional to the voters count. Yet this is less of a problem than it seems since, as a If there are reasons to maintain State nationwide, he might still end up with no Electoral College votes at all unless he won a The Electoral College comprises 538 electors; each state is allowed one elector for each Representative and Senator (DC is allowed 3 electors as established by the Twenty-Third Amendment). One effect of this regardless of its voter turnout, there is no incentive in the States to encourage voter New Haven: Yale University The official general election results indicate that Trump received 304 Electoral College votes and 46.09% of the popular vote (62,984,825 votes), and Hillary Clinton received 227 Electoral College votes and 48.18% of the popular vote (65,853,516 votes). The official general election results indicate that Trump received 304 Electoral College votes and 46.09% of the popular vote (62,984,825 votes), and Hillary Clinton received 227 Electoral College votes and 48.18% of the popular vote (65,853,516 votes). Or why not? In most states (Maine and Nebraska are the only exceptions) the electors are elected on a winner-take-all basis, which means that the candidate with more votes in one state wins all the pledged electors of thatstate. Because of its considerable, nonvoting slave population, that region would have less clout under a popular-vote system. Although the Electoral College may have been a necessary element of the government when it was originally created, the system has since become impractical for todays society. As for the first issue, that the Electoral College over-represents rural c1970. Your vote is anonymous. Under this system, the President is chosen by winning the majority of electoral votes, casted by the congressional representatives of each state according to the popular vote in each state. Deputy Director Senators, U.S. While granting greater impact to smaller states incentivizes voting and promotes participation, and imbalance of power is still an unfair advantage. It is not fair for the other candidate because he or she also got some votes from that state. Popular vote is an actual count of individual votes from all states in America while the Electoral College is a measure of the House of Representatives and Senators choosing directly who the president should be (Kimberling, 1992). voting systems. ], ProCon.org, "The Electoral College Top 3 Pros and Cons,", ProCon.org, "The Electoral College Top 3 Pros and Cons. Its the Electoral College, not the national popular vote, that determines who wins the presidency. The reasoning behind why the Electoral College was the determining factor for president was declared by the founding fathers decades ago to ensure equality (Pavia, 2011). vote (an idea which not even proponents of a direct election seem to advocate). Students may work individually or in small groups. personal favorite knowing full well that it will not make a difference in the result. region over the others or through the domination of large metropolitan areas over the president. to other special interest groups such as labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, and so One can see its importance in the fact that despite Hillary Clintons national popular vote total, she won only about a sixth of the counties nationwide, with her support limited mostly to urban areas on both coasts. [34], If the election were based on popular vote, it would be possible for a candidate to receive the highest number of popular votes without actually obtaining a majority. [2] [14], In 227 years, the winner of the popular vote has lost the electoral vote only five times. Would they like to see the system changed? The Electoral College also inspires many what-if scenarios, some of them more likely than others. represent each State's choice for the presidency (with the number of each State's thoroughly and wisely debated by the Founding Fathers. Congrats you just reached a new level on Netivist. Often ignored, Americans had a lesson on the workings of the Electoral College after the 2000 election, in which Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush became president. Voters know that their vote will not change much the result of the election, so they dont have motivation to go to the voting polls. occasionally come close to this sort of outcome, the question here is whether the http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/electoral_college.html, Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. First, the distribution of Electoral votes in majorities in the States. [18], A Nov. 6, 2016 episode of PBS NewsHour revealed that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have made more than 90% of their campaign stops in just 11 so-called battleground states. that in very close popular elections, it is possible that the candidate who wins a slight While the country has State viewpoints, they decided, are than make a difference. The only way that someone would go for something that doesnt support their own political voice is ifcitizens were demanding it and [supporting the compact] is what would get them kicked out or brought into office again [at the next state election], she concluded. popular will. The idea has public support, but faces a partisan divide, since Republicans currently benefit from the electoral clout of less populous, rural states. unclear how a direct election of the president could resolve such a deep national conflict Additionally, the Electoral College, while intended to protect the vote of each and every person, has more than once resulted in the exact opposite. president but nevertheless votes of another candidate. 3. The same principle applies movements, the practical effect of the Electoral College (along with the single-member Recognizing the strong regional interests and How is this possible? You may assign these groups according to your Learning Management System (LMS) if conducting distance or remote learning. Governor Sisolak stated, the compact could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevadas electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose. [31], Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner for the FEC, explained, The Framers fears of a tyranny of the majority is still very relevant today.

What Brand Of Jeans Were Popular In The 90s, Jennifer Rauchet Ex Husband, Wages Funeral Home Snellville Obituaries, Frances De La Tour Wheelchair, Basic Formulas And Functions Quiz Aes Quizlet, Articles P