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. Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at an organizing event in February. Each of those states has Democratic control of the state legislature. The small towns in the United States, along with all of the rural areas, would become marginalized if this system were to be entirely abolished. 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). Even when it is against the law for these folks to vote for someone other than what the electoral results in their state indicate, there is always an option to become a faithless elector under the American structure. Its also the only place where the District of Columbia functions as a state since the 23rd Amendment allocates 3 electors to it. It is a process that allows the people to choose who serves in the White House instead of throwing it into Congress. The winner of the Electoral College vote is usually the candidate who has won the popular vote. 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. Why? Abolishing the Electoral College seems to be the next logical step in that process. 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. Students, watch the video and read Mr. Wegmans Op-Ed, and then tell us: What does democracy mean to you? "Every vote matters," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in Mississippi on Monday. "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. The elected officials of both parties have incentives to choose candidates with an eye toward popular electability and governing skill. Without the Electoral College in place, presidential candidates would build platforms that would speak to their base. Warren says she wants to get rid of the Electoral College, and vote for president using a national popular vote. The size of a state does not affect our real political preferences, even though the Electoral College system imagines that it does. Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished He disliked the practice so much he called for a constitutional amendment barring it. 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. 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. Rural Americans would be serfs if we abolished the Electoral College 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. 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. The presidential election is held every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The correct number is 102. The group of 16 (as of August 2019) currently control 196 electoral votes together. 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.. This action would allow the popular vote winner to take the White House. In most cases this should prevent the popular vote loser from becoming president. This spring, numerous candidates for president expressed support for either abolishing or changing the Electoral College, which ultimately picks the U.S. president. In each case, the number of faithless electors who exercised that behavior would not have had a meaningful impact on the outcome. A few states provide criminal penalties if an elector violates the requirement. It wasnt the first time a president won by losing or the second or even the fourth. It also stops the distribution process where California gets 55 votes, but a state like Delaware only gets 3. A Constitutional Amendment to Abolish the Electoral College The U.S. Census creates the allocations of electoral votes that each state receives. This is the heart of the problem with the Electoral College. This design promotes the two-party system. Could Washington administer a national recount in the event of a close result? The places where there are more people become the top priority, especially if there is a chance to swing some votes. If the U.S. were to abolish the electoral college, then the restrictions that territories experience against voting in this election would disappear. That could have happened even though Biden won the popular vote by 7,060,087 (and counting)a margin even larger than the margins won by George W Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2012. The most popular alternative is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). Debate renewed in 2016 after theelectionof the fifth U.S. president who won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. Mr. Wegman argues that reforming the Electoral College isnt a partisan issue its a fairness issue. 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. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. US election 2020. To this day, people are still arguing that Al Gore was the real winner and debating whether the recount in Florida was accurate the state whose electors propelled Bush to the top. 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. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Bernie Sanders, John Kasich, Ron Paul, and Faith Spotted Eagle received one each. It doesnt have to be this way. Why did President Obama spend so much money bailing out the auto industry? Donald Trump was open about ignoring the pleas of the safe blue states like New York when they were suffering the most from the coronavirus pandemic. Social change can seem sudden, as if millions awoke one day to the same realization. And because they created it, its a sacred work of constitutional genius. 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. It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. Republicans especially worry about tipping the balance away from their party. It is the formal body that elects the President and Vice President of the United States. Do you think this means the system is broken? 326 Galvez Street 6. By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. Two of those elections have occurred since 2000. Myth No. Having a state-based system for electing both houses of Congress should be adequate to that task. That same view will doubtless color the 2016 election as well. /content/aba-cms-dotorg/en/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2019/october-2019/q--the-electoral-college--is-it-open-for-interpretation-by-the-c, Trade, Sports & Professional Associations, Affordable Housing & Community Development Law. Instead of dealing with these complications, a simple majority vote would always speak of the will of the people. That means that the national winner would start out with 102 Electoral College votes. *** 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. In his video, Mr. Wegman offers counterarguments to what he calls myths about the Electoral College. Started in the mid-2000s, the NPVIC is a fairly straightforward system that capitalizes on the constitutional guarantee that states are free to determine the manner in which they award their electoral votes. The winner of an election should be the person who gets the most votes. Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. That is not to say the Electoral College is without its advantages. Hillary Clinton won. Most Americans, by a wide margin, believe the Electoral College should be abolished. In the history of the United States, there have been five elections where the eventual winner didnt receive a clear majority of the vote. That means the major party that can maintain its base could win elections without a clear majority. And finally, Myth 3: The Electoral College protects small states. This issue exists in the Electoral College when the rural states face off with the urban ones. It causes some votes to have greater weight than others. In this extraordinarily strange election year, debating the Electoral College might seem an odd pastime when so many other issues concern us. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., if the Electoral College of the United States was abolished, the collapse of the already weakened two-party political system would be fast tracked; resulting in multiplication of splinter parties. An example of a state closely split by congressional district is Florida in 2016, where Trump won in 14 of them and Clinton won in 13. Getting rid of the Electoral College would radicalize politics. Kitty on Twitter: "RT @Valkary: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE Its primary function is to malapportion political power, and it does so indeed, has always done so with strikingly awful. 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. 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. But in the end, Republicans and Democrats are virtually tied. Which states do matter? 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. Its just basic fairness. It channels presidential politics into a two-party system, which is superior to multiparty systems where fringe factions can exercise too much leverage. If you submit a question as a comment on this article, we might use it during the live event. [2] Both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature are currently controlled by Democrats; however, the 2020 elections shifted both chambers to Republican control. In a polarized political environment, such an institutional structure remains entrenched. Spend some time moving states into the Biden and Trump circles and make notes about what you notice and wonder. That means the information receives an update every 10 years. Today about 1.3% of those employed in the United States work directly in agriculture, and they manage to feed the entire country and beyond. Support for direct popular election. Why? What do you think of Mr. Wegmans arguments? We survived. In fact, lets tally up all the votes cast for president between 1932 and 2008. 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. In a truly national election, parties and candidates would have the incentive to turn out their votes wherever they were, fostering a deeper sense of engagement across the whole population. This scenario is very different from what happened in 2000 when Gore and Bush were separated by less than 1 percent of the popular vote. Opinion | Abolish the electoral college - The Washington Post All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public. Researchby the National Association of Secretaries of State shows that 29 states and the District of Columbia require presidential electors, chosen through political party processes in each state, to cast their vote for the candidate they were selected by popular vote in that state to represent. Residents of places like Puerto Rico and Guam would have their votes be counted in the final total, and these locations consistently vote for one party. 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. But there is something called the National Popular Vote Compact. These Americans, chosen for loyalty to their political party, will vote for the presidential candidate who won their states popular vote. Still, the advantages are uncertain and relatively minor. When enough states join in this interstate compact, itll mean that the popular-vote winner will always become president. 1, that Democrats will win a popular vote every time. Those states do get a boost from their two Senate-based electoral votes, but that benefit pales in comparison to the real culprit: statewide winner-take-all laws. See: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/10/21/can-the-electoral-college-be-subverted-by-faithless-electors/. Every four years, tens of millions of Americans votes magically disappear before the real election for president happens about six weeks after Election Day, when 538 electors convene in state capitals across the country to cast their votes for president. Does the Electoral College need to be reformed? There are currently 538 electors up for grabs in an election, which means a majority of 270 is necessary to elect the President. During the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had 90% of their campaign stops in only 11 states. 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. Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at an organizing event in February. Of the 700 attempts to fix or abolish the electoral college, this one Eliminating this barrier could mean that some parts of the country never become part of the overall campaign. Another 15 legislatures with varying degrees of Republican control would also need to ratify such an amendment for the Electoral College to be removed. John Locher/AP It is not simply Republican elected officials who want to maintain the Electoral College system; Republican voters support it as well. The reasons for the Electoral College may not be relevant any more. Third, defenders of the Electoral College also claim that it supports the underlying value of federalism. Only two Republicans voted for someone other than Trump and Pence. The current system is weighted too heavily in favor of celebrity appeal, demagogic displays and appeals to narrow special interests. The election, as Mr. Trump would say though not for the right reasons is rigged. The only states that matter to either party are the battleground states especially bigger ones like Florida and Pennsylvania, where a swing of a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can shift the entire pot of electors from one candidate to the other. Places like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan. In August, a panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appealsruleddifferently in a case raising similar issues. There were two additional votes for Sanders that were invalidated in Minnesota and one for Kasich in Colorado. The Constitution originally stipulated that the top vote-getter chosen by these electors would become president and the individual with the second-most votes would be vice president. Abolish the electoral college. But swing states distort our national priorities, even when the president wins the popular vote. The way the Electoral College actually functions today isnt even enshrined in the Constitution. It would only come into effect when it could guarantee that outcome. Why, or why not? 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. If the Electoral College is a racist relic, why has it endured? This is because the president is not . Sometimes one party does better for a few election cycles. It's called the national popular vote movement, and it's already been passed into law in many states, totaling 196 electoral votesthe states include big ones like California and New York and small ones like Vermont and Hawaii. Majority supports changing Electoral College system for U.S 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. Then in 2016, Donald Trump won the Electoral College despite receiving 2.1% less of the popular vote. The only difference is that in this unique structure, the voice of the minority can actually shout down the desires of the majority. The electoral college ignores the will of the people. But really, scholars say, consensus is constructed through thousands of small acts over generations. In the video above, Mr. Wegman argues that the Electoral College is undemocratic. Should We Abolish the Electoral College? | STANFORD magazine Turkey general election 2023 guide: what you need to know | CNN 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,. George W. Bush won the Electoral College in 2000 even though he received 0.5% less of the popular vote against Al Gore. That system worked well until the two-party system briefly died with the Federalist Party. NPV would reshape our political landscape by concentrating power in our largest states and cities. 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. "How would that work?" 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. In 2000 Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote against Governor George W. Bush by 543,895. Two hundred years after James Madisons letter, the state winner-take-all rule is still crippling our politics and artificially dividing us. It is extremely difficult to amend the Constitution. "The game will not be any longer to be a [politician who is] liberal but be able to appeal to a rural Ohioan," he said. 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. Maintaining the Electoral College may seem like the most politically expedient position for the Republican Party in the short term, but it may cause significant damage in the long term. What happens if a candidate with electoral votes dies or becomes However, it is possible to win the presidency without winning the popular vote. These arent small states. Both times in 2000 and 2016 it was the Republican candidate who got fewer votes but ended up in the White House. But specifics vary. 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. 5. 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. What Is the Electoral College? It creates 50 individual contests. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished? Out of those visits, almost 70% of them happened in only four states: North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. 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. Do you think that more states or all states should join the compact? 2. The primary benefit of the electoral college is that it works to protect the best interests of the minority in every election. 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.". The Electoral College was created by the framers of the U.S For years, a majority of Americans have opposed the Electoral College. What Might Make Joe Biden Unelectable Is a Very Scary Threat LIASSON: It would take a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College, so that's not going to happen. It's another way the system ensures it's perpetuity. In this case, 19 state legislatures are currently controlled solely by Democrats. When you know that one state will vote the same way in every election, there is no need to visit that place. 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. Thats not true either. It causes some votes to have greater weight than others. It gives each state in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct electors equal to its representation in Congress. According to Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper Number 68, the body was a compromise at the. 2? That probably promotes a more national and less regional vision. Think about it. It took time for people to learn what was happening in the nations capital. That means if you live in a rural area, your vote may count more toward who gets to be the eventual president. The interests of the minority would no longer receive protection. But after the presidential election in 1800 resulted in an acrimonious tie vote between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the12th Amendmentwas ratified in 1804. 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. As the graph below illustrates, over the course of the 20th century the distance between the biggest state by population and the median state increased. Anyone can read what you share. The Electoral College Will Destroy America, The Battleground States Biden and Trump Need to Win 270, free daily writing prompts for remote learning. If the Electoral College was eliminated, the power to elect the President would rest solely in the hands of a few of our largest states and cities, greatly diminishing the voice of smaller populated states. Beto O'Rourke Announces His Run For President In 2020, Moderate Democrats Under Pressure As Party's Left Grabs Attention. A presidential candidate who doesnt receive a majority of the votes can still win the Electoral College to get into the White House.