11. Without the Electoral College in place, presidential candidates would build platforms that would speak to their base. 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. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. Given that a change would require a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of the state legislatures, it is not going to happen. This is the heart of the problem with the Electoral College. The effort in Congress to overhaul America's election system followed the contentious 1968 presidential contest. Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. Map. Social change can seem sudden, as if millions awoke one day to the same realization. Imagine a Florida-style recount in every precinct in America. 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. And yet we have generally accepted it for centuries on the assumption it serves an important purpose. Voting By Mail Is On The Rise, But Could Alleged N.C. Election Fraud Change That? There would need to be a Constitutional amendment if the compact idea doesnt work. And this year, who knows? 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. TheNational Archives reportsthat over the past 200 years more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College without any becoming law. It no longer serves the intended job. That, critics say, means devaluing the votes of many non-white voters too. Only Rutherford Hayes, with a 3% difference, won the electoral college despite being in the minority. (John . The first is easily dismissed. A New Mexico doctor describes the pain and horror of caring for COVID-19 patients. The two-party system solves the fractured vote problem more effectively than the Electoral College ever did, and the electors never exercised genuine independence. 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. Of the 700 attempts to fix or abolish the electoral college, this one Some laws simply state that electors must vote for the candidate of the party they represent; others require electors to sign an oath or a pledge. 4. While there are two different means to amend the founding document, this country has always used the same route: a 2/3rds vote in both houses of Congress, followed by the ratification of 3/4ths of the states. Alternative 1: Two electoral votes to national popular vote winner; state winner-take-all for the remainder, *Each of these races included faithless electors, such that the total of electoral votes, as shown, does not equal 538. That meant more power for those states under an Electoral College system, and slave states didnt want to give up that power. That might invite legal challenges from candidates or voters' groups if it took place. RT @Valkary: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SHOULD BE ABSOLVED AND ABOLISHED. Here, again, there are three main points to make. 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. 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. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished Although there are some advantages to this system, the disadvantages have been highlighted in recent elections. That means the major party that can maintain its base could win elections without a clear majority. We have an Electoral College because thats what the founders added to the Constitution at the last minute. But its logic, its distortion of the democratic process and its underlying flaws will still strongly influence the conduct of the election. The political game in the United States would change dramatically without the Electoral College present. For years, a majority of Americans have opposed the Electoral College. In the Electoral College, there are 51 voting jurisdiction (states) that includes D.C. By Michael W. McConnell, the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law, director of the Constitutional Law Center and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. The only point in this election where the possibility of either of the candidates losing the popular vote but still claiming an electoral victory was on July 30, when a FiveThirtyEight model showed Clinton clinching the popular vote by less than 1 percent, but still losing to Trump by two electoral votes. And this was an effort that was supported by the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, the American Bar Association, and progressive and liberal groups outside. A presidential candidate who doesnt receive a majority of the votes can still win the Electoral College to get into the White House. ), and the big state-small state divide no longer animates our politics, if it ever did. The three-fifths clause became irrelevant with the end of slavery (thankfully! It creates 50 individual contests. Alexander Hamilton was a significant supporter of the Electoral College. Seventy percent of Americans between the ages of 18-29 said that the president should be chosen through a popular vote model, while just 56 percent of those over the age of 65 agreed. 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. Rural Americans would be serfs if we abolished the Electoral College Third, defenders of the Electoral College also claim that it supports the underlying value of federalism. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. The truth is . After reading the article and watching the video, what questions do you have for Mr. Wegman? Yet, ratification happens not by popular vote but by state legislature. 6. Plenty. 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. And thats it. 2. President Trump once supported abolishing the Electoral College he previously felt it was a "total disaster for democracy" but since his 2016 presidential victory over Hillary Clinton, in which Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, but Trump received 304 electoral votes, he has changed his mind. Two of those elections have occurred since 2000. A number of states have signed onto a pact that guarantees their Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote, no matter the outcome in their individual states. Does this interactive influence how you feel about the Electoral College? Do they outweigh the arguments that Mr. Wegman presents? Make sure to update your bookmarks! The US presidential election takes place 3 November. PDF It's time to abolish the Electoral College - Brookings Presidential electors are not more qualified than other citizens to determine who should head the government. Mr. Wegman argues that reforming the Electoral College isnt a partisan issue its a fairness issue. The founders fought like cats and dogs over how the president should be chosen. Remember what we said back in Myth No. Warren says she wants to get rid of the Electoral College, and vote for president using a national popular vote. /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. First, there's the Constitutional problem. One of the ways that states are considering a way to go around the Electoral College is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Thrown together at the last minute by the countrys founders, it almost immediately stopped functioning as they thought it would. And even when that doesn't happen, Wegman sees another problem with the . It causes some votes to have greater weight than others. 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. And even though it is widely acknowledged that the Electoral College is a ticking time bomb that could seriously erode American democracy, none of these attempts has been successful. In fact, there is already a movement brewing among states to agree to award their electors to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. The current system for electing a U.S. president traces back to 1787. Having a state-based system for electing both houses of Congress should be adequate to that task. [2] The compact would then be 43 Electoral College votes short of going into effect. How to get rid of the Electoral College - Brookings Third, defenders of the Electoral College also claim that it supports the underlying value of federalism. In this extraordinarily strange election year, debating the Electoral College might seem an odd pastime when so many other issues concern us. 1. 2. Save Our States, The Status of National Popular Vote, https://saveourstates.com/threats/the-status-of-npv (accessed April 17, 2020). But the Electoral College is worse than merely useless. If this system were to be abolished, then every vote counted would have the exact same weight in the final tally. 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. Should we abolish the Electoral College? - Constitution Center 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 elected officials of both parties have incentives to choose candidates with an eye toward popular electability and governing skill. Jesse Wegman, the author of the Opinion pieces above, is one of the guests on our Oct. 22 live panel for students. What happens if a candidate with electoral votes dies or becomes In fact, lets tally up all the votes cast for president between 1932 and 2008. 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. We should be talking about other things. This year is the poster child for the need for reform. Electors manage the needs of the state and community instead of following the will of the general public throughout the country. Generally, we count on the Republican and Democratic parties to nominate not the best people, but candidates who combine a degree of popular support with the experience and temperament to govern. This ensures that smaller rural and industrial communities will have their issues addressed by those seeking office. 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. It would create problems when multiple candidates run. Suddenly, every voter will count, no matter where they live. 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. 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.". That position, shared by many Republicans, makes it highly unlikely that there would be sufficient support for changing the system. As Madison wrote in an 1823 letter, states using the winner-take-all rule are a string of beads and fail to reflect the true political diversity of their citizens. Thats when the Founding Fathers crafted a compromise between those who argued for the election of the president by a vote of Congress and the election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens. By 2019, the median state was Kentucky with 4,467,673 which made it 11% of the population of California, the biggest state in the union with 39,512,223 people. Instead of dealing with these complications, a simple majority vote would always speak of the will of the people. 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). That fall, former Vice President Richard M. Nixon defeated . The compact requires states to pass laws that would award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationally. The reason we even have swing states is because almost all states award their electoral votes using a winner-take-all system. He disliked the practice so much he called for a constitutional amendment barring it. Majority supports changing Electoral College system for U.S 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. 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. And the reasons people think we need to keep the Electoral College the way it is, theyre all wrong. 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. 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. 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. Around six-in-ten U.S. adults (63%) say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency, while 35% favor keeping the current Electoral College system, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 27-July 4, 2022. Who verifies if a candidate is qualified to run for President? The pact raises questions of its own for democracy: It creates a situation in which voters in, for example, Colorado, may cast most of their votes for the Democrat in a presidential race but the state might wind up giving its electors to the Republican depending on the national outcome. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2,868,686 and yet lost the Electoral College vote: 304 for Trump and 227 for Clinton. Nonetheless, it is likely the most viable alternative to the current Electoral College system. Having this structure go away would encourage more third-party development. "Precisely what it does is proportionately advantages where the people are," Levy said. 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.

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