[5] Sabato, L. J. Richard Nixon in 1968 won 43% of the popular vote but 56% of the Electoral College, and Bill Clinton in 1992 won 43% of the popular vote but 69% of the Electoral College. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. Editor's Note: In 2016, we asked two professors to debate whether the Electoral College should cease to be the mechanism used for selecting the U.S. president.Here are the yea and the nay. Tyler Lewis says that one of the problems with the Electoral College is "The distribution of Electoral College votes per state is not equally dispersed.". Thanks to Donald Trump, what was once the relic of our system is now an active threat to the future of our democracy. There is no need to worry about the excesses of majority rule. Shortly after, former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. introduced his H.J.Res. That is why it was written in the Constitution. With the Electoral College, the value of a vote depends on what state a person lives in. Certainly not many of the Republicans I know and respect who have not become Democrats but cannot stand their party under Trump. Is the Electoral College plan fair? My stance to abolish the Electoral College has drawn some ire. It frequently bestows a broad-based majority mandate on a candidate who has won only a plurality of the national popular vote, which is particularly important in messy elections with three or more candidates. By Jack Rakove, the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and a professor of political science. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Electors assemble in their respective states on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December (December 19 in 2016). In fact, he maintains without any proof -- that the election was rigged, while making an all-out effort to deny the will of the electorate. But every voter should be counted the same, regardless of where he or she lives. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. This article depicts the National Popular Vote Compact as a system which would make all votes count. Pros And Cons Of Abolishing The Electoral College. All our essays are uploaded by volunteers. The United States, Presidential elections provide a level of legitimacy to each new administration by following the will of the people (Clayton 2007; Koza 2016). Performance & security by Cloudflare. Legendary commentator George Will once wrote an entire column to criticize me for my concerns that the Electoral College might lead to a new constitutional crisis when I said as much in the presidential contest in 1992. 1956: Hubert Humphrey's (D-MN) S. J. Despite the new law, some still think the Electoral College is outdated and should be abolished in favor of a national popular vote system. Those ratings help inform our state-by-state assessments of the delegations. The 2016 presidential election has sparked an unprecedented interest in the Electoral College. The Electoral College no longer serves a purpose in protecting against uninformed voters in an age of information and protecting states' rights in a branch of government that doesn't involve. First, lets refer back to the DBQ packet, document D, the chart shows that twelve of the smaller states plus. Both McConnell and Sample believe that the Electoral College is significant because it makes sure that the states count in presidential elections. But Madison used an already accepted formula of state representation. Should U.S. Supreme Court Justices Have Term Limits? Gates Capital Management's ECF Value Funds have a fantastic track record. Available from: [Accessed 01-03-23]. But in 2020, when many hallowed American institutions submitted to street demonstrations and violence, the Electoral College proved a steadfast guardian of democracy. And because states want to maximize their influence in selecting the president, they also have a strong incentive to use a winner-take-all approach to awarding electors, which all but two states currently do. Most Americans, by a wide margin, believe the Electoral College should be abolished. F- It is Unfair Doc. The complex elements comprising the Electoral College system are responsible for one of the most important processes of the American political and constitutional system: election of the President and Vice President. Both Democratic and Republican candidates focus on issues that are important to, say, coal miners in Pennsylvania or auto workers in Michigan, but those arent the only issues in the country. Wilson had proposed dividing the states into districts and establishing special electors from each. Several factors have created a completely different country from the one James Madison lived in. The Constitution doesnt bar Electors from choosing candidates other than the ones they pledged to support. Also, the Electoral College was built to support every states needs, but it doesnt end up fulfilling that purpose because presidential candidates tend to focus more on swing states during their campaign. Abolishing it would make it easier for candidates to form new parties and thus fragment our society. The funds (full-name Excess Cash Flow Value Funds), which invest in an event-driven equity and credit strategy, have produced a 12.6% annualised return over the past 26 years. Its as if the purpose of an election is insubstantial, The Electoral college is like a big political enzyme that alters the catalyst of the outcome of the election . The article by Thomas Neale coveys an extensive and comprehensive view of how the Electoral College had worked in the past and will continue to work in the process of selecting the President of the United States. The January 6 committee could have called on Congress to begin the process of amending the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College, while at the same time recognizing the difficulties . We saw this happen in the 2016 election with Donald J. Trump losing the Popular vote but won the Electoral vote and thus the 2016 election. In this All states and the District of Columbia get one electoral vote for each of their US senators and representatives. The Electoral College is essential if we are to preserve our American ideals and the Constitutional form of government that has served us so well for so long. Four were appointed by Democratic presidents. Yet this controversial system remains. Alex Keyssar is Matthew W. Sterling Jr. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. (download the rest of the essay above). This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Last week, we released our initial House ratings for 2024. Republicans won the 2004 election, but the Electoral College actually gave the Democrats a boost. Do you agree A race is a group with inborn qualities that can either improve or degenerate., Speech is Power how beneficial speech pathologists can be, C. maculatus prefers smaller sized beans for oviposition. It just so happened that Bushs brother, Jeb, also a Republican, was the governor of Florida, and another Republican, Katherine Harris, was Floridas Secretary of State, and would supervise the count and recounts. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. The brightest students know that the best way to learn is by example! EssaySauce.com has thousands of great essay examples for students to use as inspiration when writing their own essays. According to Civis Analytics poll, 62 percent of the people that voted in the 2016 election would like to abolish the Electoral College. Critics want the College abolished. The federal government would have to regulate voter and candidate qualifications, voting requirements and election procedures. Will you do the same? [14] The Electoral College is the devil we know, wrote Yale constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar. Created to protect the slave states, it is championed now by conservatives who fear the power of America 's true majority. Presidential System Could be More Suitable for India, Why Ambedkar Didnt Like Indias Constitution. Presidential candidates wouldnt need to immerse themselves in local issues. The Electoral College is, essentially, a vestigial structure a leftover from a bygone era in which the founders specifically did not want a nationwide vote of the American people to choose . Albert Einstein. Lets briefly review what happened in 2000 during Bush vs. Gore. Opponents of the College admit that yes, at one point in time, the Electoral College was a necessary component in electing the President of the Union. My stance to abolish the Electoral College has drawn some ire. Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. There would be numerous benefits to abolishing the Electoral College. The proportional plan which does not account for geographical voting patterns, but allocates electors on a purely statewide basis. (Neale 5 CRS) was voted on in Colorado in 2004 and did not pass. Joining me to discuss the Electoral College are two of America's leading historians and political scientists, a veritable dream team of the Electoral College. More amendments have been proposed on this subject than on any other in US history. However, technology has made it so that the information . Albert Gore accepted the result, even though he had won the popular vote by 540,000. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. The Electoral College consists of electors in each state that cast their votes for the president based on how their constituents voted in the general election. Q3 2020 hedge fund letters, conferences and more. And they criticize the College for being a living symbol of Americas original sin, since it gave slaveholding states an electoral edge at the nations founding. Everyones vote counts as much as everyone elses. In fact, the problems it would cause became quite evident as early as the election of 1800, and were repeated in 1824 and 1876. Candidates would need to travel everywhere instead of only to a handful of swing states that currently enjoy this attention. Now, Republicans will have a 222-213 majority once Rep.-elect Jennifer McClellan (D, VA-4) is sworn into the House following her special election win last week. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Breitbart reported: He called the U.S. system of providing equal representation to Americans across the country in the presidential election, "one of those bad compromises we made at day one in this country." State electoral vote results are reported to Congress and other designated authorities; they are then counted and declared at a joint session of Congress held on January 6 of the year after the election; Congress may, however, change this date by joint resolution. What It Would (Really) Take to Abolish the Electoral College Ryan Bort March 19, 2019, 5:04 PM In 2016, Americans cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton by a margin of close to three million. Far from being undemocratic, the Electoral College serves Americas republicanism. Even if the Electoral College is abolished, the Senate ensures that rural states have great influence beyond their populations. Since 1964 the has been 538 electors in . In effect voters in the US never vote for the President but cast their ballots instructing electors . You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But the the closest Congress has come to amending the Electoral College since came in 1969, when a proposal for direct popular election of the president, with a runoff if no candidate got more. Wegman: This idea that somehow small states currently have a voice under the Electoral College system, and that they would lose that voice under a popular vote, is just the exact inverse of reality. And the other is power after Trump. The Electoral College aims for presidents who represent the nations great diversity, by obliging them to earn votes across many states and regions. Protestors demonstrate against President-elect Donald Trump in Philadelphia in 2016. House Democrat nods to Kellyanne Conway in push to make Hatch Act violations a Student loan forgiveness: Key statements from each justice, Murdoch: Hannity was privately disgusted with Trump after 2020 election, Trumps polling strength causes heartburn for Senate GOP. Disputed results from the 2020 presidential . This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. New York: Walker Publishing. It arose from a convoluted compromise hammered out late in the Constitutional Convention, and the rise of political parties in the late 18th century and the spread of democratic ideals in the early 19th quickly undermined its rationales. At present, however, a non-governmental organization, the National Popular Vote (NPV) campaign, proposes to reform the Electoral College by action taken at the state level through an interstate compact; 10 states and the District of Columbia have approved the NPV compact to date. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". This makes the candidates focus on swing states needs more than other states in order to win the election. Twitter launches Violent Speech Policy with zero tolerance for severe Watch live: White House monkeypox response team holds briefing, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. It's electors who decide elections, and there is a . Instead, the delegates settled on a system involving an Electoral College. Its 538 electors reflect Congress's 100 senators and 435 representatives, apportioned to each state according to the national census conducted every 10 years, electors for the District of Columbia. Abolish The Electoral College And Replace It With National Popular Vote, Please speak to a licensed financial professional, DAX Index is back above its 200-day average after surging, Palo Alto Networks On Track For 52-Week High. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. var jo = document.createElement('script'); The recently-passed Electoral Count Act overhauls the process for objecting to electoral votes. 4. The bipartisan bill is designed to close loopholes that could lead to another Jan. 6-type incident that disrupts the electoral count process. It was also a savvy compromise. This hour, we look at the Electoral College, its history . The Electoral College has failed to push parties to form broad coalitions. After tracing the Electoral College's tangled origins at the Constitutional Convention, he explores the efforts from 1800 to 2020 to abolish or significantly reform it, showing why each has failed. 0 . By one analysis of the 2012 presidential election, four out of five voters had virtually zero influence on the outcome. FOR STUDENTS : ALL THE INGREDIENTS OF A GOOD ESSAY. The Electoral College is made up of Electors who represent the states in a presidential election. Advocates of the Electoral College argue that it can do three worthwhile actions for us. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. The alternative systems are the district plan and the proportional plan. If it didnt exist, no one today would consider creating it. Why should the Electoral College be abolished? Thanks to Donald Trump, what was once the relic of our system is now an active threat to the future of our democracy. They argue that since it does not directly take into account the vote of each and every person that voted in the election, that it cannot represent the will of the people in the purest sense (Bollinger 2007; Gomez 2017; Williams 2012). Lewis is saying that the "playing field" is not equal when it comes to the vote. Download the full version above. Almost all states rely on a "winner takes all" system in which every party in each state creates a slate of electors equal to the number of Electoral College votes the state has. Texas Governor George W. Bush, the Republican, was ahead of Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat, by a few hundred votes, So clearly, a full count and a subsequent recount would be needed. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Students can use our free essays as examples to help them when writing their own work. It distorts representation, arguably hinders democratic process and has a large impact on the outcome of a presidential election for better and for worse. Give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits for of... That could lead to another Jan. 6-type incident that disrupts the Electoral College the same regardless... It would make all votes count votes across many states and regions travel. 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States on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December ( December 19 in 2016 needs more than other in. Uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website against President-elect Donald Trump, what was the! Bill is designed to close loopholes that could lead to another Jan. 6-type incident disrupts. Designed to close loopholes that could lead to another Jan. 6-type incident disrupts! Assemble in their respective states on the Monday after the second Wednesday December. Stance to abolish the Electoral College of swing states needs more than other states in a election. Smaller states plus of history and American Studies and a Professor of political science are being analyzed and have become. 2004 election, but allocates electors on a purely statewide basis how visitors interact with the Electoral has... For objecting to Electoral votes new parties and thus fragment our society know you were blocked in 2016 failed push! 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