Was the Electoral College abolished? Mya Sims Ms. Protestors demonstrate against President-elect Donald Trump in Philadelphia in 2016. Now the Electoral College benefits the Republican Party almost exclusively. A simple, popular election would produce a majoritarian winner, but the College allows the people of every state a direct say in the Executive branch. The framers struggled for months considering the alternatives: direct election; legislative choice; gubernatorial election; even lottery. For example, they created the Electoral College because news traveled slowly, so people werent as informed about the candidates. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Two Presidential elections (1800 and 1824) have been decided in the House. But Trump considers himself the winner this year. Created to protect the slave states, it is championed now by conservatives who fear the power of America 's true majority. Election by national popular vote would dispense with the need for continental diversification. After reading the article by Thomas Neale, the Electoral College is fair and gives each state a more equal voice in the presidential election based on population census. Save it to your . The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". They think it antiquated, irrational and undemocratic and argue for scrapping it in favor of a national popular vote. What Would Gandhi Think of Our Constitution? 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. The recently-passed Electoral Count Act overhauls the process for objecting to electoral votes. 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. The idea was to divvy up the electoral votes of the nation's . For the people who do not really know or understand the Electoral College, it is a body of people who ultimately decide who wins the presidential election. Clearly, we need to drastically change the way we elect presidents. They are expected, but not constitutionally bound, to vote for the candidates they represent. (download the rest of the essay above). Illing: Why have all the attempts to reform or abolish the Electoral College failed? The Electoral College is the constitutional enshrined process through which the President of the United States is elected. But it is not only essential for selecting a chief executive vetted by the entire country, it is vital for nurturing Americas federalism, separation of powers, executive accountability, diversity, and two-party polity. 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. We do NOT offer any paid services - please don't ask! The framers at the Constitutional Convention, They believed it wasnt a good idea for the people to elect the president, They were also working to balance the needs of small and large states, as well as slave and. We all know the answer. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. They accept that the Electoral College system mays have its faults, but it is the best system to fairly represent the diverse and vast sections of the United States and the people who reside in both city and rural areas (Miller 2012; Miller 2011). Safe states are known to always vote for the same party, while swing states are always changing. Critics want the College abolished. (2007). In fact, if given the choice of either accepting his loss or preserving our democracy, which outcome would Trump choose? (Neale 2 CRS) Basically, Neale is saying the Electoral College provides additional leverage to states that have a smaller population. He is now a vice president at the Aspen Institute and a senior fellow with the Bipartisan Policy Center. It's time to ditch the antiquated way we choose presidents. 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. 32 minutes and 09 seconds. This hour -- the history of the electoral system and what should replace it. This page of the essay has 1,601 words. 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. It preserved states rights, increased the independence of the executive branch, and avoided the danger of provincialism involved in popular election. That is a laborious process and a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College would require significant consensusat least two-thirds affirmation from both the House and Senate,. Where the agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of fairness of the Electoral College system. One thing is for certain though, it's been almost 200 years since Andrew Jackson proposed the abolition of the Electoral College, and yet it is still in place. 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. (04.06 MC) The President of the United States cannot stand above the battle engaging in vague little sermons on brotherhood. Survey Methods. Get the entire 10-part series on our in-depth study on activist investing in PDF. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". [15], [1] https://history.house.gov/Institution/Electoral-College/Electoral-College/, [2] https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Electoral-College/, [3] The New York Times, Editorial; 19 December 2016; https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/time-to-end-the-electoral-college.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article. The disparity in populations when our founders set up this system was nothing compared to today. Unlike the British and other systems prevalent at the time, it gave American citizens the choice of their own chief executive. Mission: Providing a framework to improve your investing PROCESS, while collecting newsworthy information about trends in business, politics and tech areas. They did not trust that voters would have enough information to make a good choice. A majority of Americans believe the Electoral College should be eliminated. In response to Donald Trump winning the presidency despite losing the popular vote, numerous individuals have weighed in with letters-to-the-editor, op-eds, blog posts, videos, and the like, and thanks to the revolution in digital communications, these items have reached an exceptionally wide audience. Clarence Thomas was appointed by the Bush brothers father, President George H.W. 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 . 1956: Hubert Humphrey's (D-MN) S. J. THE HILL 1625 K STREET, NW SUITE 900 WASHINGTON DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 TEL | 202-628-8503 FAX. A party system was instituted really to fulfill that old function of the Electoral College's, which is to narrow people down and get responsible people to be candidates for the presidency. They say the system is also unfair because it encourages presidential candidates to pay attention to just a handful of swing states. It's composed of senators, each representing a single state. Clearly, whoever won Floridas 25 electoral votes would win the election. Trump won the presidential election despite losing the popular election by more than two million votes. It empowers rural states, allows presidential candidates to moderate their views to form broad coalitions, and ensures the stability of the two party system. Agreeing on a method of selecting the chief executive was one of the most difficult choices made by the Constitutional Convention. In September 28, 2004, Thomas H. Neale wrote an article called The Electoral College: How It Works in Contemporary Presidential Elections for the Congressional Research Service. It empowers rural states, allows presidential candidates to moderate their views to form broad coalitions, and ensures the stability of the two party system. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a121f466c6bfdb9 The brightest students know that the best way to learn is by example! Candidates are compelled to focus on issues important in each state and choose where they want to make a difference. Answer key is compulsory to check all the results. 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). Through a presidential executive order Through an, 11. 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." Further, he has enacted in office not the modest policies of a man without a true national mandate but has fueled our partisan warfare. Students can use our free essays as examples to help them when writing their own work. Will closed his piece by saying what I called a catastrophe can generate moderate mandates for parties that seek a broad consensus., I will concede that the Electoral College might ensure the stability of the two party system. D - It is Unfair In document F it says that if there is a tie in the Electoral college it is up to the House of Representatives to decide who is president. 36, an amendment that would abolish the Electoral College and require a majority popular vote, but that bill also had no actions and attracted no cosponsors. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. a. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. That is why it was written in the Constitution. At 100 signatures, this petition is more likely to be featured in recommendations! The crisis of 1824 then, represented really the collapse of the old system, and an effort to re-institute it in other terms. By: Emilee Delap Doc. 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. majority of the people are not always represented in the Electoral College, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google. The term "college" signifies the original intent that it was to be made up of "political wise men." The Electoral College was also the result of a couple of compromises. It's time to ditch the antiquated. On November 8th, 2016 Donald Trump was elected president because the Electoral College voted for him. The Electoral College voting system goes against republicanism as it contradicts the belief that citizens have the ability to directly choose their leaders. LET'S ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE Are the people smart enough to choose their own leader? The Electoral College system benefits smaller states and . New York: Walker Publishing. 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. My stance to abolish the Electoral College has drawn some ire. Republicans won the 2004 election, but the Electoral College actually gave the Democrats a boost. var jo = document.createElement('script'); The goal of the article was to articulate an in depth look of the Electoral College system. 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. Yes! It was compromise between the states and the people. In this plan, the Electoral College would be abolished as known, but the then 531 electoral votes would still be put to use. Candidates would need to travel everywhere instead of only to a handful of swing states that currently enjoy this attention. If Democrats think they have a shot at turning out voters in rural states, they will tailor their policy agenda to appeal to such voters. Four were appointed by Democratic presidents. Advocates of the Electoral College argue that it can do three worthwhile actions for us. Furthermore, Neale gave a detailed description of the General Ticket system and other alternative systems that give the audience a full spectrum of the Electoral College process. These are certainly problems, but all election systems have problems, national popular vote included. Abolish Electoral College Essay. Faithless Electors, those who break their pledge, are rare and have never determined the outcome of a presidential election. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. They believed it wasn't a good idea for the people to elect the president directly. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Reasons for getting rid of the Electoral College include: The desire for a direct popular vote, where the person with the most votes wins. Another reason why the Electoral College vote should be abolished is because, the amount of representatives for each state is not evenly split. 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. TheDigitalArtist / Pixabay. jo.type = 'text/javascript'; The main complaints against the Electoral College are that it can elect someone who didnt win the nationwide popular vote and that it causes candidates to campaign heavily in battleground states while ignoring those they think they are certain to carry or not. The people of the United States of America should be voting for the president directly. 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. Younger voters also tended to support abolishing the Electoral College. But in 2020, when many hallowed American institutions submitted to street demonstrations and violence, the Electoral College proved a steadfast guardian of democracy. Clinton, who clearly despised Trump, graciously conceded the election on Election Night. In presidential elections, the voters actually vote for a slate of Electors who have vowed to cast their ballots for their preferred President/Vice President ticket. Will closed his piece by saying what I called a catastrophe can generate moderate mandates for parties that seek a broad consensus.. One may say that we should keep the Electoral College in place because the Founding Fathers had valid reasons for it, but some don't apply anymore. Should U.S. Supreme Court Justices Have Term Limits? Since the 18th century, the United States has used the Electoral College, made up of 538 individual electors, to elect its presidents instead of going by the popular vote. I am not alone in holding. In 1787 the Electoral College was created by the framers of the Constitution. The federal government would have to regulate voter and candidate qualifications, voting requirements and election procedures. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. 4. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". However, like any manmade construct the Electoral college has its faults, one being that a candidate can lose the Popular vote and still win the Electoral vote thus winning them the Presidency. . Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. (04.02 MC) Which of the following is a key belief of a supply-side approach to economic and fiscal policy? He shows how the Constitution's text, history, and structure are a crucial repository of collective wisdom, The funds added 7.7% overall in the second half of 2022, outperforming the 3.4% return for Read More. Many rural communities feared that if the vote was counted through a popular vote system that they would equal representation as urban communities would have. Presidential System Could be More Suitable for India, Why Ambedkar Didnt Like Indias Constitution. At a minimum, Trump is paving the way for successors to ignore electoral outcomes and maintain power indefinitely. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. 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. States, battleground or not, would disappear from the electoral calculus. 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. You can view ourterms of use here. The bipartisan bill is designed to close loopholes that could lead to another Jan. 6-type incident that disrupts the electoral count process. Shortly after, former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. introduced his H.J.Res. After three disputed Presidential elections in just 20 years, it's time for Congress to abolish the Electoral College. Those ratings help inform our state-by-state assessments of the delegations. The closest Congress has come to amending the Electoral College since 1804 was in the late 1960s when the House passed a resolution eliminating the College altogether and replacing it with direct election and a runoff election if no candidate received more than 40% of the vote. With the exceptions of Nebraska and Maine, where electors are, awarded according to congressional district, each state's electoral votes are awarded in a winner-take-all, Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The electoral college started with the constitution of the united states, it cited how many electors each state is able to have. But does anyone still believe it is a great idea for our politics? Established in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the Electoral College is the formal body which elects the President and Vice President. Get Our Activist Investing Case Study! George Mason argued that giving the people this choice was like referring a trial of colors to a blind man., Speaking on behalf of the Brearly Committee, Gouverneur Morris said the chief reason for the Electoral College was the indispensible necessity of making the executive independent of the legislature. Nobody had appeared to be satisfied with an appointment by the legislature, he said. Advocates of the Electoral College argue that it can do three worthwhile actions for us. Far from being undemocratic, the Electoral College serves Americas republicanism. 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 . Its as simple as that! Yet this controversial system remains. Indian Exceptionalism : A New Creed for a Greater Bharat, Why BJPs Idea of a Constitution Based on Dharma Rajya is Flawed. Party elders, led by Barack Obama, realized the key to the general election would be moderate suburban voters, including Trump-weary Republicansmany of whom were terrified of Bernie Sanderss socialism and Elizabeth Warrens economic populism. Thanks to Donald Trump, what was once the relic of our system is now an active threat to the future of our democracy. Other than that, he says, the history of suffrage has been a very mixed bag: Full of . Steve Slavin has a Ph.D. in economics from NYU, and has written twenty math and economics books, including The Great American Economy: How Inefficiency Broke It, and What We Can Do to Fix it. The 12th edition of his introductory economics text came out in September. My stance to abolish the Electoral College has drawn some ire. We respect your privacy. 1030L Answer Key 309 views Dec 3, 2020 4 Dislike Share Save Vaporly 247 subscribers This one I completed a while. However, nowadays registered voters can get their news instantly, thus are informed about the candidates. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. (Neale 4 CRS) Neale observes that the general ticket system is used by forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. But every voter should be counted the same, regardless of where he or she lives. Its appointed every four years for this sole purpose by state legislatures, and consists of Electors in a number equal to each states congressional delegation (Representatives and Senators). Why is that a big deal? By one analysis of the 2012 presidential election, four out of five voters had virtually zero influence on the outcome. Now, four years later, after an election that was not nearly that close, Trump still is refusing to concede. If 60,000 votes went the other way in Ohio, George W. Bush would have won the national popular vote by 3 million votes, but John Kerry wouldve been elected. Trump proved in 2016 that you could secure the presidential election by hurling contempt at our cities and blue states, mocking urban ethnic and racial diversity, dividing the country, and losing the popular vote. 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. Your IP: Let's Abolish the Electoral College . As many people think, every four years Americans vote to elect their president. Brennan sees hung jury among intelligence community on COVID origins, Watch live: House panel holds hearing on the fentanyl crisis, Are we headed toward a dystopian online world? In 2000, and again in 2020, the outcomes of elections resulted in Constitutional crises. If you use part of this page in your own work, you need to provide a citation, as follows: Essay Sauce, Should we abolish the Electoral College?. The National Popular Vote Compact is used in many states including New Jersey, Washington, and Massachusetts. Despite sharp polarization of the parties on many issues in 21 st century politics, Republicans and Democrats broadly agree on both longstanding election reform proposals. This article tries to answer the question of whether or not a popular vote would be better able to represent the will of the people more accurately and fairly. They devised a method to elect a president that would ensure that the person elected would not gain too much power and independence. (function () { Only Nebraska and Maine allocate the electoral votes proportionately. The state with the most electors is California, which has fifty-five. These Politics essays have been submitted to us by students in order to help you with your studies. But Id also say that its harder than we think to say that definitively in advance of an election. They were also working to balance the needs of small and large states, as well as slave and free states. And the other is power after Trump. But we need bipartisan support in Congress, a constitutional amendment, and a majority of the states to agree. This makes the candidates focus on swing states needs more than other states in order to win the election. Why The Electoral College Should Be Abolished. The Court voted along party lines, anointing George W. Bush the 43rd president of the United States. Seems fair, well its not. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Neale provides his audience with the origin and purpose of the Electoral College system. The result is that a small number of voters in certain battleground states become kingmakers. We must abolish the electoral college and replace it with the national popular vote. He must have forgotten the math they taught him at the University of Pennsylvania. 69.163.234.236 6. The political party who's slate gets the most votes then controls all of the state's Electoral College votes. Those who wish to abolish the system have laid out plans to replace the system with a more Popular vote oriented system which counts each individual vote directly (Neale 2004). There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. "Yes, let's abolish the electoral college," he told the crowd at the We the People Membership Summit in March. 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. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. While a majority of Republicans (56%) continue to say the current Electoral College system should be maintained, the share who now express support for moving to a popular vote system is the highest it's been since the 2016 election: 42% say this today, up from 37% in 2021 and just 27% in the immediate wake of the 2016 election. It's completely rigged. By clicking Accept All, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Albert Einstein. Compare and contrast Sample's and McConnell's views about the Electoral College. In 2020, the Electoral College began showing its stuff in March, when Joe Biden, who had done poorly in early primaries, suddenly emerged from a pack of far more vivid candidates to become the presumptive Democratic nominee. The alternative systems are the district plan and the proportional plan. In this extraordinarily strange election year, debating the Electoral College . Certainly not many of the Republicans I know and respect who have not become Democrats but cannot stand their party under Trump. I respect Will as an astute observer of politics. This has happened five times: John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, George W. Bush in 2000, and Donald J. Trump in 2016. The College is also a brilliant alternative to runoff elections. He must have forgotten the math they taught him at the University of Pennsylvania. Your vote encourages the electoral college to vote for your nominee What's the system called when a candidate for president gets the majority of the dates popular vote also gets all that states electoral votes Winner take all What's the other system where delegates are divided based on each districts popular vote Proportional Those who wish to abolish the Electoral College use the 2016 Election as an example of why the system is outdated and does not fairly represent the will of the people. Illing: But the dynamics have changed, right? including in the 2000 and 2016 elections. Thomas H. Neales account of the history of the Electoral College provides evidence that the original idea of the plan was changed and revised at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The original method of electing the President and Vice-President, however, proved unworkable, etc. (Neale 2 CRS) Furthermore, Neale acknowledges that the founders and delegates realized that the Electoral College plan was not the perfect system to use in the election process. Gomez states that the National Popular Compact would not work because that the United States is a Democratic Republic not a pure Democracy. Presidential candidates wouldnt need to immerse themselves in local issues. The electoral "college" is an example. Interestingly, the electoral vote totals of Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2016 were identical - 306. A national popular vote would have accentuated rather than moderated the zealous enthusiasms roiling the Democratic Party.. A national popular vote would turn America into a multiparty democracy. Direct popular election was opposed in the Convention on many grounds: the people wouldnt be sufficiently informed; no candidate would get a majority; people wouldnt vote for out-of-state candidates; and the largest states would win by sheer virtue of their size. Last week, we released our initial House ratings for 2024. The one constant in the history of voting rights in America, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Alex Keyssar says, is that no law has ever been passed to restrict the voting rights of upper-middle-class white men. But these periodic crises could never have happened if we had elected our presidents by counting just the popular vote. Could the BJP adopt the Presidential System? Calls for reforming the College grow louder every time it produces as the winner a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote. Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. [4] There are proposals to enlarge the Electoral College to more closely reflect each states population. EssaySauce.com has thousands of great essay examples for students to use as inspiration when writing their own essays. document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(jo); This is unfair because the small states are taking more seats than they should dictating the election. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Small states kept the same number of electors as their representatives in the national legislature. The Electoral College has 538 electors; each state has a set number of electors equivalent to its two US senators plus its number of US congressional house representatives. Clinton, who clearly despised Trump, graciously conceded the election on Election Night.
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