what would happen if the electoral college was abolished

Only two Republicans voted for someone other than Trump and Pence. 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. This system allows minorities to have a bigger microphone for their concerns as well. Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. It would create problems when multiple candidates run. It is a process that allows the people to choose who serves in the White House instead of throwing it into Congress. In the first instance, states could decide to award 2 Electoral College votes (EVs) to the winner of the national popular vote (NPV) and the remainder to the winner of the state. 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. 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. There have been a total of five candidates who have won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College, with the most recent cases occurring in the 2016 and 2000 . Yes. Ive spent the past few years obsessively analyzing the Electoral College, trying to understand the concerns of the founding fathers, doing the math from different elections. Parties must obtain no less than 7% of votes - either on their own or in alliance with other parties - in order to enter . Bible Commentary Bible Verses Devotionals Faith Prayers Coloring Pages Pros and Cons, 7 Uplifting Prayers for Desperate Situations, 50 Biblically Accurate Facts About Angels in the Bible, 50 Most Profitable Youth Group Fundraising Ideas for Your Church, 250 Ice Breaker Questions for Teen Youth Groups, 25 Important Examples of Pride in the Bible, Why Jesus Wept and 11 Lessons from His Tears, 25 Different Ways to Worship God and Praise the Lord. But it's possible the candidate with the most votes from the public won't be the winner. The great problems with our presidential selection system today stem from the haphazard way we choose the two major party presidential candidates. And while the founding fathers implemented this voting process as a way to "preserve the sense of the people" in other words, to go against the popular vote's wishes if the elite few chosen to be electors felt that the winner was unqualified or unfit most states now abide by a "winner-takes-all" method of distributing votes that renders the original purpose moot. The founders fought like cats and dogs over how the president should be chosen. There are currently 538 electors up for grabs in an election, which means a majority of 270 is necessary to elect the President. See: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/10/21/can-the-electoral-college-be-subverted-by-faithless-electors/. This spring, numerous candidates for president expressed support for either abolishing or changing the Electoral College, which ultimately picks the U.S. president. In the ensuing 215 years, the Electoral College system itself has changed little, although the popular vote has been rightfully guaranteed to millions more previously denied on the basis of race, gender and age. Electoral college reform: What would happen if Congressional districts This action would allow the popular vote winner to take the White House. If the Electoral College system begins to prevent, on a regular basis, the popular vote winner from becoming president, it will create systemic challenges. Instead of having a regional focus that incorporates specific campaigning elements, there would be a national campaign instead. The Electoral College website now has an easy-to-remember address. Under the current plan, states that join will not activate the compact until enough states have joined to total 270 electoral votes. For instance, if a hotly contested state like Wisconsin broke for the candidate who lost the popular vote, eight of its ten electoral votes would be added to their tally. hide caption. This cant go on. 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. The effort in Congress to overhaul America's election system followed the contentious 1968 presidential contest. What Is the Electoral College and Why Was It Created? - History Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. Candidates focus on swing states because they actually have a chance of flipping them and winning a bucket of electoral votes. Abolishing the Electoral College: Since the year 2000, there have been five presidential elections. Here's What Critics Say Is Wrong With The Electoral College : NPR Is the Electoral College a Problem? For almost the first half century of the republic, presidential candidates were chosen by the caucuses of the two parties in the House and the Senate. 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. Still, Levy said if he had to bet on whether the U.S. will still be using the Electoral College in 20 years he thinks it will. 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. Thats almost 1.5 billion votes. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Why, or why not? 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. It provides for separate votes for president and vice president and specified that those individuals must be from different states. 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. Two hundred years after James Madisons letter, the state winner-take-all rule is still crippling our politics and artificially dividing us. Stanford University. As a result, most are considered safe, that is, comfortably in hand for one party or the other. So if the results of most presidential elections tend to reflect the choice of the people, why do we still have the Electoral College? Because the Electoral College is based on the structure of state populations and representation in the House, some people have a vote that carries more weight per delegate than others. 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. But the real interests of small-state voters are never determined by the relative size of the population of their states. Having the person who loses the popular vote win the presidency will seriously undermine the legitimacy of our elections. Without the Electoral College in place, presidential candidates would build platforms that would speak to their base. A split of electoral votes has occurred once in each of these states. In the history of the United States, there have been five elections where the eventual winner didnt receive a clear majority of the vote. Stanford, CA 94305-6105 What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished These states currently total 196 electoral votes, although after the 2020 census is completed, projections suggest a net loss of two seats, lowering that number to 194. Enslaved people couldnt vote, but they were still counted toward the slave states representation in Congress. For one thing, slavery. Article V sets up the manner by which an amendment is passed. But after the presidential election in 1800 resulted in an acrimonious tie vote between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the12th Amendmentwas ratified in 1804. The state also reelected their Republican governor in 2020. The political game in the United States would change dramatically without the Electoral College present. There will always be a concern about the tyranny of the majority in the United States. That probably promotes a more national and less regional vision. In the interactive diagram The Battleground States Biden and Trump Need to Win 270, you are able to build your own coalition of states to see how either candidate, President Trump or former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., can win the election. The effect is to erase all the voters in that state who didnt vote for the top candidate. This issue exists in the Electoral College when the rural states face off with the urban ones. Recurring debt ceiling fights will only be solved by budget reform, Amend the Constitution so the candidate who receives the most votes wins. So overall, while the Electoral College may not make much of a difference to the results of our modern elections, it forces our politicians to have a larger scope of the issues facing this country, rather than just focusing on the concerns people in areas with large populations care about. That system worked well until the two-party system briefly died with the Federalist Party. Based on your understanding, do you believe the Electoral College is democratic? In late September, when the Republican nominee's numbers in the polls saw a significant rise and nearly eliminated Clinton's huge post-convention lead, forecasts still had her snatching the election with 17 more electoral votes than her opponent. That means if you live in a rural area, your vote may count more toward who gets to be the eventual president. And sure, the last two times the Electoral College has awarded the White House to the popular-vote loser, its been to the Republican Donald Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000. If you live in a state where youre in the political minority, your vote is effectively erased. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished? 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. 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. There were two additional votes for Sanders that were invalidated in Minnesota and one for Kasich in Colorado. Throughout history there have been over 700 attempts to reform or abolish the Electoral College, according to the Congressional Research Service. But heres the important part. The winner of the Electoral College vote is usually the candidate who has won the popular vote. Third, defenders of the Electoral College also claim that it supports the underlying value of federalism. A plan to scrap the Electoral College via constitutional amendment would not pass in the current environment. 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. Although there are some advantages to this system, the disadvantages have been highlighted in recent elections. We need to think hard, and quickly, about how to reform three aspects of the presidential nomination process: the debates, the primary elections and the conventions. 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. 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. The Electoral College thus presents democratic risks without serving any of its original purposes. They disagreed so strongly that the final system wasnt adopted until the last minute, thrown together by a few delegates in a side room. No more Electoral College? Here's how campaigning might change It also prevents candidates from going into states where the electorate typically votes for the other party. Switching to this standard system would not likely create an adverse result. The Electoral College Will Destroy America, The Battleground States Biden and Trump Need to Win 270, free daily writing prompts for remote learning. Not one was a first-rank president, but their selection did not seriously injure the democratic character of our system. Or is it working the way it is supposed to? Keeping the electoral college restricts the voting to acknowledged states only. 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.". Source: Daily Kos Elections. The most popular alternative is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). Do they outweigh the arguments that Mr. Wegman presents? 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. 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. RT @Valkary: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SHOULD BE ABSOLVED AND ABOLISHED. Third, a national election might provide a cure for the delegitimation of presidential authority that has afflicted the last three presidencies. That same view will doubtless color the 2016 election as well. It doesnt. 2. A few states provide criminal penalties if an elector violates the requirement. The issue that could make Joe Biden unelectable is not in his control and is a far greater threat to his re-election than any single policy question. Having this structure go away would encourage more third-party development. This isnt rocket science. Thanks to the Internet, telephones, email, social media, and every other form of communication that we have today, people can choose for themselves whether a new story has an underlying sinister bias. Do you agree with him that the winner-take-all system that most states use for the Electoral College is undemocratic and unfair? What Might Make Joe Biden Unelectable Is a Very Scary Threat

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