Make sure to update your bookmarks! 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. If you live in a state where youre in the political minority, your vote is effectively erased. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/learning/is-the-electoral-college-a-problem-does-it-need-to-be-fixed.html. 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. Under the current system, voters in each state cast their ballots for electors, of which 270 are necessary to win. The Constitution provides no express role for the states after appointment of its presidential electors, the 10th Circuit panel said, adding, Once appointed, (electors) are free to vote as they choose.. 4. 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. 14 Pros and Cons of Abolishing the Electoral College 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. Why did President Obama spend so much money bailing out the auto industry? 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. It creates 50 individual contests. Abolishing The Electoral College Would Be More Complicated Than - NPR But as people moved and the economy changed so did that ratio. 5. If the Electoral College is a racist relic, why has it endured? "There's no realistic chance of a Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College," said Jacob Levy, a professor of political theory at McGill University. Tell us about it. Learn more about how to use our free daily writing prompts for remote learning. First, there's the Constitutional problem. In fact, lets tally up all the votes cast for president between 1932 and 2008. That means the major party that can maintain its base could win elections without a clear majority. The general threshold that an election result must reach to trigger an automatic recount is a difference of 0.5% of the vote or less. What happens if a candidate with electoral votes dies or becomes Plenty. In each case, the number of faithless electors who exercised that behavior would not have had a meaningful impact on the outcome. Despite what you may have learned in school, it was not the product of careful design by brilliant men. As we begin the third decade of the 21st century, change benefits the Democrats. 6. Over 2.8 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump, but it was Trump who won the White House because of the results of the electoral map. That is not to say the Electoral College is without its advantages. Changing or eliminating the Electoral College can be accomplished only by an amendment to the Constitution, which requires the. John Kasich, a Republican, even though Colorado law required electors to cast their votes for state-winner Hillary Clinton, a Democrat. 3. It can be fixed. 2: The founders wanted it this way. Opinion | Abolish the electoral college - The Washington Post 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. Do you think that more states or all states should join the compact? It would stop the requirement to redistribute the electoral votes. PDF It's time to abolish the Electoral College - Brookings So, the state at the median had 19% of the population of the largest state. 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. It is extremely difficult to amend the Constitution. 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. [2] Both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature are currently controlled by Democrats; however, the 2020 elections shifted both chambers to Republican control. Yet, ratification happens not by popular vote but by state legislature. The Electoral College is outlined in Article II, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution. The two-party system solves the fractured vote problem more effectively than the Electoral College ever did, and the electors never exercised genuine independence. Keeping the electoral college restricts the voting to acknowledged states only. All parts of the country would not be involved in the selection of the president. Most Americans, by a wide margin, believe the Electoral College should be abolished. Third, defenders of the Electoral College also claim that it supports the underlying value of federalism. 61% of Americans Support Abolishing Electoral College by Megan Brenan Story Highlights 61% prefer amending Constitution to use popular vote to elect president 89% of Democrats, 23% of Republicans. We have an Electoral College because thats what the founders added to the Constitution at the last minute. The U.S. Census creates the allocations of electoral votes that each state receives. This is just one way the legacy of slavery still taints our politics today. Why? As the Washington Post has shown, the four most populous states, California, Texas, Florida and New York are all dramatically underrepresented in todays Electoral College. The main problem with the Electoral College today is not, as both its supporters and detractors believe, the disproportionate power it gives smaller states. Under the current plan, states that join will not activate the compact until enough states have joined to total 270 electoral votes. Many of them were unhappy with the results. They do not matter because they have any special civic characteristics. The elected officials of both parties have incentives to choose candidates with an eye toward popular electability and governing skill. Currently, 15 states and DC have approved the NPVIC. Social change can seem sudden, as if millions awoke one day to the same realization. Voting By Mail Is On The Rise, But Could Alleged N.C. Election Fraud Change That? In each case, the number of faithless electors who exercised that behavior would not have had a meaningful impact on the outcome. hide caption. After a long battle in Florida Bush won the state narrowly, giving him an Electoral College victory of 271 to 266 over Al Gore. No more Electoral College? Here's how campaigning might change In fact, there is already a movement brewing among states to agree to award their electors to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. That line garnered one of her largest roars of applause for the evening. Kitty on Twitter: "RT @Valkary: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE The current system is weighted too heavily in favor of celebrity appeal, demagogic displays and appeals to narrow special interests. If a candidate wins the popular vote in a state, even by a single vote, they get all of that states electoral votes. On this date, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College and provide for the direct election of the President using the results of the national popular vote. RT @Valkary: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SHOULD BE ABSOLVED AND ABOLISHED. "And the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting and that means get rid of the Electoral College.". 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. 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. Having an election in which victory went to a candidate carrying a single national constituency might not wholly cure this problem, but it might well work to mitigate it. Out of those visits, almost 70% of them happened in only four states: North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.