Parties must obtain no less than 7% of votes - either on their own or in alliance with other parties - in order to enter . What does arthur schlesinger, jr. say would happen if the electoral And because they created it, its a sacred work of constitutional genius. Only two Republicans voted for someone other than Trump and Pence. Why? The founders fought like cats and dogs over how the president should be chosen. Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992 with only 43% of the vote, and then in 1996 with 49.2%. Without the Electoral College in place, presidential candidates would build platforms that would speak to their base. Republicans especially worry about tipping the balance away from their party. Hans von Spakovsky, Destroying the Electoral College: The Anti-Federalist National Popular Vote Scheme, Heritage Legal Memorandum No. The current system for electing a U.S. president traces back to 1787. Switching to this standard system would not likely create an adverse result. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center Opinion | Will the Economy Make or Break Biden in 2024? If such an amendment were to pass Congress, defeat in the states is likely. For years, a majority of Americans have opposed the Electoral College. What would happen if the Electoral College was eliminated? Do they outweigh the arguments that Mr. Wegman presents? 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. Here are the yea and the nay. Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at an organizing event in February. The corrosiveness of this system isnt only a modern concern. Article V sets up the manner by which an amendment is passed. In this video excerpt from our Oct. 22 panel, Mr. Wegman argues that states should join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a plan to guarantee that the candidate who receives the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia wins the presidency. 2: The founders wanted it this way. 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. But really, scholars say, consensus is constructed through thousands of small acts over generations. Only one election was so close that it had to go to the House of Representatives, which is how John Quincy Adams won over Andrew Jackson. Is the way Americans choose the president undemocratic and unfair? Started in the mid-2000s, the NPVIC is a fairly straightforward system that capitalizes on the constitutional guarantee that states are free to determine the manner in which they award their electoral votes. Opinion | Abolish the electoral college - The Washington Post Nonetheless, it is likely the most viable alternative to the current Electoral College system. Currently, 15 states and DC have approved the NPVIC. Each of those states has Democratic control of the state legislature. 1. It channels presidential politics into a two-party system, which is superior to multiparty systems where fringe factions can exercise too much leverage. Spend some time moving states into the Biden and Trump circles and make notes about what you notice and wonder. This reflects how uncommon it is to reach the Oval Office without winning the popular vote; it has only happened four times in United States history. Throughout our nations history there have been many unwise attempts to abolish the Electoral College, but these proposed constitutional amendments saw little success and unsurprisingly failed to gain traction. That means there must be a majority of states that agree with a specific candidate instead of allowing the people to decide who they want to have as president. There have been some unusual elections, such as the 1972 affair when Richard Nixon took 520 electoral votes to George McGoverns 16. As a result, most are considered safe, that is, comfortably in hand for one party or the other. 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. Erdogan's 'polar opposite' wants to replace him as president of Turkey. And, as our colleague Bill Galston has written, the Electoral College continues to be a ticking time bomb. In the 2020 presidential election a shift of just 45,000 votes in three states, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona could have shattered Americans belief in the legitimacy of their political system by creating a tie in the Electoral College and sending the election to the House of Representatives. These Americans, chosen for loyalty to their political party, will vote for the presidential candidate who won their states popular vote. Next week five hundred and thirty-eight American citizens will travel to their state capitals and elect the president of the United States. {{currentYear}} American Bar Association, all rights reserved. This has happened five times in American history. The political game in the United States would change dramatically without the Electoral College present. In the 20th century there were 25 presidential elections and none of them resulted in an Electoral College winner who lost the popular vote. Its just basic fairness. Keeping the electoral college restricts the voting to acknowledged states only. In this case, 19 state legislatures are currently controlled solely by Democrats. Most states have a winner-take-all system that awards all the votes of a states electors to the presidential candidate who obtains the most votes in that state. But after the presidential election in 1800 resulted in an acrimonious tie vote between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the12th Amendmentwas ratified in 1804. 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. No other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like it, and for good reason. It gives a slight edge to candidates with broad-based support in many states over those who rack up huge majorities in just a few large states. But dont forget, Bush won the popular vote four years later by three million votes. And even when that doesn't happen, Wegman sees another problem with the . Britannicas ProCon.org lists three reasons: 1) The founding fathers thought the Electoral College was the best method for electing the president.2) The Electoral College ensures that different parts of the country, such as Iowa and Ohio, are involved in selecting the president, rather than just the most populated areas.3) The Electoral College guarantees certainty, whereas a popular vote system might lead to no candidate getting a majority. 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. It wasnt the first time a president won by losing or the second or even the fourth. 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.". After reading the article and watching the video, what questions do you have for Mr. Wegman? It doesnt have to be this way. In the history of the United States, there have been six presidential elections that would have qualified for this issue and three of them have occurred since 1968. It should be noted, there is debate about the permissibility of such a proposal and its going into effect would likely face a flurry of lawsuits. Today, 48 states use winner-take-all. If the U.S. were to abolish the electoral college, then the restrictions that territories experience against voting in this election would disappear. Majority supports changing Electoral College system for U.S The election, as Mr. Trump would say though not for the right reasons is rigged. Activists, with the aid of misguided state legislators, have begun to gain ground in the states, with NPV arising as a serious threat to the stability of our presidential election process. Turkey general election 2023 guide: what you need to know | CNN A Constitutional Amendment to Abolish the Electoral College 2? 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. They want the option to select a president based on who gets the most votes nationally. 61% of Americans Support Abolishing Electoral College - Gallup.com The crisis of 1824 then, represented really the collapse of the old system, and an effort to re-institute it in other terms. Thats not true either. But its logic, its distortion of the democratic process and its underlying flaws will still strongly influence the conduct of the election. Why? Instead of having a regional focus that incorporates specific campaigning elements, there would be a national campaign instead. I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A. Gregg says that change would radicalize politics. Changing or eliminating the Electoral College can be accomplished only by an amendment to the Constitution, which requires the. Under the current system, voters in each state cast their ballots for electors, of which 270 are necessary to win. Under these laws, which states adopted to gain political advantage in the nations early years, even though it was never raised by the framers states award all their electors to the candidate with the most popular votes in their state. This ensures that smaller rural and industrial communities will have their issues addressed by those seeking office. Instead of a politician trying to appeal to someone with specific needs, the adoption of a general platform that maximizes votes in urban centers would become the emphasis of each party. Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke said there is a "lot of wisdom" in the idea and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., also said she's open to it. But if youre a voter in the United States, theres a really good chance your vote doesnt count the way you think it does. It is true that the Electoral College no longer serves its original purposes, and that it creates a grave risk that a candidate not favored by a majority of the people will, from time to time, be elected president. They are simply party loyalists who do not deliberate about anything more than where to eat lunch. But swing states distort our national priorities, even when the president wins the popular vote. It can be fixed. Second, a national popular vote would eliminate the battleground state phenomenon that has now become the key feature of post-convention campaigning, leaving most Americans alienated from the decisive phase of presidential elections. This shift would likely benefit that party for more than a generation. In two of these elections, a. In the U.S., 65 percent of adults think whoever wins the popular vote should hold the nation's highest office, according to an Atlantic/PRRI poll last year. "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.
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