party system. Because there is now an even number of electoral votes, a tie is feasible. national popular majority. If you change your mind, you can change your vote simply by clicking on another option. The ultimate solution was an indirect method of choosing the president With about 93 percent of the countrys slaves toiling in just five southern states, that region was the undoubted beneficiary of the compromise, increasing the size of the Souths congressional delegation by 42 percent. its failure to accurately reflect the national The reasoning behind the Electoral College written in the Constitution is simply expressed that political leaders have more knowledge in the fate of the country rather than citizens. You have to win the set, and in our system, you have to win the state.. Please try again. disturbed by the possibility of electing a minority president (one without the What can your students conclude? College point out, quite correctly, its failure to accurately reflect the However, a popular vote system, although hard to implement, is a more purely democratic system than the Electoral College. The only way that someone would go for something that doesnt support their own political voice is ifcitizens were demanding it and [supporting the compact] is what would get them kicked out or brought into office again [at the next state election], she concluded. The Electoral College More accurate. While its actual population makes up only 0.18% of the U.S. population, their electoral votes are 1.1% of all electoral votes. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1971. One way in which a minority president could Minority groups can have a greater influence on the election, by increasing the participation and helping one candidate to win the popular vote and all the electors in one particular state. Swing states are those where the result of the election is uncertain, therefore spending efforts and money to win these states can have a great impact on the outcome of the election. For example, if you have folks in rural areas that now feel likethey have no voice at all. WebThe Debate Today. Should it be abolished? How is this possible? Deputy Director no one received over 50% of the national popular total. Popular vote is an actual count of individual votes from all states in America while the Electoral College is a measure of the House of Representatives and Senators choosing directly who the president should be (Kimberling, 1992). Should the Electoral College be abolished? [2] [20], Jesse Wegman, author of Let the People Pick the President, stated, If anything, representative democracy in the 21st century is about political equality. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. One effect of this Should Election Day Be Made a National Holiday? The Electoral College does have flaws but it may be able to benefit our election system. Is it fair? could take office is if, as in 1888, one candidate's popular support were heavily You may assign these groups according to your Learning Management System (LMS) if conducting distance or remote learning. With many citizens not understanding whether or not their vote is actually being counted during the election, more debates have risen on if popular vote should be the deciding factor of presidential determinations instead. The same principle applies A direct popular election of the president would likely have the opposite effect. Would they like to see the system changed? We will help you do it! And the Electoral College was designed to Dr. Robin Jacobson, professor and chair of politics and government at University of Puget Sound, said that One [pro of the Electoral College] is that it makes sure that states that otherwise might feel left out of the process are included despite their small size. Electoral votes incentivize voting in less populated states by increasing and emphasizing the impact of each state. Some hope to reduce the Electoral Colleges importance without an amendment. Forty-eight states use the winner-take-all method of appointing electors. absolute majority of popular votes). States. What are some pros and cons of electing a president based on the popular vote? It is hard to imagine what counter-incentive would be created by eliminating the Electoral As a result often presidentialcandidates usually spend less time and money campaigning in California (whichusually votes for the Democratic candidate) or Texas (usually votes for the Republican candidate). Even though, in theory, a pledged elector could change his vote, there have only been very few cases in history when this has happened- Therefore, voters, when casting their ballots, know with almost complete certainty which ticket their vote is will indirectly support. It is because of this "leverage effect" that the presidency, as an institution, a wide audience and to keep on introducing new debates and features to improve your experience. national popular will, the argument goes, the Electoral College reinforces a two party It can be risky, considering if you do it one election when it helps you, but the next election may harm you and there is nothing you can do about it, said Graham. distribution of popular support to be elected president, without such a mechanism, Conversely, the major parties have Like the Electoral College, the NPVIC is a subject of much debate. [1], Prior to the 2016 election, there were four times in US history when a candidate won the presidency despite losing the popular vote: 1824 (John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson), 1876 (Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden), 1888 (Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland), and 2000 (George W. Bush over Al Gore). electoral votes required to elect a president. You would see campaigns giving different geographic emphasis. End with a class discussion. The Electoral College is a process, and a system which we have adapted to over the years. 3. A candidate could be elected without the popular vote. personal favorite knowing full well that it will not make a difference in the result. The electors for each state are the number of House of Representatives Members and plus two for the Senators. However, this idea of redirecting the focus of campaigns is a double edged sword. The fact is, they argue, that the original design of our federal system of government was Either way, though, the person taking The official general election results indicate that Trump received 304 Electoral College votes and 46.09% of the popular vote (62,984,825 votes), and Hillary Clinton received 227 Electoral College votes and 48.18% of the popular vote (65,853,516 votes). 1. Join with confidence, netivist is completely advertisement free. Cons It's not always reliable: The votes of elected officials in a representative democracy may not always reflect the will of the people. argument is that, since each State is entitled to the same number of electoral votes That is to say, when the electoral vote outcome is so obviously forth. What other voting reforms would you make? (Until the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804, the candidate with the second-highest number of electoral votes became vice president.). On Dec. 14, as electors gathered across the country to cast their ballots, Joseph R. Biden Jr. had earned 306 electoral votes, 36 more than needed to win. this century and as recently as 1988 when a Democrat Elector in the State of West Virginia Lastly, an election-related case could find its way to the Supreme Court, which would lend greater importance to the judicial makeup of the court, Professor Wehle said. Once more, the United States President and Vice President were elected by an indirect vote system, known as Ellectoral College. about those outcomes is that few people noticed and even fewer cared. movements, the practical effect of the Electoral College (along with the single-member A second way in which the Electoral College As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. regardless of its voter turnout, there is no incentive in the States to encourage voter Explore this article 1 It's Fair In a direct election, everyones vote counts for the same amount. Electors are chosen by the states to actually cast the official votes for president. Recognizing the strong regional interests and The only way that I think this could dramatically change is with public pressure. The same thing happened in 2016, when Donald Trump won the electoral college vote over Hillary Clinton despite losing the popular vote to Clinton by nearly 3 million votes. People call them faithless electors. In 2016, seven electors 5 Democrats and 2 Republicans broke their promises to vote for their partys nominee, the most ever in history. The result of a direct popular election for president, then, would likely be frayed and A The New York Times defines The Electoral College as a group of people that elects the president and the vice president of the United States (Bromwich 2016). The Electoral College should not be changed or abolished, but kept the same. Al Gore had received more popular vote than. System. contributes to the cohesiveness of the country more or less reflects the State's population size) plus the number of members it has in For example, the state of Wyoming has a population of 580,000 but holds 3 electoral votes. Understand how the Electoral College system works. When the Electoral College votes for the people, people are not really motivated to be involved in politics. Under the electoral college system of voting, the number of representatives a state has in Congress 2. Their unclear how a direct election of the president could resolve such a deep national conflict Explore the Electoral College via the US National Archives. in the Electoral college. By thus failing to accurately reflect the Meanwhile, others see the popular vote as useless and do not believe that their vote will make any difference. To win the election, presidential candidates need electoral votes from multiple regions and therefore they build campaign platforms with a national focus, meaning that the winner will actually be serving the needs of the entire country. Theres a real partisan reality here, it would be taking away power from red states at this point.. sets of coherent alternatives. On election day, voters choosing a presidential candidate are actually casting a vote for an elector. 3. Washington: National Clearinghouse on Election Administration, Federal Election Commission. to force the decision into the U.S. House of Representatives, they would still have to Or why not? Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives. electoral vote for the whole State. Electoral votes) as the 9,614,000 persons of voting age in the State of Florida. In the The Electoral College was born at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Because of the Electoral College, presidential candidates only need to pay attention to a limited number of states that can swing one way or the other. presidential candidates well out of proportion to their number. The Electoral College can also reduce the impact of the votes within safety states. obliged to compromise their more radical views if they hope to attain any of their more College. What surprised them? The officials are not bound by law to vote the way the people who elected them want them to vote. The votes were certified in the early hours of Jan. 7, 2021 by Vice President Pence, declaring Joe Biden the 46th US President. One way or another, then, the winning candidate must demonstrate both a The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. of thing has, in fact, happened 15 times including (in this century) Wilson in both 1912 How and why? The number of electors is based on the total of House of Representative members (435), Senate members (100) and 3 additional voters to represent the District of Columbia. It gives outside influence to states with large rural populations and undercounts states that are more densely populated, said Jacobson. In this lesson, students will learn about the Electoral College how it works in a presidential election and why it was created and consider whether it needs to be reformed. direct popular election, there would be every incentive for a multitude of minor parties History The reasoning behind why the Electoral College was the determining factor for president was declared by the founding fathers decades ago to ensure equality (Pavia, 2011). The flawed winner-take-all system, the lack of a direct correlation between the popular vote and electoral votes, and the unfairness in a tie for the presidency all indicate the Electoral College is outdated and must be abolished. the Congress as an institution. to govern. popular will. also point to the risk of so-called "faithless" Electors. Give your students this handoutand ask them to use the following online resources (or printouts from these Web sites or of these stories that you provide) in order to complete it. Kiersten Schmidt and Wilson Andrews, "A Historic Number of Electors Defected, and Most Were Supposed to Vote for Clinton, nytimes.com, Dec. 19, 2016, Rachael Revesz, "Five Presidential Nominees Who Won Popular Vote but Lost the Election," independent.co.uk, Nov. 16, 2016, National Archives and Records Administration, "The 2016 Presidential Election," archives.gov (accessed Nov. 16, 2016), National Archives and Records Administration, "About the Electors," archives.gov (accessed Nov. 16, 2016), National Archives and Records Administration, "Presidential Election Laws," archives.gov (accessed Nov. 16, 2016), National Archives and Records Administration, "What Is the Electoral College?," archives.gov (accessed Nov. 16, 2016), Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers: No.

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