popular vote pros and cons

Thus, there is an incentive for national and State governments which the Founding Fathers intended and which is reflected The Presidential election is considered a take all election. Once more, the United States President and Vice President were elected by an indirect vote system, known as Ellectoral College. accordance with the 12th Amendment. presidential and vice presidential candidates who are running together. Its about one person, one vote everybodys vote counting equally. The Electoral College has also awarded the presidency to candidates with a plurality of the popular vote (under 50 percent) in a number of cases, notably Abraham Lincoln in 1860, John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. It is uncertain what the effect on the motivation of the voters will be. In the Electoral College system, voters cast theirballots toelect designated intermediaries, known as electors, who have usually pledged to vote for a particular "ticket", i.e. Yet it is This means that some voters have more power than other, depending on where they live. Pros and Cons of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. What can your students conclude? The important number is 270. groups. The Electoral College has been around since 1787 has a part of the Constitution. Should it be abolished? James Madison stated, There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. What are some pros and cons of electing a president based on the popular vote? Moving to a popular voteI dont think it will help. Best, Judith. and might well bring about consequences that even the reformers would come to regret. Just login. enhances the status of minority interests, contributes to the political stability of the Politicians are usually pretty cautious when it comes to these things because it is not a good long-term option with demographics in this country starting to change. As has been shown by analyses of multiple past elections, the Electoral College does favors one major party over another. 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. The Electoral College Have each group select one student to present an argument in favor of or against the current system to the class. For a candidate to win the presidency, he or she must win at least 270 Electoral College votes. Opponents of the Electoral College are Accessed February 21, 2023. https://www.procon.org/headlines/electoral-college-pros-cons-procon-org/. There are currently 538 electors, representing the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Inkwell Copyright 2023 FLEX WordPress Theme by SNO Log in, Dr. Robin Jacobson, professor and chair of politics and government at University of Puget Sound, said. the Congress as an institution. The President and Vice President of the United States are not elected directly by a nationwide popular vote, but by an Electoral College. Electoral College, the U.S. House of Representatives would select the president in Washington: American If so, how? Vote to see result and collect 1 XP. election, though, simply because most often their purpose is to make a statement rather occasionally come close to this sort of outcome, the question here is whether the According to an Atlantic / PRRI poll from 2018, 65% of adults support switching to a popular vote system. 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. They will do as promised if the candidates do a very good job vetting them and picking people who are rock-solid, Professor Amar said. The decision on vice president goes to the newly elected Senate, with each senator casting a vote. radical changes in policies from one administration to the next. https://www.nytimes.com/article/the-electoral-college.html. If you are new to netivist, please create your account for free and start collecting your netivist points! extremely close, then the election defaults to that candidate with the best distribution It gives each vote an equal amount of power. Students may work individually or in small groups. population? A single citizens vote really does not matter. (Until the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804, the candidate with the second-highest number of electoral votes became vice president.). You might be seeing people throw up their hands and say, what does one vote in the whole country matter?, Robinson also described a potential outcome of increased polarization. institution, does the United States Senate. But just 538 people decide who will be president; thats about 0.000156% of the population deciding the president. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1985. Consider the American Bar Associations fact check on whether the Electoral College can be abolished. For years there have been debates about abolishing the Electoral College entirely, with the 2016 election bringing the debate back to the surface. The debate of whether the Electoral College should be abolished or not has. Is it fair that a president can be elected without winning the popular vote? electoral votes required to elect a president. drawing the district lines for their House seats. A third way of electing a minority president Likewise, the winner of the popular vote is variable. (Voters in one of those states, Colorado, on Nov. 3 backed membership in the compact after opponents of the measure collected enough signatures to put the law on the ballot as a referendum.) People are rational actors; they are making a calculation if their vote is one of all the citizens in the United States, they may think that the possibility that their vote is going to matter is less. to govern. Discuss. in that case, they would hardly be considered a minor party. 68 (The Mode of Electing the President)," congress.gov, Mar. [25], On Monday Dec. 19, 2016, the electors in each state met to vote for President and Vice President of the United States. 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). to form in an attempt to prevent whatever popular majority might be necessary to elect a distribution of a candidate's popular support should be taken into account alongside the Fifteen states and the District of Columbia, which together control 196 electoral votes, have signed on to an interstate compact in which they pledge to grant their votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Elections problems can be isolated in one state, therefore limiting the effect on the whole election. WebPoverty and child neglect are complex, highly correlated problems that can impact families simultaneously. 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. depressing voter turnout, and. I worry and wonder what, as we see a growth in right wing military activity and citizen vigilantes, the perception of taking away power, [would do]. in American History and the Direct-Vote Alternative. support outweighs whatever sentimental value may attach to obtaining a bare majority of In the United States there is a two party system consisting of the Republicans and the Democrats. As for the first issue, that the Electoral College over-represents rural WebElections are complex processes, and direct elections have both advantages and disadvantages. a vacuum. There are arguments that the states with smaller populations are overrepresented in the Electoral College, because every state gets at least 3 electors regardless of population. Other believe it is as flawed, if not less flawed, than any other system thought of. Of those visits, nearly two-thirds took place in the four battlegrounds with the most electoral votes Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina. [19], Gautam Mukunda, political scientist at Harvard University , explained that states are given electors based on its representation in the House and Senate, so small states get extra votes. which might well deepen the political divisions while trying to resolve them. in the Electoral college. helps to maintain a two party system in the United States. It is because of this "leverage effect" that the presidency, as an institution, Some scholars have said they do not wholeheartedly agree with the decision, arguing that it endangers an electors freedom to make decisions they want and that electors are usually picked for their loyalty to a candidate or party. below. Learn more with this video: After the 2000 election, a majority of Americans favored abolishing the system, and by 2020, that. by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president. Advantages and Disadvantages of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. view of the severe regional problems that have typically plagued geographically large Gallup reports 61 percent of Americans support abolishing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote. Congress broke the tie, and Jefferson became president and Burr became vice president. This is often a misconception of the election process. A direct popular election of the president would likely have the opposite effect. plausibility, it fails to account for the fact that presidential elections do not occur in I do not think this system is fair, I think it contradicts the fact that as Americans we are given the freedom to vote, but it seems as though the peoples vote actually doesnt decide much. History Its the Electoral College, not the national popular vote, that determines who wins the presidency. a system of proportional representation? Defining a new system of government after a revolution is no easy task, even for the revered founding fathers of the United States. In other words, such a system Far from being unusual, this sort Election of the President. Our moderators will now review this comment and act accordingly. rural ones. its failure to accurately reflect the national In New Mexico, electors can be charged with a felony if they abandon their pledge, and in Oklahoma a faithless elector could face a misdemeanor charge. popular will. The conclusion taken away from this very definition is that the people of the United States are not really the ones responsible for electing the president. Today, electors meet in their respective states on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December Dec. 14 this year to cast separate ballots for president and vice president, with the candidates who receive a majority of votes being elected. Already have an account on netivist? 325 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 200 For as things stand now, no one region contains the absolute majority (270) of Or sign in with your favourite Social Network: In order to join the debate you must be logged in. small that either candidate could govern effectively. unstable political system characterized by a multitude of political parties and by more system, in contrast, encourages political parties to coalesce divergent interests into two [7] [8] [9], According to Alexander Hamilton, the Electoral College is if not perfect, it is at least excellent, because it ensured that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. [7], Democratic Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak vetoed a measure in 2019 that would add the state to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would have obligated the states electors to vote for the popular vote winner. Appointment is like an anointment and not good for society. Should Election Day Be Made a National Holiday? The Electoral College was born at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The direct consequence of using an Electoral College and a winner-take-all basis in most states is that a presidential candidate can be elected to the office without winning the popular vote, as it happened in the previous four occasions, more recently in 2000 when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore. While the system may seem fair, the Electoral College is at its core an outdated process that heavily favors small swing states, causing the election to not always align with popular vote of the American people. However, a popular vote system, although hard to implement, is a more purely democratic system than the Electoral College. ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY: Copyright 2021 NewsHour Production LLC. direct popular election, there would be every incentive for a multitude of minor parties Why does the system continue? Not only it already happened five times, but in theory, a candidate could win the presidency with only 22% of the popular vote in a two-candidates race. would lead to the nationalization of our central government - to the detriment of the is if a third party or candidate, however small, drew enough votes from the top two that This leads to an intense focus on battleground states, as candidates look to boost their electoral advantage by targeting states that can help them reach the needed 270 votes of the 538 up for grabs. The only remarkable thing Other presidents who lost the popular vote but won the presidency include John Quincy Adams and Rutherford B. Hayes in the elections of 1824 and 1876. than make a difference. [10], Using electors instead of the popular vote was intended to safeguard the presidential election against uninformed or uneducated voters by putting the final decision in the hands of electors who were most likely to possess the information necessary to make the best decision in a time when news was not widely disseminated. If there are reasons to maintain State forces political coalitions to occur within the political parties rather than within the Electors are chosen every four years in the months leading up to Election Day by their respective states political parties. Imagine you have been elected to the presidency and have the power to amend this portion of the constitution, which allows for the electoral college. While its actual population makes up only 0.18% of the U.S. population, their electoral votes are 1.1% of all electoral votes. the event the country is so divided that no one obtains an absolute majority of electoral It did not change the outcome. Its just like in tennis, he said. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win. Just as in 2000 when George W. Bush received fewer nationwide popular votes than Al Gore, Donald Trump served as the President of the United States despite being supported by fewer Americans than his opponent. Many American citizens do not know or do One route would be a constitutional amendment, which would require two-thirds approval from both the House and Senate and ratification by the states, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. Thus we end up with two large, pragmatic political Two exceptions are Maine and Nebraska, which rely on congressional districts to divvy up electoral votes. This is an example of increased voting power that raises the importance of voters even in less populous states. Voter ID laws? More than 74 million votes had been counted for Mr. Trump. The Electoral College comprises 538 electors; each state is allowed one elector for each Representative and Senator (DC is allowed 3 electors as established by the Twenty-Third Amendment). Each state is authorized a specific amount of electoral votes, based solely on the number of members that state has in Congress. Elections. national popular majority. Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have laws that require electors to vote for their pledged candidate. 3. 3. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? The Electoral College is defined as a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president. Since 1787 the Electoral College has been the system for voting in the United States, but with our nation ever more changing and growing it, Several years after the United States came to be, the Constitutional Convention met to determine how the new nation should govern itself. ProCon/Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. It was even a talking point among 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. (They dont always do so.). In most states (Maine and Nebraska are the only exceptions) the electors are elected on a winner-take-all basis, which means that the candidate with more votes in one state wins all the pledged electors of thatstate. Below are the proper citations for this page according to four style manuals (in alphabetical order): the Modern Language Association Style Manual (MLA), the Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago), the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), and Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Turabian). Opponents say would disadvantage low-income and blue collar workers. Anyone can read what you share. Opponents of the Electoral College system going to be for one candidate or the other, an occasional Elector casts a vote for some If that happens in the Electoral College, then the decision goes to the newly seated House of Representatives, with each state voting as a unit. The views expressed here are In a state that maybe is clearly Republican or Democratic, it makes the minority feel like they never have a voice in electing a presidential candidate, explained Jacobson. electoral votes being the number of its Senators plus the number of its Representatives). The same goes for Republican strongholds and a Democratic candidate. Pros: No winner-take all. By thus failing to accurately reflect the Participation is discouraged, except in the swing states. relative size of it. The same principle applies WebAdvantages of the Electoral Vote over a Popular Vote Supporters of using the electoral vote argue that it protects the rights of smaller states and is a cornerstone of American federalism. American Enterprise Institute The electoral college can show changing opinions towards a candidate that the popular vote cant offer. Graham discusses one potential benefit of the NPVIC: In states like California, where in almost every case all of the Electoral votes will go to the Democratic Party, what reason does a Republican candidate have to visit there (regardless of the large number of Republicans that reside there)? Floridian's potential vote, then, carried about one third the weight of a potential vote The group as a whole should help that student to prepare his or her argument. 1. Elections (2nd ed). Under the electoral college system of voting, the number of representatives a state has in Congress 2.

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