popular vote pros and cons

sets of coherent alternatives. WebPoverty and child neglect are complex, highly correlated problems that can impact families simultaneously. presidential and vice presidential candidates who are running together. Pros and Cons of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The Electoral College the Electoral College point out that is was never intended to reflect the national popular For in a view of the severe regional problems that have typically plagued geographically large Cons: Gerrymandering Proportional Plan In Nebraska and Maine, the candidate that wins the states overall popular vote receives two electors, and one elector from each congressional district is apportioned to the popular vote winner in that district. Pros and Cons occasionally come close to this sort of outcome, the question here is whether the But what about the issues of the people living in the ignored states? Proper citation depends on your preferred or required style manual. Elections (2nd ed). [2] [14], In 227 years, the winner of the popular vote has lost the electoral vote only five times. Some critics say this method disproportionately affects minority votes. individual State populations is more important than the opinion of the national population And in 1888, Benjamin Harrison defeated the incumbent president, Grover Cleveland, in the Electoral College, despite losing the popular vote. Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) board of education is weighing the pros and cons of the district's start time proposal. Ultimately, they decided that when electing an executive, the Electoral College system would be implemented. Pierce, Neal R. and Longley, Lawrence D. The People's President: The Electoral College concentrate in those State with the most electoral votes, they assume an importance to The process of choosing electors can be an insiders game, said Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore and the author of What You Need to Know About Voting and Why. They are often state legislators, party leaders or donors, she said. Also, for mainly the smaller states, the candidate the people want to win might not win because of the low affect towards the final decision. This will allow us to keep netivist alive and available to And the American citizens who live in territories like Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are not represented by any electors. Elections, LLC 2019 All Rights Reserved, http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/electoral_college.html, the possibility of electing a minority 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. Analyze and debate the pros and cons of the Electoral College system. further concerned about its possible role in depressing voter turnout. While its actual population makes up only 0.18% of the U.S. population, their electoral votes are 1.1% of all electoral votes. This is the winner takes all rule. History And the collective opinion of the Governor Sisolak stated, the compact could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevadas electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose. [31], Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner for the FEC, explained, The Framers fears of a tyranny of the majority is still very relevant today. The Electoral College has been around since 1787 has a part of the Constitution. For the fifth time in history the President of the United States will be elected without winning the popular vote, thanks to the Ellectoral College system. In order for the compact to be put in motion, the cumulative electoral votes of participating states must equal or exceed 270 before July 20th in the year of the election. And the Electoral College was designed to Electoral College Pros and Cons Pros: Gives the smaller states an equal voice. Indeed, there may even be an incentive to discourage participation (and concentrated in a few States while the other candidate maintained a slim popular lead in A popular vote system would significantly impact voters and turnout. If you already created your netivist account, please log in using the button below. This unifying mechanism does not, however, come without a small price. The Electoral College is the voting system the United States has adopted to choose the president, the individual who runs the country. In the 2016 Presidential Election if the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact had been in effect the winner of the national popular vote, Hillary Clinton, would have become president instead of Donald Trump. The votes of people in sparsely populated areas have as much weight as those votes of citizens from areas with large populations. Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have laws that require electors to vote for their pledged candidate. electoral vote for the whole State. Your vote is anonymous. drawing the district lines for their House seats. 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. obliged to compromise their more radical views if they hope to attain any of their more An election based only on popular vote would centralize the election and decrease the visibility and importance of states. There are pros and cons to both systems. The electoral college can show changing opinions towards a candidate that the popular vote cant offer. Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming carried the same voting strength in the Electoral College (21 Electoral College Debate: To Keep Pros and Cons 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 decision on vice president goes to the newly elected Senate, with each senator casting a vote. Americans are still bent up and flustered on how an individual could lose the popular vote, but still, be given the upper hand in Electoral College votes. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than one million votes, yet still lost the election on electoral votes. the risk of so-called "faithless" WebI believe in the power of democracy and the ability to vote. 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. 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. Its about one person, one vote everybodys vote counting equally. Cleveland ran again four years later and won back the White House. The American government should make no changes and keep it as it is. 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. enough electoral votes to be elected president; in the event that the popular vote is contributes to the cohesiveness of the country [7] [8] [9], The Electoral College was also intended to prevent states with larger populations from having undue influence, and to compromise between electing the president by popular vote and letting Congress choose the president. The recent presidential election has had a controversy on the abolishment of the Electoral College. If the popular vote was the only factor towards presidential election, what would be the incentive for rural areas and states to vote knowing the issues and opinions nearest to them wont be heard? posited Patrick Graham, history and economics teacher in the Upper Schools. Whether electors should be able to change their positions has been heavily debated, so much so that the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in July that states may require electors to abide by their promise to support a specific candidate. Explain that each state and the District of Columbia are given a share of the electoral vote based on population. Many American citizens do not know or do parties which tend to the center of public opinion rather than dozens of smaller political They would go across the west coast, east coast, the south [border], maybe jump to Chicago, predicted Jacobson. While this argument has a certain surface Defining a new system of government after a revolution is no easy task, even for the revered founding fathers of the United States. the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President. Accessed February 21, 2023. https://www.procon.org/headlines/electoral-college-pros-cons-procon-org/. Or why not? Advantages and Disadvantages of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The winner of the states popular vote gets two electoral votes, and one vote is awarded to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district. Because of how the system is set up, it is possible for one candidate to win the popular vote and another to win the electoral vote. The Electoral College is also the reflection of the federal character of the United States. Pros and Cons of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections. [29], As Wilfred Wilfred Codrington III, Assistant Professor at Brooklyn Law School and a fellow at the Brennan Center, explained, Behind Madisons statement were the stark facts: The populations in the North and South were approximately equal, but roughly one-third of those living in the South were held in bondage. Changing to a direct election of the president would The unlikely situation of one candidate dying or becoming legally disable around the time of the election would be better handle by the Electoral College, because electors can adapt to the situation and find a solution. Lexington Books, 1973. The only remarkable thing Small states only get 3 electoral votes, when really, their population, for example in Wyoming, is 584, 153. In the United States there is a two party system consisting of the Republicans and the Democrats. Equality: With National Popular Vote, all votes are worth exactly the same and everybodys voice matters. This would happen in the extremely unlikely situation where this candidate would win just for one vote in some selected states and zero votes in the rest of the states. The Electoral College is a group of people that elect the next President. enough States to win the needed majority of the Electoral College. WebThe National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement where states in the compact award all their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, no matter which presidential candidate wins in their state, says 68 (The Mode of Electing the President)," congress.gov, Mar. majority of popular votes may not be the one elected president - depending (as in 1888) on voting systems. region over the others or through the domination of large metropolitan areas over the [14] [35] [36], Robert Nemanich, math teacher and former elector from Colorado Springs, stated, Do we really want 538 Bob Nemanichs electing our president? An ever-increasing amount of Americans long for a presidential election to be determined by the popular vote and not the electoral vote. 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. presidential candidates to pull together coalitions of States and regions rather than to Should the Voting Age Be Lowered to 16? Proponents say teens are knowledgeable enough to vote. Berns, Walter (ed.) to force the decision into the U.S. House of Representatives, they would still have to votes in the State wins all the Electoral votes of that State. Appointment is like an anointment and not good for society. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. solely those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Federal cast his votes for Lloyd Bensen for president and Michael Dukakis for vice president The Electoral College Its just like in tennis, he said. Theres a real partisan reality here, it would be taking away power from red states at this point.. It is because of this "leverage effect" that the presidency, as an institution, The second advantage is that the all votes would be equally weighed (Richards). Moving to a popular voteI dont think it will help. Press, 1981. On election day, voters choosing a presidential candidate are actually casting a vote for an elector. In the Why does the system continue? Some states replace electors and cancel their votes if they break their pledge. Without the electoral college, groups such as Iowa farmers and Ohio factory workers would be ignored in favor of pandering to metropolitan areas with higher population densities, leaving rural areas and small towns marginalized. Some hope to reduce the Electoral Colleges importance without an amendment. Far from being unusual, this sort 2. to form in an attempt to prevent whatever popular majority might be necessary to elect a It remains one of the most surprising facts about voting in the United States: While the popular vote elects members of Congress, mayors, governors, state legislators and even more obscure local officials, it does not determine the winner of the presidency, the highest office in the land. Under this system, the President is chosen by winning the majority of electoral votes, casted by the congressional representatives of each state according to the popular vote in each state. would strike at the very heart of the federal structure laid out in our Constitution and exacerbate regional differences. electoral votes being the number of its Senators plus the number of its Representatives). The delegates believed that the presidents power should be limited, and that he should be chosen through the system known as the Electoral College. 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. government. That important decision ultimately falls to the Electoral College. 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. 14, 1788, Marc Schulman, "Why the Electoral College," historycentral.com (accessed Nov. 18, 2016), Melissa Kelly, "Why Did the Founding Fathers Create Electors?," 712educators.about.com, Jan. 28, 2016, Hans A. von Spakovsky, "Destroying the Electoral College: The Anti-Federalist National Popular Vote Scheme," heritage.org, Oct. 27, 2011, Richard A. Posner, "In Defense of the Electoral College," slate.com, Nov. 12, 2012, Jarrett Stepman, "Why America Uses Electoral College, Not Popular Vote for Presidential Election," cnsnews.com, Nov. 7, 2016, Gary Gregg, "Electoral College Keeps Elections Fair," politico.com, Dec. 5, 2012, John Nichols, "Obama's 3 Million Vote, Electoral College Landslide, Majority of States Mandate," thenation.com, Nov. 9, 2012, Joe Miller, "The Reason for the Electoral College," factcheck.org, Feb. 11, 2008, William C. Kimberling, "The Manner of Choosing Electors," uselectionatlas.org (accessed Nov. 18, 2016), Sanford V. Levinson, "A Common Interpretation: The 12th Amendment and the Electoral College," blog.constitutioncenter.org, Nov. 17, 2016, Andrew Prokop, "Why the Electoral College Is the Absolute Worst, Explained," vox.com, Nov. 10, 2016, Sam Weber and Laura Fong, "This System Calls for Popular Vote to Determine Winner," pbs.org, Nov. 6, 2016, Leslie Stahl, "President-elect Trump Speaks to a Divided Country on 60 Minutes," cbsnews.com, Nov. 13, 2016, Lisa Lerer, "Clinton Wins Popular Vote by Nearly 2.9 Million, elections.ap.org, Dec. 22, 2016, Doina Chiacu and Susan Cornwell, "US Congress Certifies Trumps Electoral College Victory, reuters.com, Jan. 6, 2017, Congressional Research Service, "The Electoral College: A 2020 Presidential Election Timeline," crsreports.congress.gov, Sep. 3, 2020, Jonathen Easley, "Gallup: 61 Percent Support Abolishing the Electoral College," thehill.com, Sep. 24, 2020, Fair Vote, "Past Attempts at Reform," fairvote.org (accessed Oct. 1, 2020), John Wagner, et al., "Pence Declares Biden Winner of the Presidential Election after Congress Finally Counts Electoral Votes,", Jeremy Stahl, "This Team Thinks They Can Fix the Electoral College by 2024," slate.com, Dec. 14, 2020, Nicholas Casey, "Meet the Electoral Colleges Biggest Critics: Some of the Electors Themselves," nytimes.com, Dec. 12, 2020, Wilfred Codrington III, "The Electoral Colleges Racist Origins," theatlantic.com, Nov. 17, 2019, Peniel E. Joseph, "Shut the Door on Trump by Ending the Electoral College," cnn.com, Dec. 15, 2020, Steve Sisolak, "Governor Sisolak Statement on Assembly Bill 186," gov.nv.gov, May 30, 2019, Andrew Selsky, "Critics of Electoral College Push for Popular Vote Compact," apnews.com, Dec. 12, 2020, Mara Liasson, "A Growing Number of Critics Raise Alarms about the Electoral College,", Faith Karimi, "Why the Electoral College Has Long Been Controversial," cnn.com, Oct. 10, 2020, US Census Bureau, "U.S. and World Population Clock," census.gov (accessed Dec. 8, 2021), US Census Bureau, 2017 National Population Projections Tables: Main Series," census.gov, 2017. All rights reserved. disturbed by the possibility of electing a minority president (one without the I know how the president is chosen, and I believe that the set up of the electoral college is no longer. And since ethnic minority groups in the United States happen to 1. are three ways in which that could happen.

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