I respect Will as an astute observer of politics. But Trump considers himself the winner this year. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. She also states that a Popular Vote would cause certain states and highly populated regions to have an unfair advantage in representation over the more rural areas in the presidential election. Campaigns would focus on large, voter-rich metropolitan areas and media markets, and on appeals to national demographic and occupational groups. Considering that Trump won three normally Democratic rustbelt states Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by razor-thin margins totaling just 80,000 votes, perhaps landslide might not have been the most accurate description of the outcome of that election. But does anyone still believe it is a great idea for our politics? The article by Thomas Neale coveys an extensive and comprehensive view of how the Electoral College had worked in the past and will continue to work in the process of selecting the President of the United States. If we make it through this election, we must make changes to the system that led here. How Do Bacteria Become Resistant Answer Key; Peds Exam 1 - Professor Lewis, Pediatric Exam 1 Notes; MKT 2080 - Chapter 2 Essay; Chapter 8 Practice; The Electoral College consists of electors in each state that cast their votes for the president based on how their constituents voted in the general election. Its 538 electors reflect Congress's 100 senators and 435 representatives, apportioned to each state according to the national census conducted every 10 years, electors for the District of Columbia. Moreover, Thomas Neale article depicts the procedure of awarding each states electoral votes. method is known as the Electoral College. Its as simple as that! (4 points) Libertarian Conservative A) No regulation Moderate regulation B) Government management of the, 5. It's time to ditch the antiquated way we choose presidents. Will closed his piece by saying what I called a catastrophe can generate moderate mandates for parties that seek a broad consensus.. Performance & security by Cloudflare. The Electoral College is unfair and should be . Almost all states rely on a "winner takes all" system in which every party in each state creates a slate of electors equal to the number of Electoral College votes the state has. Thomas H. Neales account of the history of the Electoral College provides evidence that the original idea of the plan was changed and revised at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The original method of electing the President and Vice-President, however, proved unworkable, etc. (Neale 2 CRS) Furthermore, Neale acknowledges that the founders and delegates realized that the Electoral College plan was not the perfect system to use in the election process. When the Electoral College was almost abolished? The Electoral College is also essential to our nations political cohesiveness. (download the rest of the essay above). The Electoral College consists of electors, and an absolute majority of votes is needed for a candidate to win the election. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. First, the Electoral College is felt to be an outdated system which is no longer necessary for our elections (The Electoral College). The Green New Deal the electoral college should be abolished jessica ponik civics block march 19, 2019 couple of years after the united states was established, Skip to document. Where the agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of fairness of the Electoral College system. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Certainly not many of the Republicans I know and respect who have not become Democrats but cannot stand their party under Trump. They think it antiquated, irrational and undemocratic and argue for scrapping it in favor of a national popular vote. including in the 2000 and 2016 elections. 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. Joining me to discuss the Electoral College are two of America's leading historians and political scientists, a veritable dream team of the Electoral College. Its primary function is to malapportion political power, and it does so indeed, has always done so with strikingly awful consequences. And because states want to maximize their influence in selecting the president, they also have a strong incentive to use a winner-take-all approach to awarding electors, which all but two states currently do. A majority of Americans believe the Electoral College should be eliminated. It was devised during the framing of the Constitution in order to provide a method of indirect election for the Office of President. In like manner, Thomas Neale also conveys the detail of how the electors are chosen and the electoral votes are established for each state. "The main complaints against the Electoral College are that it can elect someone who didn't win the nationwide popular vote and that it causes candidates to campaign heavily in 'battleground states' while ignoring those they think they are certain to carry or not. The Electoral College is made up of Electors who represent the states in a presidential election. Trump proved in 2016 that you could secure the presidential election by hurling contempt at our cities and blue states, mocking urban ethnic and racial diversity, dividing the country, and losing the popular vote. Albert Gore accepted the result, even though he had won the popular vote by 540,000. Let's abolish the Electoral College Created to protect the slave states, it is championed now by conservatives who fear the power of America's true majority. 2) Swing States vs. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Steve Slavin - Nov 23, 2020, 2:52 pm. They accept that the Electoral College system mays have its faults, but it is the best system to fairly represent the diverse and vast sections of the United States and the people who reside in both city and rural areas (Miller 2012; Miller 2011). Your IP: Get the entire 10-part series on our in-depth study on activist investing in PDF. In 1787 the Electoral College was created by the framers of the Constitution. var jo = document.createElement('script'); Survey Methods. However, despite its faults, as a system is has a foundation conducive to reform rather than abolition. When candidates only visit a few states and even a few regions in those few states, you really see a warping of policy priorities. It cant solve our problems on its own, but has given us a measure of stability to try for ourselves. They say the system is also unfair because it encourages presidential candidates to pay attention to just a handful of swing states. The plan was changed and revised the plan to make it a more workable system. Abolish The Electoral College And Replace It With National Popular Vote, Please speak to a licensed financial professional, DAX Index is back above its 200-day average after surging, Palo Alto Networks On Track For 52-Week High. Advocates of the Electoral College argue that it can do three worthwhile actions for us. A failure to elect a President, or worse, the choice of a chief executive whose legitimacy might be open to question, could precipitate a constitutional crisis that would require prompt, judicious, and well-informed action by Congress. Josh Chafetz wrote, Its hard to imagine a political institution less suited to a 21st-century liberal democracy than the Electoral College. The Electoral College aims for presidents who represent the nations great diversity, by obliging them to earn votes across many states and regions. Everyone gets one vote. It empowers rural states, allows presidential candidates to moderate their views to form broad. Please sign this petition to pressure the government to change the process of our presidential election to a popular vote. Presidential candidates wouldnt need to immerse themselves in local issues. Trump won the presidential election despite losing the popular election by more than two million votes. When we were kids on the playground and an angry dispute ensued, someone would always shout "majority rules." And we'd vote. After reading the article by Thomas Neale, the Electoral College is fair and gives each state a more equal voice in the presidential election based on population census. The one constant in the history of voting rights in America, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Alex Keyssar says, is that no law has ever been passed to restrict the voting rights of upper-middle-class white men. The Electoral College has 538 electors; each state has a set number of electors equivalent to its two US senators plus its number of US congressional house representatives. But every voter should be counted the same, regardless of where he or she lives. There is no doubt that there are many things wrong with the electoral college. But Id also say that its harder than we think to say that definitively in advance of an election. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". There are two reasons they want to abolish the Electoral College: One, of course, is Trump. Should The Electoral College Be Abolished? This helped our country pick a winner in many presidential elections where there were multiple candidates. In 2016, although the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, received almost three million more votes than Donald Trump, the Republican, Trump received 306 electoral votes to Clintons 234 a victory Trump termed a landslide.. Right now, small states have no voice because they, like big states and medium-size states across the country, are not battleground states. Lewis is saying that the "playing field" is not equal when it comes to the vote. Nearly all states follow the winner-take-all system, awarding all electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in that state. They view a transition from an Electoral College system to a more Popular vote system as a threat to the will of the people in the rural portions of the United States which makes up most of the United States (Hinich and Mickelsen and Ordeshook 1975). Most states however use oaths and penalties to bind them. Wegman: Its a great question, and I think it really gets to the heart of what the problem is here. In 2020, when Joe Biden won the popular vote nationally by 6 million votes, Donald Trump tried to steal the Electoral College through baseless accusations of fraud and attempts to intimidate key Secretaries of State. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. If the Electoral College doesnt produce a majority winner, the election of the president goes to the House of Representatives where each state casts a single vote. The 2016 presidential election has sparked an unprecedented interest in the Electoral College. Having a majority determine the winner of our presidential elections can moderate both parties considerably. On election night just like this year the election was too close to call. Will himself left the party for this actual reason in 2016. The Electoral College has elected the president and vice president of the United States since the nation's, beginnings. All our essays are uploaded by volunteers. On November 8th, 2016 Donald Trump was elected president because the Electoral College voted for him. Ultimately, Levinson said, under the Electoral College system, "it isn't voters who decide elections. My stance to abolish the Electoral College has drawn some ire. Mya Sims Ms. The Constitutional crisis was finally over. Will you do the same? The electoral "college" is an example. Almost 50 percent of Americans polled want to abolish the Electoral College, according to data from an Economist /YouGov poll published on Wednesday. This has heightened calls to abolish what some say is an antiquated system of electors. Steve Slavin has a Ph.D. in economics from NYU, and has written twenty math and economics books, including The Great American Economy: How Inefficiency Broke It, and What We Can Do to Fix it. The 12th edition of his introductory economics text came out in September. Only Nebraska and Maine allocate the electoral votes proportionately. Alex Keyssar is Matthew W. Sterling Jr. Could the BJP adopt the Presidential System? Created to protect the slave states, it is championed now by conservatives who fear the power of America 's true majority. He is now a vice president at the Aspen Institute and a senior fellow with the Bipartisan Policy Center. 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