In September 28, 2004, Thomas H. Neale wrote an article called The Electoral College: How It Works in Contemporary Presidential Elections for the Congressional Research Service. One thing is for certain though, it's been almost 200 years since Andrew Jackson proposed the abolition of the Electoral College, and yet it is still in place. 1 It's electors who decide elections, and there is a . The brightest students know that the best way to learn is by example! 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, a product of American exceptionalism and constitutional structures, continues to influence the outcome of national elections by establishing the rules of the game. Calls for reforming the College grow louder every time it produces as the winner a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote. If 60,000 votes went the other way in Ohio, George W. Bush would have won the national popular. I respect Will as an astute observer of politics. Four were appointed by Democratic presidents. We saw this happen in the 2016 election with Donald J. Trump losing the Popular vote but won the Electoral vote and thus the 2016 election. (function () { DBQ packet, 1(Multiple Choice Worth 4 points) (04.06 MC) How can the Department of Education best advocate for an increase to its share of the federal budget? The Electoral College does empower rural states. In 1787 the Electoral College was created by the framers of the Constitution. (Neale 4 CRS) Neale observes that the general ticket system is used by forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. 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. The funds (full-name Excess Cash Flow Value Funds), which invest in an event-driven equity and credit strategy, have produced a 12.6% annualised return over the past 26 years. Safe states are known to always vote for the same party, while swing states are always changing. Please sign this petition to pressure the government to change the process of our presidential election to a popular vote. They devised a method to elect a president that would ensure that the person elected would not gain too much power and independence. [6], Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College [Book by Jesse Wegman reviewed in The New York Times by Josh Chafetz; March 17, 2020][7]. When the Electoral College was almost abolished? A national popular vote would have accentuated rather than moderated the zealous enthusiasms roiling the Democratic Party.. We do NOT offer any paid services - please don't ask! It was devised during the framing of the Constitution in order to provide a method of indirect election for the Office of President. Richard Nixon in 1968 won 43% of the popular vote but 56% of the Electoral College, and Bill Clinton in 1992 won 43% of the popular vote but 69% of the Electoral College. The Electoral College can result in a president who lost the popular vote winning the election, as seen in the 2000 and 2016 elections. Survey Methods. Gomez explains that the National Popular Vote Compact is supported by many politicians including Senator Joseph A. Griffo, Newt Gingrich, and Billy Hewes of Mississippi. Two electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate winning the overall popular vote in each of the then . Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. It was compromise between the states and the people. 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. State electoral vote results are reported to Congress and other designated authorities; they are then counted and declared at a joint session of Congress held on January 6 of the year after the election; Congress may, however, change this date by joint resolution. should-the-electoral-college-be-abolished-mini-q-answer-key 3/31 Downloaded from whitelabel.nightwatch.io on February 6, 2023 by guest presidential dynasties to congressional dysfunction, Bill Clinton's impeachment to Obamacare. 2) Swing States vs. Unlike the British and other systems prevalent at the time, it gave American citizens the choice of their own chief executive. 69.163.234.236 The Electoral College is a antiquated voting system, slipped into the U.S. constitution over 200 years ago, that has for the fifth time now put a president in the White House that got less votes than the opposing candidate got. Neale provides his audience with the origin and purpose of the Electoral College system. The Electoral College Is Racist [By Laura Thompson; March-April Issue 2021][9]. Mission: Providing a framework to improve your investing PROCESS, while collecting newsworthy information about trends in business, politics and tech areas. Both sides agreed to let the U.S. Supreme Court settle the outcome once and for all. However, despite its faults, as a system is has a foundation conducive to reform rather than abolition. It empowers rural states, allows presidential candidates to moderate their views to form broad. Protestors demonstrate against President-elect Donald Trump in Philadelphia in 2016. Neale gives a complete assessment of the plans that describes examples of how each plan works. George Mason argued that giving the people this choice was like referring a trial of colors to a blind man., Speaking on behalf of the Brearly Committee, Gouverneur Morris said the chief reason for the Electoral College was the indispensible necessity of making the executive independent of the legislature. Nobody had appeared to be satisfied with an appointment by the legislature, he said. It is these officials who choose the President and Vice President of the United States. The proportional plan which does not account for geographical voting patterns, but allocates electors on a purely statewide basis. (Neale 5 CRS) was voted on in Colorado in 2004 and did not pass. Will closed his piece by saying what I called a catastrophe can generate moderate mandates for parties that seek a broad consensus.. It's composed of senators, each representing a single state. Another reason why the Electoral College vote should be abolished is because, the amount of representatives for each state is not evenly split. 280 Words | 2 Pages. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or print it out to read anywhere! EssaySauce.com is a free resource for students, providing thousands of example essays to help them complete their college and university coursework. And the other is power after Trump. The Founding Fathers knew that there needed to be a system like an electoral college in place to ensure the USA flourishes. Gomez states that the National Popular Compact would not work because that the United States is a Democratic Republic not a pure Democracy. Clearly, whoever won Floridas 25 electoral votes would win the election. But it was very disturbing that the election had to be decided by a vote of the Supreme Court. Mya Sims Ms. 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. Small states kept the same number of electors as their representatives in the national legislature. With Trump`s win, the debate of whether to keep or abolish the Electoral College has heated up and intensified. But the the closest Congress has come to amending the Electoral College since came in 1969, when a proposal for direct popular election of the president, with a runoff if no candidate got more. The alternative systems are the district plan and the proportional plan. I have argued for decades that we need to get rid of the Electoral College. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. The electors cast separate ballots for President and Vice President, after which the Electoral College ceases to exist until the next presidential election. 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. 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.. (Neale 2 CRS) Basically, Neale is saying the Electoral College provides additional leverage to states that have a smaller population. The framers struggled for months considering the alternatives: direct election; legislative choice; gubernatorial election; even lottery. Election by national popular vote would dispense with the need for continental diversification. Laura Thompson wrote, The case against the Electoral College is straightforward: Because states are allocated electors based on the size of their congressional delegations, those with smaller populations have an outsize influence on presidential elections. Republicans won the 2004 election, but the Electoral College actually gave the Democrats a boost. Follow; Follow; Follow; Follow; name snowflake generator; what does not guilty mean in court; craigslist wenatchee materials; another word for defamation of character; play rugby league support; gives accent crossword clue; Reasons for getting rid of the Electoral College include: The desire for a direct popular vote, where the person with the most votes wins. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2012/06/20/duvergers-law-is-dead/, [13] Constitutional Convention quotations are from Madisons Notes; https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1909#Elliot_1314-05_2172, [14] https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#changes, [15] Actually, the Electoral College Was a Pro-Slavery Ploy by Akhil Reed Amar, The New York Times, 6 Apr 2019, Why India Needs the Presidential System [Book]. Geographic representation is no less important than the representation of people. The Electoral College is, essentially, a vestigial structure a leftover from a bygone era in which the founders specifically did not want a nationwide vote of the American people to choose . 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. The United States, Presidential elections provide a level of legitimacy to each new administration by following the will of the people (Clayton 2007; Koza 2016). 2011-2023 VALUEWALK LLC. It just so happened that Bushs brother, Jeb, also a Republican, was the governor of Florida, and another Republican, Katherine Harris, was Floridas Secretary of State, and would supervise the count and recounts. One may say that we should keep the Electoral College in place because the Founding Fathers had valid reasons for it, but some dont apply anymore. Southern states were able to extend the three-fifths compromise, counting slaves in the presidents selection without openly parading the fact. At 100 signatures, this petition is more likely to be featured in recommendations! Bush. Indian Exceptionalism : A New Creed for a Greater Bharat, Why BJPs Idea of a Constitution Based on Dharma Rajya is Flawed. 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. Created to protect the slave states, it is championed now by conservatives who fear the power of America 's true majority. Ultimately, Levinson said, under the Electoral College system, "it isn't voters who decide elections. A majority of Americans believe the Electoral College should be eliminated. I am not alone in holding this perspective. Most Americans, by a wide margin, believe the Electoral College should be abolished. Republicans won the 2004 election, but the Electoral College actually gave the Democrats a boost. Campaigns would focus on large, voter-rich metropolitan areas and media markets, and on appeals to national demographic and occupational groups. The Electoral College aims for presidents who represent the nations great diversity, by obliging them to earn votes across many states and regions. Unsubscribe at any time. At 100 signatures, this petition is more likely to be featured in recommendations! EssaySauce.com is a completely free resource for students. Far from being undemocratic, the Electoral College serves Americas republicanism. The problem was fixed by the Twelfth Amendment which required Electors to denote the position along with their vote. Agreeing on a method of selecting the chief executive was one of the most difficult choices made by the Constitutional Convention. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. 1956: Hubert Humphrey's (D-MN) S. J. 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. The term "college" signifies the original intent that it was to be made up of "political wise men." The Electoral College was also the result of a couple of compromises. When every ballot is counted in the same way, then the winner becomes easier to declare. This has heightened calls to abolish what some say is an antiquated system of electors. Clinton, who clearly despised Trump, graciously conceded the election on Election Night. 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. "Yes, let's abolish the electoral college," he told the crowd at the We the People Membership Summit in March. The January 6 committee could have called on Congress to begin the process of amending the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College, while at the same time recognizing the difficulties . Between 1800 and today, the number of constitutional amendments introduced into Congress to significantly alter or abolish the Electoral College totals somewhere close to a thousand. Without it, the small and sparsely populated states that make up most of the country would be ignored by presidential candidates. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. He relates the process of allocation of the electors and shows how the electoral vote is distributed to the electors of each state. Please speak to a licensed financial professional before making any investment decisions. After tracing the Electoral College's tangled origins at the Constitutional Convention, he explores the efforts from 1800 to 2020 to abolish or significantly reform it, showing why each has failed. The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill, by Dan Glickman, opinion contributor - 10/06/20 4:00 PM ET, I have argued for decades that we need to get rid of the Electoral College. Abolish Electoral College Essay. The Electoral College has elected the president and vice president of the United States since the nation's, beginnings. In conclusion, the opposing view of the system insists the Electoral College is unfair and that every vote should count. majority of the people are not always represented in the Electoral College, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google. Who is the Real Architect of India's Constitution, Nehru or Ambedkar? 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