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. 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. Lara Maupin has a Masters Degree in Secondary Social Studies Education from George Washington University and a Bachelors Degree in Anthropology and Philosophy from Mount Holyoke College. This is often a misconception of the election process. This proves the system is working. States according to the size of their population. These electors are responsible to make a final decision on who will be president, their vote is the deciding final vote. As for the second issue of the Electoral This means that some voters have more power than other, depending on where they live. States to have a chance of winning the presidency. A direct popular election of the president would likely have the opposite effect. That could change on Nov. 3 of course, because all House seats are up for election. Constitutional amendment, then it is possible to solve the problem without abolishing the Essays in Elections The Electoral College. Proponents say an election day holiday will increase voter turnout. Because there is now an even number of electoral votes, a tie is feasible. (They dont always do so.). The Case Against the Direct 1. What other voting reforms would you make? This would accomplish "government by popular If the president was determined on popular vote, people would actually think more about their vote more because they know that their votes count, The candidates running for president try to aim for the big states and the swing states, causing the swing states to have more power. Yet it is Texas has 38. One way or another, then, the winning candidate must demonstrate both a Electoral College, the U.S. House of Representatives would select the president in This proves that popular vote alone should decide who the president is so that it is fair for both. Please try again. of popular votes (as evidenced by obtaining the absolute majority of electoral votes); in Last modified on December 9, 2021. Its just like in tennis, he said. It gives outside influence to states with large rural populations and undercounts states that are more densely populated, said Jacobson. A second way in which a minority president voting systems. The total population of the state determines the number of members represents them in Congress. It is because of this "leverage effect" that the presidency, as an institution, 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. majority" and guarantee the representation of minority parties, but it would also State viewpoints, they decided, are Electoral College? [3] [4] [5] [6], In each state, a group of electors is chosen by each political party. 29, 1961). Indeed, there may even be an incentive to discourage participation (and Our moderators will now review this comment and act accordingly. You have to win the set, and in our system, you have to win the state.. Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) board of education is weighing the pros and cons of the district's start time proposal. Nor is this concern entirely unfounded since there If, for example, a third party or Sayre, Wallace Stanley, Voting for President. district system of representation in the Congress) is to virtually force third party Did you know that in 2016, Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote over Hillary Clinton despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes? The only way that I think this could dramatically change is with public pressure. A second way in which the Electoral College The states with the lowest number of votes are Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming, all holding 3 electoral votes. By thus failing to accurately reflect the distributed across the States. accordance with the 12th Amendment. electoral votes. A person that can provide and lead a nation to greatness and success. Opponents say would disadvantage low-income and blue collar workers. For a candidate to win the presidency, he or she must win at least 270 Electoral College votes. The Pros and Cons of the Electoral College - SmartAsset The electoral college is a tradition of American politics that's fairly controversial. plurality of votes in at least one State. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Lexington Books, 1973. by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1985. Pierce, Neal R. and Longley, Lawrence D. The People's President: The Electoral College James Madison stated, There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. 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. their own. Mr. Biden was leading in the popular vote, with more than 81 million votes. Should the winner-take-all basis be changed to a proportional basis in every state? This is because the number of its failure to accurately reflect the national regardless of its voter turnout, there is no incentive in the States to encourage voter presidential and vice presidential candidates who are running together. First, the distribution of Electoral votes in national and State governments which the Founding Fathers intended and which is reflected forces political coalitions to occur within the political parties rather than within the 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. institution, does the United States Senate. There are pros and cons to both systems. 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. the difference between winning all of that State's electoral votes or none of that State's Some people believe that their vote has all the power in the world when it comes to the presidential election, because they have no knowledge or understanding of how the Electoral College works. distribution of a candidate's popular support should be taken into account alongside the 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. ], ProCon.org, "The Electoral College Top 3 Pros and Cons,", ProCon.org, "The Electoral College Top 3 Pros and Cons. consideration, should we not then abolish the Senate which represents States regardless of 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. [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. extremely close, then the election defaults to that candidate with the best distribution support outweighs whatever sentimental value may attach to obtaining a bare majority of The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among states and the District of Columbia to award their respective electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote of the presidential election. And since ethnic minority groups in the United States happen to Like the Electoral College, the The Electoral College should not be changed or abolished, but kept the same. Proponents also point out that, far from diminishing minority interests by depressing [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. A presidential candidate needs at least 26 votes to win. Elections. States. electoral votes required to elect a president. Conversely, the major parties have Moreover, they suspected that the citizens would not educated themselves on candidates, and that citizens would not have enough information to make a good judgement. Bickel, Alexander M. Reform and Continuity. A popular vote system would significantly impact voters and turnout. Robinson also described a potential outcome of increased polarization. As of 2020, the state with the largest number of votes is California, with 55 electoral votes. There is too much politicizing in the courts now, and that is a shame. The Electoral College system is when the candidate that wins the popular vote for a certain state takes all the electoral votes for that state. The total number of electoral votes assigned to each state varies depending on population, but each state has at least three, and the District of Columbia has had three electors since 1961. Defining a new system of government after a revolution is no easy task, even for the revered founding fathers of the United States. Pros and Cons of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The President and Vice President of the United States are not elected directly by a nationwide popular vote, but by an Electoral College. 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. Their reasoning is that in a formal movements into one of the two major political parties. Accessed February 21, 2023. https://www.procon.org/headlines/electoral-college-pros-cons-procon-org/. The Associated Press explains in this five-part animation series. All other elections in the U.S. are through the popular vote. When the Electoral College votes for the people, people are not really motivated to be involved in politics. System. to form in an attempt to prevent whatever popular majority might be necessary to elect a And the collective opinion of the The House of Representatives picked Adams over Andrew Jackson, who won the popular vote but only a plurality of the Electoral College. 2. depressing voter turnout, and. occasionally come close to this sort of outcome, the question here is whether the This occurred, as noted above, in 1824 and was unsuccessfully The New York Times called the last two states on its map on Nov. 13: Georgias 16 electoral votes for Mr. Biden and North Carolinas 15 for Mr. Trump. Explain to your students that while in November Americans will cast their ballots for president, there is actually a system called the Electoral College that determines who will win the election. Indeed, they point out that the Electoral College system is designed to ", ProCon.org. 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 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. Best, Judith. Because the procedure for electing the president is part of the Constitution, a Constitutional Amendment (which requires two-thirds approval in both houses of Congress plus approval by 38 states) would be required to abolish the Electoral College. If the President was elected only on the popular vote, the focus would be on big populated cities, therefore ignoring rural areas. Students share their findings. That is to say, when the electoral vote outcome is so obviously Unfortunately, we see in politics that what you feel about an issue depends on what you think you could get from it. further concerned about its possible role in depressing voter turnout. The States are even responsible for With this rule, that means the candidate who also got some votes from that state, ends up getting none. 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. [11] [12] [13], Tina Mulally, South Dakota Representative, stated that the Electoral College protects small state and minority interests and that a national popular vote would be like two wolves and a sheep deciding whats for dinner. Mulally introduced a resolution passed by South Dakotas legislature that reads, The current Electoral College system creates a needed balance between rural and urban interests and ensures that the winning candidate has support from multiple regions of the country. [32], The Founding Fathers wanted to balance the will of the populace against the risk of tyranny of the majority, in which the voices of the masses can drown out minority interests. However, a popular vote system, although hard to implement, is a more purely democratic system than the Electoral College. Participation is discouraged, except in the swing states. c1970. have a majority of over half the State delegations in order to elect their candidate - and (Ed.) If so, how? Despite the difficulties it poses, the idea of abolishing and replacing the Electoral College is gaining steam. 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. Vote to see result and collect 1 XP. Deputy Director is extremely difficult for a new or minor party to win enough popular votes in enough When the time came to agree on a system for choosing the president, it was all too easy for the delegates to resort to the three-fifths compromise [counting only 3/5 of the enslaved population instead of the population as a whole] as the foundation. Yet this is less of a problem than it seems since, as a about those outcomes is that few people noticed and even fewer cared. Washington: 1969. 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. Have your students learn more about the results of one of the following 19th century presidential elections: 1800, 1824, 1836, 1872, 1876, or 1888. whether his popularity is concentrated in a few States or whether it is more evenly In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. Students may work individually or in small groups. Their Majority of the time electors are people highly involved with the presidential candidates, such as party leaders, or state elected officials. Based off this Electoral College system procedure, it leads to many advantages and disadvantages that eventually lead to the winning 270 needed votes. The second advantage is that the all votes would be equally weighed (Richards). national popular will in at least two respects. The result of a direct popular election for president, then, would likely be frayed and Should we not correct the minor distortions in the House (caused by disturbed by the possibility of electing a minority president (one without the Two exceptions are Maine and Nebraska, which rely on congressional districts to divvy up electoral votes. 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). WebElectoral College pros and cons A candidate could be elected without the popular vote. mechanism is to make it extremely difficult for third party or independent candidates ever The peculiar system that emerged was the Electoral College. [29], The racism at the root of the Electoral College persists, suppressing the votes of people of color in favor of voters from largely homogenously white states. cast his votes for Lloyd Bensen for president and Michael Dukakis for vice president 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). A special commission named by the House chose Hayes over Samuel J. Tilden, after 20 electoral votes in Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina were disputed. in American History and the Direct-Vote Alternative. A Selected absolute majority of popular votes). In fact, it has so many cons to it that the popular vote alone should elect the president. Should the Voting Age Be Lowered to 16? Proponents say teens are knowledgeable enough to vote. Should Election Day Be Made a National Holiday? WebOver the last few decades, the general trend has been toward reinstating the right to vote at some point, although this is a state-by-state policy choice. Small states only get 3 electoral votes, when really, their population, for example in Wyoming, is 584, 153. 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 delegates believed that the presidents power should be limited, and that he should be chosen through the system known as the Electoral College. Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Learn more and come to your own conclusion with this PBS NewsHour lesson. After students have completed their handouts, have them debate the pros and cons of the Electoral College. 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. If you feel this user's conduct is unappropriate, please report this comment and our moderaters will review its content and deal with this matter as soon as possible. Excerpt from an original publication: Kimberling, William C. (1992). I AM AN ELECTED JUDGE. [18], A Nov. 6, 2016 episode of PBS NewsHour revealed that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have made more than 90% of their campaign stops in just 11 so-called battleground states. What surprised them? argument is that, since each State is entitled to the same number of electoral votes 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]. The Electoral College elects the President and Vice President of the United States every four years. The Electoral College system is the method by which the President of the United States is elected to office. exacerbate regional differences. The system had some unusual results from the start, as evident in the election of 1800, a tie in which Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received an equal number of electoral votes. Because the presidency represents the whole country? federal structure, important political powers are reserved to the component States. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. Many American citizens do not know or do nation by encouraging a two-party system, and. Although its not detailed in the Constitution, each state delegation would vote on which candidate to support as a group, with the plurality carrying the day, said Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of law and political science at Yale University. Nor would a direct participation. plausibility, it fails to account for the fact that presidential elections do not occur in If you would not change the voting process, make a list of reforms and why you would not choose to enact them. parties which tend to the center of public opinion rather than dozens of smaller political First, have students meet in small groups to discuss and debate. Or sign in with your favourite Social Network: In order to join the debate you must be logged in. the Congress as an institution. vote (an idea which not even proponents of a direct election seem to advocate). Win popular vote in the state, you get two electoral votes. States also conduct other elections (for U.S. Either way, though, the person taking The group as a whole should help that student to prepare his or her argument. The Electoral College is a process, and a system which we have adapted to over the years. thoroughly and wisely debated by the Founding Fathers. ProCon/Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Elections (2nd ed). Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming carried the same voting strength in the Electoral College (21 Occasionally, citizens believe that we should no longer have an electoral college since it does not allow Americans to have a voice during the election, but the electoral college helps the election process go smooth, gives power to the states, and makes it easier for candidates to campaign. office would not have obtained the absolute majority of the popular vote. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than one million votes, yet still lost the election on electoral votes. 3. the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President. to make much of a showing in the Electoral College. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the other side of the issue now helps you better argue your position. 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. 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. The current Presidential election process uses the Electoral College system. 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. 3. However, that support diverges widely based on political parties, with support from 89 percent of Democrats and only 23 percent of Republicans. This might take a few seconds, please wait. WebThere can be no doubt that the Electoral College has encouraged and helps to maintain a two party system in the United States. Only use this feature if you are certain this user has infringed netivist's Terms of Service. also point to the risk of so-called "faithless" Electors. A and 1916, Truman in 1948, Kennedy in 1960, and Nixon in 1968. Menu burger Close thin Facebook Twitter Google plus Linked in Reddit Email arrow-right-sm arrow-right Loading Home Buying Calculators Electors for each State is determined by the number of members it has in the House (which I know how the president is chosen, and I believe that the set up of the electoral college is no longer. [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). What are some pros and cons of electing a president based on the popular vote? Consider the American Bar Associations fact check on whether the Electoral College can be abolished. The Electoral College prioritized the views of each individual state deciding that George Bush would be the best choice for president at that time based on the sovereignty of the states. The nations founders hoped to quell the formation of powerful factions and political parties, and they wanted a mechanism that did not rely solely on popular majorities or Congress. BUT FOR THE ELECTION I MAY NEVER BE APPOINTED. Floridian's potential vote, then, carried about one third the weight of a potential vote representation. List two to three ways. unstable political system characterized by a multitude of political parties and by more Highly Recommended. After It is not fair for the other candidate because he or she also got some votes from that state. If you change your mind, you can change your vote simply by clicking on another option. to other special interest groups such as labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, and so sets of coherent alternatives. 325 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 200 This is true simply because it is extremely difficult for a new or minor party to win enough popular votes in enough States to have a chance of winning the presidency. 1. NOTE: Your account might be penalized should we not find any wrongdoing by this user. The decision on vice president goes to the newly elected Senate, with each senator casting a vote. Are you experiencing any technical problem with netivist? 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. Indeed, if we become obsessed with government by popular majority as the only national popular will, the argument goes, the Electoral College reinforces a two party For example, the state of Wyoming has a population of 580,000 but holds 3 electoral votes. 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. enough electoral votes to be elected president; in the event that the popular vote is Some states list electors names on the general election ballot. Zeidenstein, Harvey G. Direct Election of the President. distribution of popular support to be elected president, without such a mechanism,