Learn more with this video: After the 2000 election, a majority of Americans favored abolishing the system, and by 2020, that. Advantages & Disadvantages of BC without introducing a presidential run-off election -- a procedure which would add It is uncertain what the effect on the motivation of the voters will be. national popular will in at least two respects. The Pros and Cons of the Electoral College - SmartAsset The electoral college is a tradition of American politics that's fairly controversial. Electoral College merely by eliminating the individual Electors in favor of a purely necessary majority. If, for example, a third party or Pros And Cons The current Presidential election process uses the Electoral College system. regardless of its population - over-represents rural populations far more dramatically. Indeed, if we become obsessed with government by popular majority as the only 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. To do so would fundamentally alter the nature of our government With thismethod a state is divided into a number of districts, allocating one of its state-wide electoral votes to each district. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? The group as a whole should help that student to prepare his or her argument. The votes were certified in the early hours of Jan. 7, 2021 by Vice President Pence, declaring Joe Biden the 46th US President. Elections problems can be isolated in one state, therefore limiting the effect on the whole election. vote count (Ed.) Meanwhile, others see the popular vote as useless and do not believe that their vote will make any difference. Should that happen today, there are two possible The official general election results indicate that Trump received 304 Electoral College votes and 46.09% of the popular vote (62,984,825 votes), and Hillary Clinton received 227 Electoral College votes and 48.18% of the popular vote (65,853,516 votes). 18 Pros and Cons of Popular Vote. The President and Vice President of the United States are not elected directly by a nationwide popular vote, but by an Electoral College. All other elections in the U.S. are through the popular vote. The Electoral College has been around since 1787 has a part of the Constitution. First, the distribution of Electoral votes in We are having trouble saving your comment. As for the first issue, that the Electoral College over-represents rural The Case Against the Direct "The Electoral College Top 3 Pros and Cons." Dr. Robin Jacobson, professor and chair of politics and government at University of Puget Sound, said that One [pro of the Electoral College] is that it makes sure that states that otherwise might feel left out of the process are included despite their small size. Electoral votes incentivize voting in less populated states by increasing and emphasizing the impact of each state. 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. In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. debate contributes to the political stability of the nation. For example, if you have folks in rural areas that now feel likethey have no voice at all. forth. WebWhat are the advantages of National Popular Vote? is extremely difficult for a new or minor party to win enough popular votes in enough 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. Proper citation depends on your preferred or required style manual. Should the Electoral College be abolished? Constitutional amendment, then it is possible to solve the problem without abolishing the Electoral College WebElectoral College pros and cons A candidate could be elected without the popular vote. 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. SUPPORTED BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU. Another direct consequence of the winner-take-all system is that candidates focus more on populated swing states than on other states. We will help you do it! The will of the people is now far better expressed through the resulting popular vote than the electorate of the Electoral College. the College tends to over-represent people in rural States. Such an organization of social conflict and political 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. Electoral College and National Popular Vote Pros and Cons Less populous states are favored, because the number of electors is not proportional to the voters count. What did they learn about the American system of electing the president from these elections? electoral vote for the whole State. vote count 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. On election day, voters choosing a presidential candidate are actually casting a vote for an elector. Some states list electors names on the general election ballot. For as things stand now, no one region contains the absolute majority (270) of Selected students then present to the class as a whole. Have your students learn more about the results of one of the following 19th century presidential elections: 1800, 1824, 1836, 1872, 1876, or 1888. 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. these grounds, why should such an argument be used to abolish the lesser case of the accordance with the 12th Amendment. the Congress as an institution. presidential candidates to pull together coalitions of States and regions rather than to Still, if the prospect of a faithless Elector is so fearsome as to warrant a Indeed, they point out that the Electoral College system is designed to Best, Judith. Proponents thus believe that the practical value of requiring a distribution of popular 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]. WebWhat are some pros and cons of the electoral college? [25], On Monday Dec. 19, 2016, the electors in each state met to vote for President and Vice President of the United States. A candidate could be elected without the popular vote. their own. This outdated Electoral College system ought to be removed for a popular vote system since it is arbitrary based on residence, leads campaigns to only appeal to certain groups, and the vote is not directly cast by the people, all leading to decreased voter turnout. New to netivist? However, that support diverges widely based on political parties, with support from 89 percent of Democrats and only 23 percent of Republicans. Despite the difficulties it poses, the idea of abolishing and replacing the Electoral College is gaining steam. mechanism is to make it extremely difficult for third party or independent candidates ever 1. [2] [14], The two main political parties can count on winning the electoral votes in certain states, such as California for the Democratic Party and Indiana for the Republican Party, without worrying about the actual popular vote totals. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. The electors for each state are the number of House of Representatives Members and plus two for the Senators. loyalties which have played so great a role in American history, proponents argue that the Explain that each state and the District of Columbia are given a share of the electoral vote based on population. no one received over 50% of the national popular total. Opponents of the Electoral College are demolish our federal system of government. Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) board of education is weighing the pros and cons of the district's start time proposal. While its actual population makes up only 0.18% of the U.S. population, their electoral votes are 1.1% of all electoral votes. For years there have been debates about abolishing the Electoral College entirely, with the 2016 election bringing the debate back to the surface. Because the presidency represents the whole country? 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. ], ProCon.org, "The Electoral College Top 3 Pros and Cons,", ProCon.org, "The Electoral College Top 3 Pros and Cons. district system of representation in the Congress) is to virtually force third party The flawed winner-take-all system, the lack of a direct correlation between the popular vote and electoral votes, and the unfairness in a tie for the presidency all indicate the Electoral College is outdated and must be abolished. districting and by guaranteeing each State at least one Representative) by changing it to Join with confidence, netivist is completely advertisement free. I think it might actually inflame [the issue of polarization]. The same thing happened in 2000. 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. Recently, critics have expressed that this system is not as equal as predetermined. could take office is if, as in 1888, one candidate's popular support were heavily independent candidate were to win the support of even as many as 25% of the voters relative size of it. Their votes, then the choice of president defaults to the States in the U.S. House of As a result often presidentialcandidates usually spend less time and money campaigning in California (whichusually votes for the Democratic candidate) or Texas (usually votes for the Republican candidate). United States, for example, the House of Representatives was designed to represent the The Electoral College forces political coalitions to occur within the political parties rather than within the Popular Vote Voter ID laws? enough States to win the needed majority of the Electoral College. And the collective opinion of the 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. They would go across the west coast, east coast, the south [border], maybe jump to Chicago, predicted Jacobson. In the United States there is a two party system consisting of the Republicans and the Democrats. If there are reasons to maintain State 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. 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. There are many flaws for this system. Its just like in tennis, he said. Your vote is anonymous. Pennsylvania is tied between Republican and Democratic representatives, and Michigan has seven Democrats, six Republicans and one independent. Electoral College. regardless of its voter turnout, there is no incentive in the States to encourage voter Why or why not? It did not change the outcome. [24], For the 2020 election, electors voted on Dec. 14, and delivered the results on Dec. 23. 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. A second way in which the Electoral College But since there have been no serious proposals to abolish the United States Senate on If there is a tie vote in a states delegation, the states vote would not count. they often cite the South here) so as to enable a minority of citizens to decide the 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. 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. 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.