Almost no one would adopt an Electoral College today if we were starting from scratch. Then in 2016, Donald Trump won the Electoral College despite receiving 2.1% less of the popular vote. A plan to scrap the Electoral College via constitutional amendment would not pass in the current environment. But reforming the Electoral College does not rank high among our national problems. 10. It seems to me that the original system may have been superior to what we now have. **Here, we treat the District of Columbia as a single congressional district (as the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution does for the purposes of the Electoral College). There have been three: John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush. 3Qs: Should the Electoral College be abolished? - News During the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had 90% of their campaign stops in only 11 states. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. This means that every election, 80 percent of American voters, roughly 100 million people, get ignored. This system allows minorities to have a bigger microphone for their concerns as well. The general threshold that an election result must reach to trigger an automatic recount is a difference of 0.5% of the vote or less. Even if all 25 of the states that Mr. Biden won in 2020 were to ratify such an amendment, nine additional states that President Trump won would need to ratify it as well. Electoral college reform: What would happen if Congressional districts In 2016, the results were even more dramatic. It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. There is a trigger for NPV to go into effect, and we are creeping ever closer toward it.10 When enough states have entered the compact to reach a majority of the electoral votes270 out of 538the compact will then kick in. Mr. Wegman argues that reforming the Electoral College isnt a partisan issue its a fairness issue. 6. The system calls for the creation, every four years, of a temporary group of electors equal to the total number of representatives in Congress. Here's What Critics Say Is Wrong With The Electoral College : NPR This is the heart of the problem with the Electoral College. Although there are some advantages to this system, the disadvantages have been highlighted in recent elections. It would stop the requirement to redistribute the electoral votes. But explaining exactly how it does this remains a mystery. ), and the big state-small state divide no longer animates our politics, if it ever did. Now, Trump feels the Electoral College is "far better for the U.S.A." as he wrote Tuesday on Twitter. Save Our States, The Status of National Popular Vote, https://saveourstates.com/threats/the-status-of-npv (accessed April 17, 2020). In part, that is because the Electoral College is constitutionally mandated, and abolishing it would require a constitutional amendment. But dont forget, Bush won the popular vote four years later by three million votes. Think about it. That meant more power for those states under an Electoral College system, and slave states didnt want to give up that power. By 2019, the median state was Kentucky with 4,467,673 which made it 11% of the population of California, the biggest state in the union with 39,512,223 people. Younger voters also tended to support abolishing the Electoral College. It would create problems when multiple candidates run. Second, a national popular vote would eliminate the battleground state phenomenon that has now become the key feature of post-convention campaigning, leaving most Americans alienated from the decisive phase of presidential elections. What would happen if the Electoral College was abolished? Abolishing the Electoral College: Since the year 2000, there have been five presidential elections. This is because the president is not . So it's possible for a candidate to win more votes overall across the country than a rival but not be inaugurated because of insufficient support from the Electoral College: a scenario that has occurred twice in the past two decades. It would only come into effect when it could guarantee that outcome. It's called the national popular vote movement, and it's already been passed into law in many states, totaling 196 electoral votesthe states include big ones like California and New York and small ones like Vermont and Hawaii. What do you think of Mr. Wegmans arguments? There would need to be a Constitutional amendment if the compact idea doesnt work. There are over 300 million people currently residing in the United States, but only 538 people actually get to choose who gets to be the president. The way it gets implemented is the result of dozens of state laws, which evolved over time as the country settled into a two-party system. But the fact is that we are now one country, whereas in 1789 we were 13 colonies desperately trying to hold onto some semblance of their independencehence a political deal was struck that now threatens the very democracy for which they were trying to create a lasting framework. Turkey general election 2023 guide: what you need to know | CNN In recent years, a new scheme has emerged that claims it can bypass the seemingly insurmountable impediment of a constitutional amendment process but have the same result of nullifying the Electoral College: The National Popular Vote Compact (NPV). The only states that matter to either party are the battleground states especially bigger ones like Florida and Pennsylvania, where a swing of a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can shift the entire pot of electors from one candidate to the other. The basis for the Electoral College is found inArticle II, Section 1of the Constitution, which spells out how the president shall be chosen. And even though it is widely acknowledged that the Electoral College is a ticking time bomb that could seriously erode American democracy, none of these attempts has been successful. Eliminating this barrier could mean that some parts of the country never become part of the overall campaign. 7. The point is, even accounting for demographic changes, neither party has a built-in advantage under a popular-vote system. LIASSON: It would take a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College, so that's not going to happen. While people were moving to the coasts, especially California, the Electoral College stayed the same. It doesnt. The effect is to erase all the voters in that state who didnt vote for the top candidate.
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