Video: The Buffalo shooting, how far have we come on race? Still, Levy said if he had to bet on whether the U.S. will still be using the Electoral College in 20 years he thinks it will. Given your understanding, do you believe the Electoral College is democratic? Today, all of the state legislatures (with the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska, which award by congressional district) award all . The Electoral College should not be abolished for three reasons. California is 37% white. It could exist whether its form was that of a monarchy, aristocracy, theocracy, or even a democracy. If so, how? The candidate must win 270 or more votes from the electoral college this can be done by winning less than a fourth of all states. We have an Electoral College because that's what the. This spring, numerous candidates for president expressed support for either abolishing or changing the Electoral College, which ultimately picks the U.S. president. It seems that when our Founding Fathers were about the task of writing our Constitution they were almost unanimous on two basic ideas. "I believe we need a constitutional amendment that. Donald Trump could win the presidency without a popular-vote majority only because both parties have been locked into base-turnout strategies that are partially responsible for our governments ineffectiveness and gridlock. Roughly 60 million Americans live in rural counties, and they arent all concentrated in rural states. In actual votes, the difference was only 112,911, an incredibly small amount compared to the total number of votes in Florida: 9,501,617. The House meets twice each year, at ABA Annual and Midyear Meetings. She received 65,853,516 votes, and President Donald Trump, 62,984,825 votes. Under the current system, voters in each state cast their ballots for electors, of which 270 are necessary to win. But specifics vary. It were best to draw the veil of oblivion over the weakness of character which like a moral contagion afflicts this good land in these later years, except for the menace to our free institutions contained therein. Why did no one at Walmart realize this before this offensive and humiliating event happened? - The Fulcrum , Biden to tell nation that democracy has survived - The Fulcrum , The Electoral College would be improved by more members - The Fulcrum , We can build on agreed-upon election fundamentals - The Fulcrum , Is it time to replace the electoral college? Wyoming is 92% white. The ABA House of Delegates is the policy-making body of the association. The National Basketball Association (NBA) has gone global. While it is not the representative body exercising an independent judgment as was originally intended, it does have a function to perform. If the electors had stood by the candidates for which they had been chosen and nobody had received a majority, is there any. Two closely watched cases arising from the 2016 electoral process, however, might provide the justices with an opportunity to do just that. A country in which someone is democratically voted Comander in Chief.. Not because the voters of the country picked them, but because of an old, unfair method that brought the person into power. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except for material where copyright is reserved by a party other than FEE. Thanks to the 16th and 19th Amendments of the constitution, all genders and ethnicities are allowed to vote. Much has been made of the unfortunate things that could happen under our present system. Only brought into question once. How did they do it? Most people in America want the Electoral College gone, and they want to select a president based on who gets the most votes nationally, polls say. And it is doubtful if any of them anticipated the emergence of either political parties or the extensive administrative machinery that now plagues the central government. Should the U.S. Get Rid of the Electoral College? Their experience under the Articles of Confederation had also taught them that a government without adequate power could not protect its citizens in the exercise of their commercial and social relations with each other. The more serious problem with the Electoral College is that it compels states to allocate electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, giving swing states their dominant role and enabling the culture of minority rule now metastasized in the Republican Party. /content/aba-cms-dotorg/en/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2019/october-2019/q--the-electoral-college--is-it-open-for-interpretation-by-the-c, Trade, Sports & Professional Associations, Affordable Housing & Community Development Law. If that occurs, the court might provide states additional guidance on just how much leeway they have to impact the Electoral College vote that decides the presidency of the United States. So, let me make the case for its abolition and its replacement by a simple national popular vote, to be held in an entity we will call (what the heck) the United States of America. Why The Electoral College Should Be Abolished - Bustle JOHN W. BURGESS, Recent Changes in American Constitutional Theory. SHOULD THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE BE ABOLISHED Flashcards | Quizlet Support of that magnitude has become rare for anything in a sharply divided United States. Do you think the Electoral College should be abolished Why or why not Even though Clinton won the popular vote by, 2.1%, Trump won the electoral votes. It was a recognition of these diverse and somewhat conflicting policy goals that led them to the establishment of a form of government that made possible the greatest exercise of personal freedom and the development of the highest level of material well-being that has ever been known anywhere else on the earth before or since. I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A. Gregg says that change would radicalize politics. I think so, on two grounds. If your state is reliably red or blue, you are ignored. Maine and Nebraska, however, have enacted the congressional district method, which allocates one electoral vote to the winner of the popular vote in each state-drawn district. Disclaimer: This article contains minor spoilers for "The Anthropocene Reviewed." There are several cases in American history where the candidate for President of the United States wins the popular vote but does not win the election because of the electoral college. The Constitution provides no express role for the states after appointment of its presidential electors, the 10th Circuit panel said, adding, Once appointed, (electors) are free to vote as they choose.. Most Americans would breathe a sigh of relief, I believe, if we had a system capable of choosing the U.S. equivalent of Theresa May instead of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Moreover, minority rule enabled by the Electoral College is now embedded in Republican strategy. And it confines vote-counting disputes to just one, or maybe a few, states. But with the progression and determination of our generation, I believe that we will be seeing a drastic change in voting policies and hopefully the abolition of the electoral college within our lifetime. According to The New York Times, Trump won 48.6 percent of the Florida vote, with Clinton close behind at 47.4 percent. There should not be a system that does not match the majority of the publics opinion nearly ten percent of the time. He served on the faculty of New York University School of Law for eighteen years and is now professor of law at Duke University. Though I believe that the electoral college should be abolished, the system does have its advantage. While it is our Constitutional right to vote, it is the electoral college whose votes decide the candidacy. SHOULD THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE BE ABOLISHED 5.0 (3 reviews) LOA: Click the card to flip There is no doubt that there are many things wrong with the electoral college. Does the Electoral College need to be reformed? But the court has not tackled to what extent states can enforce such a pledge. The first time the system was really tested it broke down, electing two candidates of different political parties, but it did its job of electing the two most qualified candidates. Due to the Electoral College process, candidates must get votes from multiple stateslarge and smallthus helping to ensure that the president will address the needs of the entire country. Technology, and electronic voting stations, have allowed us to tally exactly how many votes go to each candidate. The Electoral College was invented as a part, although maybe only a small part, of this general scheme of separation of powers and division of authority. Sixty years later inRay v. Blair, the court ruled the Constitution, including the 12th Amendment, does not bar a political party from requiring electors to sign a pledge to support the nominees of the national convention. There have been three: John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush. It was replaced by party conventions, which eventually were replaced (almost) with strings of single or multiple state primaries and caucuses. But reforming the Electoral College does not rank high among our national problems. Podcast: Does the Senate still work? Smaller States & the entire Midwest would end up losing all power - & we cant let that happen. According to CNN, in the 2016 election, Hilary Clinton won the popular vote by about 3 million votes. Maybe this is on purpose or maybe this is just coincidence but most Americans dont understand that when they cast their ballot, their votes will most likely be disregarded because the deciding vote is that of the electoral college, not the popular vote. According to Hank Koransky, an upper school history teacher at Brentwood School, the electoral college was originally made because the leaders of the government did not want to give too much. %PDF-1.5 Podcast: AI revolution: Disaster or great leap forward? Reason 2 for abolishing the electoral college. The Electoral College is racist. If you conceive of rural America as a set of states, the Electoral College does give voters in Iowa or Montana or Wyoming a sizable say in the selection of the president. That, critics say, means devaluing the votes of many non-white voters too. Should The Electoral College Be Abolished Dbq Essay. In the incredible event that a candidate won every ballot cast in those states, then yes, under a national popular vote, he or she could ignore the rest of the country and become president. John Kasich, a Republican, even though Colorado law required electors to cast their votes for state-winner Hillary Clinton, a Democrat. The party structureswhich, for all their faults, have a vested interest in candidates from the moderate middle who are able to work with Congress and other officials to governhave been sidelined. What is its purpose? . One idea, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, would bypass a constitutional amendment through an agreement for states to give all electoral votes to the national popular vote winner. Why does a man wearing earrings drive Christians crazy? Is the Electoral College a Problem? Does It Need to Be Fixed? Should the electoral college be abolished? There are three basic arguments in favor of the system the framers of the Constitution gave us, with little sense of how it would actually work. At its core the true purpose of the electoral college was to aid citizens who were unable to travel to voting centers on the day of election. Students, read both articles, then tell us: Has your opinion about the Electoral College changed at all? xZ[s~&Od Lg'$$MNQ!$]\HH ,v}Ujw]\rvK7QnOOGq$YDlOOKvYE_7Hr)X$Kh@qX %}K7/Yho 7DK'|du/qHr^d^Va`9 2V {is0v Y6sK)tGKz1R2u4,L7fe3'3 qeIli7?7G.3bGjV8r%TDBrQjK? At that time, the. There are 538 votes in total. Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. Being on a state-by-state basis, and that not strictly according to population, it has some tendency to decrease the likelihood of a President winning primarily through an emotional appeal giving him an overwhelming advantage in one section but probably making him obnoxious to a majority of the voters in other parts of the country. In other words, rural interests would be represented from coast to coast, as opposed to a system that only weights those who live in swing states. If not, why not? Both the chief executive and the courts quickly developed into something that would probably be unrecognizable by any but the most discerning of the Fathers. Many countries convey greater voting impact to less populated regions. The electoral college was also supposed to be a means to give more representation to the smaller states and to elect the most qualified candidate as President and the second most qualified candidate as the Vice President, according to Koransky. Dementia is a term for multiple diseases, known to affect people's memory, abilities, and thinking. I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A.. It was devised by the framers of the United States Constitution to provide a method of election that was feasible, desirable, and consistent with a republican form of government. US Gov: Electoral College Flashcards | Quizlet Just like after every election, one of the most frequently asked questions is about the purpose and relevance of the electoral college. Why or why not? If the electors had stood by the candidates for which they had been chosen and nobody had received a majority, is there any reason to believe the House of Representatives would not have acted in a responsible fashion? The Senate was to represent the states, with all states being equal for this purpose, and the House was to represent the people. What's the alternative to National Popular Vote? They had learned from their experience under King George that unlimited power in human hands was a dangerous thing. This is how all elections should be; the winner of the popular vote wins the whole election. Why Have an Electoral College? - Foundation for Economic Education 8 Tips for Forgiving Someone Who Hurt You. Statue of Liberty at sunset. A Wyoming voter has nearly 4x more influence than a California voter. No other mode of presidential elections would be fully consistent with our underlying commitment to the equality of all citizens. With so many safeguards in operation, it is unlikely that we would ever find ourselves without a lawfully chosen and reasonably acceptable Chief Executive. The Electoral College Should Be Abolished Essay The U.S. should also abolish the Electoral College because it depresses voter turnout. Two out of the four electoral votes in Maine can potentially be awarded to someone other than the statewide winner. While it is not the representative body exercising an independent judgment as was originally intended, it does have a function to perform. On March 18, at a CNN town hall in Jackson, Miss., Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called for shutting down the Electoral College. The compact would only go into effect once the number of states involved surpasses the 270 Electoral College vote threshold that is required to win the presidency. It must be abolished, Robert Reich, the Former United States Secretary of Labor, said in a tweet. The Electoral College thus presents democratic risks without serving any of its original purposes. Even though Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1%, Trump won the electoral votes. Here are the yea and the nay. RT @AttorneyCrump: Putting a Black employee in a cage should NOT have been the solution to raise funds. President Trump had earned 232 electoral . A Wyoming voter has nearly 4x more influence than a California voter. An aide opened Electoral College ballot boxes during a joint session of Congress to tally ballots for the 2016 presidential election. The current system for electing a U.S. president traces back to 1787. "There's no realistic chance of a Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College," said Jacob Levy, a professor of political theory at McGill University. While it is not the representative body exercising an independent judgment as was originally intended, it does have a function to perform. I believe we need a constitutional amendment that protects the right to vote for every American citizen and to make sure that vote gets counted, she said. Electoral College: AP US Government Crash Course | Albert.io 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. The electoral college should change because the citizens of America should count each vote, give the larger states more electoral votes, and by making sure . We should be talking about other things. If that had been done, is there any reason to believe the result would not have been a reasonable one or that it would not have been accepted by the public? Interestingly, the congressional caucus system is very close to the system the British used to replace Prime Minister David Cameron. The Stirling professor of history and social policy at the Harvard Kennedy School recently spoke with Harvard Magazine about the book and about why the Electoral College, an institution that's been unpopular almost from the moment it was founded, has prevailed to this day. . The Electoral College is part of that tradition. This year, Vice President Joe Biden won the popular vote with 81,282,376 votes, which is more votes than any candidate won in any presidential election. Tempers would cool a bit and the danger of rebellion would be lessened rather than increased. Second, it creates incentives for political parties to try to break regional blocs controlled by the opposition, rather than just maximizing turnout in their own areas, because you win the presidency consistently only as a party of multiple regions and you can crack a rival partys narrow majority by flipping a few states. They wanted a government strong enough to keep the peace and they feared any such government that was that strong. What does democracy mean to you? Regardless of what separation of the departments could be achieved, the men who were laying our foundation feared the consequences of having all three concentrated in one central government. If you conceive of it as a population of voters, on the other hand, the picture is different. Cal Poly State University - San Luis Obispo, California State University - Los Angeles, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, California State University, Channel Islands, Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, Federal University Of Agriculture Abeokuta, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign, Interamerican University of Puerto Rico San German campus, Keiser University - Latin American Campus, London School of Economics and Political Science, California State University of Sacramento, Savannah College of Art and Design Atlanta, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, The University of Texas of the Permian Basin, University of North Carolina - Wilmington, University of South Florida - St. Petersburg, William Paterson University of New Jersey. It is my opinion that a careful consideration of these questions will lead to the conclusion that the Electoral College is not so bad after all. 1 0 obj President Trump once supported abolishing the Electoral College he previously felt it was a "total disaster for democracy" but since his 2016 presidential victory over Hillary Clinton, in which Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, but Trump received 304 electoral votes, he has changed his mind. Using bots can streamline some law firm work, American Bar Association Is the Electoral College needed? Here's how to reform the Electoral College - The Fulcrum The drawbacks to it are monumental, the advantages of it, I dont see any I favor the popular vote. Take the total of 2016 presidential votes in the 10 largest states, and youd get only 71 million ballots, or about 52 percent of the vote. Reason one for abolishing the electoral college. None of the three branches of the central government has ever behaved exactly as the founders anticipated, and the powers and responsibilities of the state governments have declined to a degree that would probably frighten any delegate to the Constitutional Convention out of his wits. They do not matter because they have any special civic characteristics. She received 65,853,516 votes, and President Donald Trump, 62,984,825 votes. In winner-take-all states, all electoral votes cast for the state are assigned to the candidate who gets the most electoral votes. As American leadership falters, scholars say, autocrats are on the rise. 4 0 obj Reasons to Keep the Electoral College - ThoughtCo Respect for it is still insufficient to secure their true development. Trump made a similar argument earlier this week, warning that "smaller states & then entire Midwest would end up losing all power.". Trump is why the framers created the Electoral College Additionally, the electoral college does not represent each voter equally because the ratio of population to electoral votes is not equal for all states. Recently, two Times Opinion columnists have weighed in on the issue. Being on a state-by-state basis, and that not strictly according to population, it has some tendency to decrease the likelihood of a Presi. <> Still, the advantages are uncertain and relatively minor. His colleague Marco Rubio of Florida posted a similar note, calling the Electoral College a work of genius that requires candidates for president to earn votes from various parts of country. ABA Legal Fact Check: Can the Electoral College be abolished? The Electoral College has elected a president who did not win the popular vote twice in the past 20 years, in 2000 and 2016. Warren Focuses On Policy, Which Looks Like A Tough Sell With Voters, Which Democrats Are Running In 2020 And Which Still Might. Terms of Service |Privacy Policy|CA Notice of Collection, The electoral college is not a fair system as it is not a clear representation of the voters. It is no secret that the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all suffered, from the outset, from efforts to imply that there was something improper and unworthy or even suspicious in their elections. Here are some of the arguments for and against the Electoral College: For: The current process protects state's rights. Having the states play an autonomous role in presidential elections, it is said, reinforces the division of governing authority between the nation and the states. As a matter of math, that is unlikely. What do you know about the Electoral College? The two parties have chosen the same year in which to nominate a person whom large numbers of Americans, probably a majority, regard as unfit (though not for the same reason). Choosing electoral college adds to the cohesiveness of the nation by obliging an appropriation of popular support to be elected President, improves the status of minority interests, contributes to the political dependability of the country by promising a two-party system, and keeps up an elected arrangement of government and representation (Kimb. The electoral college is a voting system established in the 1700s that distributes votes to each state based on the population. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/learning/should-the-us-get-rid-of-the-electoral-college.html. This spring, numerous candidates for president expressed support for either abolishing or changing the Electoral College, which ultimately picks the U.S. president.
How Long Is A Half Day Of School,
Homes For Sale In Larkspur, Co,
Robert Smith Cure Wife,
Munsell Test Procedure,
Liftmaster 811lm Remote,
Articles W