what would happen if the electoral college was abolished

11. Electoral vote totals will equal 538. States have the power to award their electors however they like. FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast have predicted. In winner-take-all states, all electoral votes cast for the state are assigned to the candidate who gets the most electoral votes. There have been a total of five candidates who have won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College, with the most recent cases occurring in the 2016 and 2000 . Its just basic fairness. Thats almost 1.5 billion votes. There would need to be a Constitutional amendment if the compact idea doesnt work. Reagan also dominated in 1980, taking 489 votes to Jimmy Carters 49. A second variation would be to award two Electoral College votes from each state to the winner of the national popular vote and award the remaining electors to the winner of each congressional district (CD). When a state passes legislation to join the National Popular Vote Compact, it compels the state to award its electoral votes to whomever wins the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate won in that state. [2] The compact would then be 43 Electoral College votes short of going into effect. It doesnt. Do you think that more states or all states should join the compact? Redirecting to https://m.startribune.com/one-clear-result-of-the-2020-election-at-last-let-s-abolish-the-electoral-college/. Four of the electors came from the state of Washington. 1. These Americans, chosen for loyalty to their political party, will vote for the presidential candidate who won their states popular vote. 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. .just the large States - the Cities would end up running the Country. Theyre swing states. In this video excerpt from our Oct. 22 panel, Mr. Wegman argues that states should join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a plan to guarantee that the candidate who receives the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia wins the presidency. The winner of an election should be the person who gets the most votes. Do you agree? However, a constitutional amendment is not the only means by which an alternative to the current Electoral College can be implemented. The amendments Fully overhauling the way the president is selected would take a Constitutional amendment, which would require the votes of two-thirds of. The election, as Mr. Trump would say though not for the right reasons is rigged. Every vote matters, commented Senator Elizabet Warren (D-Mass) in an early campaign stop in Mississippi in 2019, and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting and that means get rid of the Electoral College.. The cost of conducting a nationwide recount could be hundreds of millions of dollars, which is money that may not always be in the budget. Mr. Wegman argues that reforming the Electoral College isnt a partisan issue its a fairness issue. The three-fifths clause became irrelevant with the end of slavery (thankfully! 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). And this was an effort that was supported by the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, the American Bar Association, and progressive and liberal groups outside. We should be talking about other things. It is true that the Electoral College no longer serves its original purposes, and that it creates a grave risk that a candidate not favored by a majority of the people will, from time to time, be elected president. The interests of the minority would no longer receive protection. Jacob Levy, of McGill University, disagreed with that argument. This cant go on. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/learning/is-the-electoral-college-a-problem-does-it-need-to-be-fixed.html. [1] Over the years some of them, so-called faithless electors, have deviated from this norm but in 29 states and the District of Colombia state laws exist which bind the electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote. The Electoral College Will Destroy America, The Battleground States Biden and Trump Need to Win 270, free daily writing prompts for remote learning. Republicans especially worry about tipping the balance away from their party. Remember what we said back in Myth No. Despite political challenges to reforming the manner in which the United States selects its president, there is danger in maintaining the status quo. This Student Opinion prompt and a related Lesson of the Day will prepare students to participate in our live panel discussion about the Electoral College, on Oct. 22 at 1 p.m. Eastern. As we all know only too well, in practice this archaic system means that the person who wins the most votes may not win the election. That probably promotes a more national and less regional vision. So far, 15 states plus the District of Columbia have joined in for a total of 196 electoral votes, just 74 more. A lot of people dont even want to talk about changing the Electoral College because of this idea. The U.S. Census creates the allocations of electoral votes that each state receives. John Locher/AP But as people moved and the economy changed so did that ratio. Or does the Electoral College work the way its supposed to, even if the candidate who wins the most votes loses? Save Our States, The Status of National Popular Vote, https://saveourstates.com/threats/the-status-of-npv (accessed April 17, 2020). After reading the article and watching the video, what questions do you have for Mr. Wegman? Under the current structure of the United States, there are 50 unique presidential contests instead of one nationwide affair to elect a President. In two of these elections, a. Hillary Clinton won. This reflects how uncommon it is to reach the Oval Office without winning the popular vote; it has only happened four times in United States history. And thats it. Its possible the Supreme Court will ultimately decide who gets to decide how individual electors vote. Around six-in-ten U.S. adults (63%) say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency, while 35% favor keeping the current Electoral College system, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 27-July 4, 2022. The elected officials of both parties have incentives to choose candidates with an eye toward popular electability and governing skill. See: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/10/21/can-the-electoral-college-be-subverted-by-faithless-electors/. In 2016, the results were even more dramatic. Colin Powell was the primary beneficiary, receiving three votes. There will always be a concern about the tyranny of the majority in the United States. Without the Electoral College, big states like California and New York would dominate elections. Faith in elections, trust in government, and the legitimacy of elected officials and the offices they hold will be challenged by a system that consistently turns its back on the will of the voters. Paul Krugman, my Opinion colleague, wrote Thursday that "the idea that the economy is going to pose a huge problem for Democrats next year isn't backed by the available data.". But specifics vary. What I learned is it doesnt have to be this way. I think it would make more sense to split the electoral votes based on the state-wide vote so if a state has 10 electoral votes and the election goes 60% to 40%, the candidates gets 6 votes and 4 votes respectively. 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. If the Electoral College was eliminated, the power to elect the President would rest solely in the hands of a few of our largest states and cities, greatly diminishing the voice of smaller populated states. Because the Electoral College is based on the structure of state populations and representation in the House, some people have a vote that carries more weight per delegate than others. Maintaining the Electoral College may seem like the most politically expedient position for the Republican Party in the short term, but it may cause significant damage in the long term. 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. The system calls for the creation, every four years, of a temporary group of electors equal to the total number of representatives in Congress. The following table shows how this would have changed the outcome in two contested elections of the 21st century, and how a third would have remained the same. The primary benefit of the electoral college is that it works to protect the best interests of the minority in every election. "And places where there are more people become more important when you're counting votes.". Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services, The Electoral College is a ticking time bomb, Its time to abolish the Electoral College, Two cheers for the Electoral College: Reasons not to abolish it, according to the Congressional Research Service, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/10/21/can-the-electoral-college-be-subverted-by-faithless-electors/, Policy lessonsand surprisesfrom the Reimagine Rural podcast, Justice Thomas, gift reporting rules, and what a Supreme Court code of conduct would and wouldnt accomplish, Why is federal spending so hard to cut? Only one election was so close that it had to go to the House of Representatives, which is how John Quincy Adams won over Andrew Jackson. But experts say reforming this practice isn't likely anytime soon for a number of reasons. Polls from FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast have predicted Clinton receiving a majority popular vote of 49.7 percent, with Trump behind at 43.3 percent. The supporters of the NPV are not hiding their goal: They are trying to circumvent the AK constitutional amendment process and manipulate the Electoral College out of existence.11. Under this option, Florida would give 15 Electoral College votes to Clinton and 14 to Trump. Suddenly, every voter will count, no matter where they live. In the current Congress, this would require every Democratic House member to vote in favor of such an amendment and be joined by 59 Republicans and every Democratic Senator to be joined by 19 of their Republican colleagues. Even though proponents of the Electoral College want it to stay so that every state can have a specific say in the outcome of the election, the candidates are already starting to behave in the same ways that people fear they would when targeting a majority population groups.