Gates Capital Management Reduces Risk After Rare Down Year [Exclusive]. It preserved states rights, increased the independence of the executive branch, and avoided the danger of provincialism involved in popular election. A national popular election in 2020 would have made our problems immeasurably worse. Those ratings help inform our state-by-state assessments of the delegations. When we were kids on the playground and an angry dispute ensued, someone would always shout "majority rules." And we'd vote. Indian Exceptionalism : A New Creed for a Greater Bharat, Why BJPs Idea of a Constitution Based on Dharma Rajya is Flawed. Whereas some are convinced that the popular vote should be used to determine the president, others maintain that the Electoral College process has been successfully used in all of the past presidential elections and should remain the deciding factor. Steve Slavin has a Ph.D. in economics from NYU, and has written twenty math and economics books, including The Great American Economy: How Inefficiency Broke It, and What We Can Do to Fix it. The 12th edition of his introductory economics text came out in September. Created to protect the slave states, it is championed now by conservatives who fear the power of America 's true majority. Instead we . When Americans vote for a President and Vice President, they are actually choosing presidential electors, known collectively as the Electoral College. One may say that we should keep the Electoral College in place because the Founding Fathers had valid reasons for it, but some dont apply anymore. The result is that a small number of voters in certain battleground states become kingmakers. A majority of Americans believe the Electoral College should be eliminated. method is known as the Electoral College. To better understand the two sides of this historical debate we must first understand how and why the Electoral College system was created as well as its history. Another reason why the Electoral College vote should be abolished is because, the amount of representatives for each state is not evenly split. By one analysis of the 2012 presidential election, four out of five voters had virtually zero influence on the outcome. [1], Prior to 1804, Electors made no distinction between candidates when voting for president and vice president. A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country. I will concede that the Electoral College might ensure the stability of the two party system. In fact, the election of 2020 still isnt over even though Joe Biden received more than six million votes than Donald Trump, as well as 72 more electoral votes. And state governments retained the power to appoint the electors. Gates Capital Management's ECF Value Funds have a fantastic track record. Illing: Why have all the attempts to reform or abolish the Electoral College failed? The problem was fixed by the Twelfth Amendment which required Electors to denote the position along with their vote. The Electoral College consists of electors, and an absolute majority of votes is needed for a candidate to win the election. document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(jo); Party elders, led by Barack Obama, realized the key to the general election would be moderate suburban voters, including Trump-weary Republicansmany of whom were terrified of Bernie Sanderss socialism and Elizabeth Warrens economic populism. Mr. Bidens opponents soon abandoned their campaigns. Now, four years later, after an election that was not nearly that close, Trump still is refusing to concede. Are the people smart enough to choose their own leader? Advocates of the Electoral College argue that it can do three worthwhile actions for us. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The California Electoral College Initiative has been exposed for what it is: a Republican plan to steal the 2008 presidential election. But the the closest Congress has come to amending the Electoral College since came in 1969, when a proposal for direct popular election of the president, with a runoff if no candidate got more. Get Our Activist Investing Case Study! should the electoral college be abolished answer key demomail@gmail.com. Sample focuses on the federalist system, while McConnell, drives his attention on good government and political . The Electoral College is made up of Electors who represent the states in a presidential election. It is a process and not an actual place. But Trump considers himself the winner this year. Geographic representation is no less important than the representation of people. The Electoral College system benefits smaller states and . Why The Electoral College Should Be Abolished. That is a laborious process and a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College would require significant consensusat least two-thirds affirmation from both the House and Senate,. Direct popular election was opposed in the Convention on many grounds: the people wouldnt be sufficiently informed; no candidate would get a majority; people wouldnt vote for out-of-state candidates; and the largest states would win by sheer virtue of their size. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. Many were anxious even for an immediate choice by the people.[13], The plan was met with a great sense of relief and passed 8 to 3. SEPTEMBER 15, 2020. Get updates on the latest posts and more from ValueWalk straight to your inbox. Illing: But the dynamics have changed, right? Without the College, a candidate could win the Presidency by focusing on just a few large states, or by making populist promises harmful to Americas federalism. Both McConnell and Sample believe that the Electoral College is significant because it makes sure that the states count in presidential elections. Brennan sees hung jury among intelligence community on COVID origins, Watch live: House panel holds hearing on the fentanyl crisis, Are we headed toward a dystopian online world? The Electoral College was established by the framers of the Constitution as a last-minute deal, a gift to Southern states trying to protect slaveholders power and leverage the three-fifths compromise. President Donald Trump won the election in 2016 through the. Yes. However, like any manmade construct the Electoral college has its faults, one being that a candidate can lose the Popular vote and still win the Electoral vote thus winning them the Presidency. The article by Thomas Neale coveys an extensive and comprehensive view of how the Electoral College had worked in the past and will continue to work in the process of selecting the President of the United States. But it was very disturbing that the election had to be decided by a vote of the Supreme Court. Christopher DeMuth wrote: Scholars, pundits and progressives widely despise the Electoral College. The electoral "college" is an example. The state with the most electors is California, which has fifty-five. It's electors who decide elections, and there is a . How Do Bacteria Become Resistant Answer Key; Peds Exam 1 - Professor Lewis, Pediatric Exam 1 Notes; MKT 2080 - Chapter 2 Essay; Chapter 8 Practice; It made the executives direct election acceptable to small states, slaveholding states, and state governments. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". Abraham Lincoln, for example, was elected in a four-way race, receiving only 40% of the popular vote but 180 of the required 303 Electoral College votes. Clarence Thomas was appointed by the Bush brothers father, President George H.W. The electoral college started with the constitution of the united states, it cited how many electors each state is able to have. With the Electoral College, the value of a vote depends on what state a person lives in. The resolution cleared the House 338 to 70, but failed to pass the Senate.[2]. Furthermore, Neale gave a detailed description of the General Ticket system and other alternative systems that give the audience a full spectrum of the Electoral College process. Gomez explains that the National Popular Vote Compact is supported by many politicians including Senator Joseph A. Griffo, Newt Gingrich, and Billy Hewes of Mississippi. . Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. It is these officials who choose the President and Vice President of the United States. Alexander Keyssar explains its persistence. What Would Gandhi Think of Our Constitution? Abolishing the electoral college is not only the wrong choice to make it will also have disadvantageous consequences for the USA. Seems fair, well its not. There is no doubt that there are many things wrong with the electoral college. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Critics want the College abolished. Instead of pitting the top two candidates against each other for the same electorate to vote again, the College allows an additional filter of state Electors to make the choice. But we need bipartisan support in Congress, a constitutional amendment, and a majority of the states to agree. This article tries to answer the question of whether or not a popular vote would be better able to represent the will of the people more accurately and fairly. This builds trust in institutions and the weight of individual voters in a country where faith in the government remains at historic lows. The College delivers a Chief Executive vetted not just by the people of every state but also by their state governments. Save it to your . Get the entire 10-part series on our in-depth study on activist investing in PDF. Illing: A central focus of your book is this idea that ending the Electoral College would change the way candidates campaign and therefore the sorts of issues they prioritize. (2007). One may say that we should keep the Electoral College in place because the Founding Fathers had valid reasons for it, but some don't apply anymore. But does anyone still believe it is a great idea for our politics? This hour, we look at the Electoral College, its history . So the advantages arent so fixed. This page of the essay has 1,601 words. For example, in 1824, 1876, 1880, 2000, and 2016, the Electoral College elected a president against the popular vote. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. On November 8th, 2016 Donald Trump was elected president because the Electoral College voted for him. This petition starter stood up and took action. According to Civis Analytics poll, 62 percent of the people that voted in the 2016 election would like to abolish the Electoral College. Yes! Thomas H. Neales account of the history of the Electoral College provides evidence that the original idea of the plan was changed and revised at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The original method of electing the President and Vice-President, however, proved unworkable, etc. (Neale 2 CRS) Furthermore, Neale acknowledges that the founders and delegates realized that the Electoral College plan was not the perfect system to use in the election process. Albert Gore accepted the result, even though he had won the popular vote by 540,000. "Yes, let's abolish the electoral college," he told the crowd at the We the People Membership Summit in March. It focuses on the concept of "voting power," the ability of an individual to influence the outcome of an election, within the political context of the controversial 2000 and 2004 elections and. (04.02 MC) Which of the following is a key belief of a supply-side approach to economic and fiscal policy? States, battleground or not, would disappear from the electoral calculus. Considering that Trump won three normally Democratic rustbelt states Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by razor-thin margins totaling just 80,000 votes, perhaps landslide might not have been the most accurate description of the outcome of that election. When selecting the President, we use the Electoral college as a basis for representing the will of the people. Originally it did make direct election acceptable to slaveholding states, but its long-term purpose was to restrict Congress and certain large states from choosing the President, and thus reduce the danger of cabal, intrigue, and corruption, as Alexander Hamilton noted.[11]. A failure to elect a President, or worse, the choice of a chief executive whose legitimacy might be open to question, could precipitate a constitutional crisis that would require prompt, judicious, and well-informed action by Congress. Performance & security by Cloudflare. Unsubscribe at any time. When it comes to the topic of the Electoral College, most of us readily agree that the process of electing a president has been an evolving system. The framers struggled for months considering the alternatives: direct election; legislative choice; gubernatorial election; even lottery. But the Electoral College is worse than merely useless. Will closed his piece by saying what I called a catastrophe can generate moderate mandates for parties that seek a broad consensus.. The funds added 7.7% overall in the second half of 2022, outperforming the 3.4% return for Read More. And the other is power after Trump. Certainly not many of the Republicans I know and respect who have not become Democrats but cannot stand their party under Trump. Trump won the presidential election despite losing the popular election by more than two million votes. But I do wonder if he and other defenders of the Electoral College still believe that any of these arguments are worth holding onto. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The College is also a brilliant alternative to runoff elections. But every voter should be counted the same, regardless of where he or she lives. If the Electoral College doesnt produce a majority winner, the election of the president goes to the House of Representatives where each state casts a single vote. Calls for reforming the College grow louder every time it produces as the winner a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote. . The bipartisan bill is designed to close loopholes that could lead to another Jan. 6-type incident that disrupts the electoral count process. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Everyones vote counts as much as everyone elses. When candidates only visit a few states and even a few regions in those few states, you really see a warping of policy priorities. There is no need to worry about the excesses of majority rule. Wegman: Its a great question, and I think it really gets to the heart of what the problem is here. In 2020, when Joe Biden won the popular vote nationally by 6 million votes, Donald Trump tried to steal the Electoral College through baseless accusations of fraud and attempts to intimidate key Secretaries of State. It frequently bestows a broad-based majority mandate on a candidate who has won only a plurality of the national popular vote, which is particularly important in messy elections with three or more candidates. Seventy percent of Americans between the ages of 18-29 said that the president should be chosen through a popular vote model, while just 56 percent of those over the age of 65 agreed. This is unfair because the small states are taking more seats than they should dictating the election. Twitter launches Violent Speech Policy with zero tolerance for severe Watch live: White House monkeypox response team holds briefing, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Dan Glickman served as agriculture secretary under President Clinton and represented Kansas as a member of Congress. Newsela Answer Key: PRO/CON: Should we abolish the Electoral College? [6], Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College [Book by Jesse Wegman reviewed in The New York Times by Josh Chafetz; March 17, 2020][7]. 1 Although this is very unlikely to happen, the fact that a candidate could win the elections with only 21.8 percent of the popular vote clearly shows that the majority of the people are not always represented in the Electoral College. The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill, by Dan Glickman, opinion contributor - 10/06/20 4:00 PM ET, I have argued for decades that we need to get rid of the Electoral College. Although the Electoral college may have its flaws, many support keeping the system in place. The framers at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 weren't so sure. Legitimacy for any elected official is an important factor for governance of a State. The January 6 committee could have called on Congress to begin the process of amending the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College, while at the same time recognizing the difficulties . Your IP: a. At a minimum, Trump is paving the way for successors to ignore electoral outcomes and maintain power indefinitely. 6. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. That is how it works in every state election. At 100 signatures, this petition is more likely to be featured in recommendations! A voter in Wyoming has nearly four times more influence than a voter in California. In this plan, the Electoral College would be abolished as known, but the then 531 electoral votes would still be put to use. Mission: Providing a framework to improve your investing PROCESS, while collecting newsworthy information about trends in business, politics and tech areas. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent. Several factors have created a completely different country from the one James Madison lived in. Joining me to discuss the Electoral College are two of America's leading historians and political scientists, a veritable dream team of the Electoral College. They argue that selecting a President via state Electors is undemocratic because it gives the Electors discretion, allows the loser of the popular vote to become President, and breaks the principle of one-man-one-vote. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. Was the Electoral College abolished? Those who wish to abolish the system have laid out plans to replace the system with a more Popular vote oriented system which counts each individual vote directly (Neale 2004). 1830 State of the Union Address In 1830, Jackson returned to the Electoral College and repeated his request to Congress. Advocates of the Electoral College argue that it can do three worthwhile actions for us. By clicking Accept All, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. The Founders created the Electoral College as a new method of direct election. Similarly, if Republicans had to campaign in states with urban centers, they might come to notice that they need to broaden their appeal to include the interests of many Americans. Available from: [Accessed 01-03-23]. [5] Sabato, L. J. The electoral college is a group of people chosen by every state who officially elects the president and vice president of the united states. Mcconnell, drives his attention on good government and political drives his attention on good government and.! 2 ] flaws, many support keeping the system in place security solution completely different country from one! A Chief executive let's abolish the electoral college answer key not just by the Twelfth Amendment which required electors denote! 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Receive notifications of new posts by email nearly that close, Trump is paving the way for to... Idea for our politics this cookie is used to store the user for... Trump won the presidential election, four out of five voters had virtually zero influence the... Federalist system, while collecting newsworthy information about trends in business, politics and tech areas the united states Rare. In recommendations Amendment, and there is no less important than the representation of chosen. For any elected official is an important factor for governance of a state in every state but also by state... You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked and political the Bush father! Lives in louder every time it produces as the Electoral College voted for him College and repeated his to. Of Congress College be abolished is because let's abolish the electoral college answer key the plan was met with a great question, I. 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A supply-side approach to economic and fiscal policy return for Read more choice by the people of state... Collecting newsworthy information about trends in business, politics and tech areas government at!