what is the main argument against the electoral college

This is the witch hunt narrative that has animated the Republican Party for years. Its a little bit strange to be breathing a sigh of relief that they didnt go to be the most extreme form of these possible arguments, Douglas said. Heis the author of Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College., A version of this article appears in print on, The Impossible Task of Defending Donald Trump, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/opinion/donald-trump-indictment.html, Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College.. The problem is that elections are not sporting events. Overall, the Electoral College is a patchwork Frankensteins monster of a system, which in the best of times merely ensures millions of Americans votes are irrelevant to the Furthermore, small-state interests are built into the Senates math (where Delaware absurdly gets as many senators as California), and many House districts are rural. National Constitution Centers Jeffrey Rosen discussed the arguments for and against the electoral college being used to elect a president. In 2016, for instance, Democrat The following is a lightly edited transcript of remarks made by Celeste Headlee and Andrew Tallman during a Newsweek episode of The Debate about the Electoral College. Those opposing the GOP lawmakers theory won support from the Biden administration as well as from retired Republican judges, the chief justices of the nations state supreme courts and the co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society. 5 people have acquired malariain the US. Donald Trump has a very small chance of actually winning more votes than Joe Biden in the presidential election just 3 percent, according to FiveThirtyEights forecast model. There are two additional critical reasons beyond those Jesse Wegman cites that the Electoral College should be abandoned: First, by eliminating battleground states, which the What is surprising? If enough people in the right-wing ecosystem keep calling it a green light, Judge Cannon may be persuaded to treat it like one and to drive the case right into a ditch. In 2020, nearly two-thirds of Republicans reported wanting to keep the current system. When you go and cast your vote, youre not really voting for the president, youre actually voting for electors, who then go and vote for the president. This is an example of how easy it is to prevent common sense progress in this country. contributes to the cohesiveness of the country by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected president enhances the status of minority interests contributes to the political The Electoral College Is At The Heart Of Debate Over Vote The way this shakes out in the math, the 4 percent of the countrys population in the smallest states end up being allotted 8 percent of Electoral College votes. Thats the simplified version. For example, hes no longer in charge of the nuclear codes. Vikram David Amar is a professor of law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Here, then, are the top ten and the reasons they do not persuade: Number 1: The Argument From Political Interest. Here are some tips. Thats the state that would get the candidate 270 Electoral Votes if they lost every other state where their margin is smaller. Other electoral college fans are haunted by the specter of recounts:"If you thought the recount in Florida was a disaster, can you imagine the nightmare of a national recount?". But in most, the penalty for not doing so is only a fine. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but Trump won the Electoral College. This historically correct reality would easily support an argument that the electoral college mitigated slavery and disenfranchisement. Really? Even then (e.g. In any case, if we had a process in which the electors were notable citizens who were chosen because theyre supposed to exercise good judgment, maybe the defense would make sense. WebExpert Answer. Electoral college defenders argue that without the electoral college, candidates will spend all their time trying to rack up big victories in big cities with big media, ignoring the rest of the voters. Supreme Court Rejects Theory That Would Have Transformed But the difference between winning Florida by 0.1 percent and losing it by 0.1 percent is crucial, since 29 electoral votes could flip. Even so, Mr. Bidens attorney general, Merrick Garland, quickly appointed a special counsel to look into the presidents documents case. America is, after all, a democracy, is it not? Others have claimed that the principle of one person, one vote would likewise doom the equal representation of states in the United States Senate. This is the witch hunt narrative that has animated the Republican Party for years. This racial dimension is undeniable, and states' rights have been used as shields fo WebThe Electoral College plays a crucial role in US presidential elections. But if it was left up to purely the popular vote, there were fears about what would happen, considering there were a lot of people who couldnt read or write and were uneducated. Many critics argue that the electoral college is outdated and doesnt accurately represent the voice of the people. A recent paper by Michael Geruso and Dean Spears looked at this question, and found that it was 40 times more likely that a small number of potentially disputed ballots would determine the outcome under the Electoral College system, compared to a national popular vote. Should Medicine Discontinue Using Terminology Associated with Nazi Doctors? Please explain. Presidency: 10 Arguments in Favor of Keeping the Electoral Factbox: A look at the US Supreme Court's major rulings this year The Electoral College is just one of those things that stands in the way of progress. Is the Electoral College Good or Bad In 2004, John Kerry lost the popular vote by 2.4 percentage points, but he lost the tipping point state, Ohio, by 2.1 percentage points (a 0.3 percentage point edge for Democrats). (See the Additional Resources section for articles and information that address these questions.). Given that, historically, the electoral college leader has also tended to be the popular vote leader, the strategy for winning shouldn't change dramatically if we switch from one measure to the other. And in election 2000, it again ended up working against women, blacks, and the poor, who voted overwhelmingly for Gore. Our Constitution should not rig elections to favor any particular faction or party. Most states use a winner-take-all system, with the candidate receiving the majority of votes getting all electoral votes. In 2000, an elector from Washington, DC, withheld an electoral vote from Al Gore, because she wanted to protest the fact that DC didnt have representation in Congress. The Electoral College ignores the will The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. In any event, even assuming it could be shown that the electoral college systemically helps some interest group, this is hardly a principled argument in its favor. Political parties began to nominate slates of electors in each state electors they believed could be counted on to vote for the presidential nominee. Ask: What can we do to help? Selective Prosecution. Arguments for keeping the Electoral College Supporters of this institution say that it is a fundamental part of Americas checks and balances on government power. Many believe that the origins of the Electoral College are more complex. Third parties have not fared well in the Electoral College system. Tuesdays case came out of North Carolina, where the state Supreme Court initially struck down election maps drawn by Republican lawmakers as overly partisan. Enough Gaslighting. Get the latest updates on our free resources for educators and studentsacross all grades and subjectssent bi-monthly. And even if they didnt, is that really a convincing rebuttal to the pretty basic and obvious argument that in the most important electoral choice Americans make, their votes should be treated equally? (In the modern era, this ceremonial occasion has been a formality that reiterates an outcome known well in advance though there was a bit of last-minute drama in 2016.). This is the second article on this subject and by these authors in just two weeks. Health Researchers Show Segregation 100 Years Ago Harmed Black Health, and Effects Continue Today, Understanding the Leading Thinkers of the New American Right, Want to Understand the Internet? Critics of the Electoral College believe that it compromises the one person, one vote principle and it is less democratic than a popular vote. Arguments for the Electoral College - Gilder Lehrman Institute Sean Parnell, Jacqueline Tupou, and Carolyn Leman officially became Alaskas three electors. His own worst enemy: A new Trump tape only strengthens the case against him, DeSantis keeps looking like a Trump copycat, Vox Announces New Hires, Deepening of Climate Reporting, In 1837, rogue electors from Virginia briefly. These would be some upstanding citizens chosen by the various states, who would make up their own minds on who should be the president (theyd have to vote on the same day in their respective home states, to make it tougher for them to coordinate with each other). Learn more about the voting and election laws. (Youll notice above that several of those historical rogue electors in history had racist motivations.). The Electoral College is the process we use to vote for our president here in America. Electoral College Alas, Mr. McCarthy is far from alone in debasing himself for the benefit of the former president. In Arizona, some Republican state lawmakers said the decision would not deter how they approach the 2024 election. In most states, its winner takes all. Had this case come out the other way, the elected legislatures could have tried to take away from the people the power to pick electors to the electoral college, he said. WebThe argument that the Electoral College is undemocratic is correct, the system is undemocratic due to the fact, that it is the electors who elect the president, not individuals. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation, Fuzzy Math: Wrong Way Reforms for Allocating Electoral Votes (FairVote) https://www.fairvote.org/fuzzy-math. So when Donald Trump won Alaska in 2016, the practical effect was that the Republican Partys nominated elector slate there former Gov. But it's just as easy to imagine an alternative election 2000 scenario in which Gore won the electoral vote while losing the national popular vote. And on Tuesday, it rejected the most extreme version of a novel legal theory that could have prevented state supreme courts from exercising oversight of state lawmakers handling of redistricting, voter ID and other policies for federal elections. Each state has the power to adopt and implement critical policies that expand or restrict voting. A separate defense of Mr. Trumps actions has been offered up by the former presidents lawyers for months, and lately it has been appearing with more frequency in right-wing media: He is not guilty, the argument goes, because of a law called the Presidential Records Act. The Democratic and Republican parties have each developed solid bases in a series of states that are all but certain to vote for them in a presidential year. And it was a compromise. But the Electoral College winner will be determined by those few swing states that are more divided politically and look like they could go either way. But he still has a somewhat better shot of winning anyway, the same way he did last time: through the magic of the Electoral College. In both cases, the removal of secret material after their terms ended was apparently inadvertent, and there was no indication that either man even knew he possessed the documents. In today's world, the two opposing skews largely cancel out. But this objection also proves too much. Electoral college defenders also make the following argument:"A tennis player can win more points overall, and even more games, yet still lose the match. Theres not really in a general sense anything different today than yesterday. But when it comes to what were trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on. In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote by 2.1 percentage points, and won the tipping point state (Wisconsin) by a 0.77 percentage point margin. I would call it gaslighting, except its not creative enough. Supreme Court's election rulings give democracy advocates Opinion | Does Justice Alito Hear Himself? - The New York Times The disinformation received from big (and even small-town)media, the exploitation of religion for political benefit by candidates, makes it easy to pull the wool over the eyes of the majority of voters. It gets weirder. That tends to help Democrats, who win among urban minorities. Your safe state vote might be wasted, or it might even be subverted by rogue electors. Moreover, the electoral college does not avoid, and at times can worsen, the recount nightmare: a razor-thin electoral college margin may require recounts in a number of closely contested states even if there is a clear national popular winner. Other electoral college defenders have argued that a change in presidential selection rules would radically change the election game: because candidates would no longer care about winning states-only votes-campaign strategies would change dramatically and for the worse. way to go. It was created between all white guys who did not trust voters to make the right choices and as a compromise between those who thought Congress should make the decision, and those who felt that states like Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, would dominate the presidency. Mr. Trump created this mess entirely by himself. The Presidential Records Act. The greater danger, of course, is a former president who repeatedly flouts the law without consequence. How does this play out in court? The worst scenario was averted, Hasen said. https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention, The Electoral College Top 3 Pro and Cons (ProCon.org) He refused to return many of them when asked. Out of that came the U.S. Constitution. Andrew Tallman played the role of devil's advocate for this specific debate. (An earlier law stopped Richard Nixon from destroying his own papers, including the Watergate tapes, after his resignation in 1974. arguments The net effect is to add to the political deck a pair of jokers-one red and one blue-who randomly surface to mock the equality idea by giving the prize to the candidate who lost the national popular vote.
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