Americans are still bent up and flustered on how an individual could lose the popular vote, but still, be given the upper hand in Electoral College votes. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact collectively apportions votes to the winner of the overall popular vote without a constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college or the assent of Congress. Using a popular vote system, candidates could campaign regionally, targeting major areas of support, to secure enough votes to win an election. Colorado is on the verge of joining a nationwide movement that could eventually change how we choose the next president of the United States. The plan would not get rid of the Electoral College. It would reduce the influence of third parties on the U.S. presidential election. The official 2016 election results from the Electoral College gave Donald J. Trump the victory with 306 electoral votes v. Hillary Clinton's 232 votes. Rural voters would almost always be in the minority. National Popular Vote will create a single member district (all 50 states and D.C.), where the candidate with the most votes wins and . Opines that the national popular vote plan is the wrong way to abolith the electoral college. PBS: What does voter turnout tell us about the 2016 election. Imagine a scenario where a presidential candidate focuses on Los Angeles, New York City, Portland, OR and Seattle. Lastly, it may cause a third-party candidate to prevail and win, which would allow Americans to be given more choices besides the two primary parties (Richards). Their vote only counts at the local level, not the national level, because of the electoral votes. Only Nebraska and Maine do not. However, in the popular vote, Trump only received 62,984,825 votes against Hillary Clinton's 65,853,516 popular votes. That would give the Compact states only 3 days( and two of those days were weekend days) to certify their state votes. It isnt impossible to pass a Constitutional amendment, though history shows that it is not an easy process to complete. There are alternatives to winner-take-all that do not involve abandoning the positive aspects of the Electoral College. In the 2020 general election, a ballot proposition attempted to overturn Colorado's membership to the pact, but the measure failed, 52.3% to 47.7% in the referendum. Because there was a difference of less than 1,000 tabulated votes between George W. Bush and Al Gore in one state, Florida, the nation watched as 6 million votes were recounted by machine, several hundred thousand were recounted by hand in counties with differing recount standards, partisan litigators fought each other in state and federal courts, the secretary of state backed by the majority of state legislators (all Republicans) warred with the state's majority Democratic judiciary -- until 37 days after the election the U.S. Supreme Court, in a bitterly controversial 5-4 decision effectively declared Bush the winner. When a popular vote is held for a national office, the election becomes more about platform issues than local issues. N.p., n.d. Lincoln Chafee (D) made his state the latest to sign on. The advantage of this system is that it preserves the preferences of. The winner would receive one vote per congressional district won with the winner of the state popular vote gaining a two electoral votes. When you cast your ballot, you're not actually voting directly for your favored presidential candidate. It has been enacted into law in 11 states with 165 electoral votes, and will take effect when enacted by states with 105 more. Under the electoral college system, the candidates which receive the most votes in each state (or district) receive its assigned electoral votes. http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/. The framers enacted the provisions relating to the Electoral College to allow for state innovation. This brings us to 196 of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate the pact. The Congressional District method would allocate electoral votes based on the winner of each congressional district. NPV is more than a third of the way to its goal. But if we set politics aside and focus on what is really best for democracy in our country in the long run I believe that the advantages of using the NPV compact to elect our president outweigh the disadvantages and the best way to elect our president in the 21st century is by direct popular vote using Ranked Choice Voting. (2021, Jun 14). The Electoral College system - the way we really elect our president - has always had its detractors and lost even more public support after the 2016 election, when it became apparent that President-ElectDonald Trump might have lost the nationwide popular vote to Sec. 3. But in practice it could happen every 10 or 20 years when the Electoral College votes change because the congressional boundaries change with the new population census. I am confident that when we enter the next phase where the popular vote leans Republican that Republicans will change and be adamant that we should elect the president by direct popular vote and Democrats will be arguing why we should keep the Electoral College/Winner-Take-All system. It gives more voting power to individual voters in smaller states. Under the Electoral College system, voters in states that are overwhelmingly in support of one candidate might feel like their vote is unimportant. Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? The horror of a potential national recount is only one of the dangers direct presidential elections poses. That means some voters, like Republicans in California or Democrats in Mississippi, are voting without power and without attention from their preferred candidates each year. Because every vote is equal inside Ohio or Florida, presidential candidates avidly seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns. As a result, the bill will take effect when enacted by states possessing an additional 74 electoral votes. The appeal of NPV is the simplicity of its message. National Popular Vote compact pros and cons. Samploon is a database of free essay samples. Cons of Electoral College. In the U.S., that means people who lean Democratic live in urban areas, while people who lean Republican live in rural areas. Robert Longley is a U.S. government and history expert with over 30 years of experience in municipal government and urban planning. cons of the national popular vote plan. Probably the NPV Compact would be enacted into law with as little as a simple majority of the states and possibly even less. In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore won the popular vote by more than 500,000 ballots, but George Bush became president by winning the Electoral College 271 to 266. The country thinks we are going to elect the president using the Electoral College/Winner-Take-All system tans and then four months before the election we change to the National Popular Vote Compact system and elect the president by whoever gets the most popular votes. Although it is sometimes conjectured that a national popular election would focus only on big cities, it is clear that this would not be the case. And in all states but Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who receives the most votes in that state is awarded all of its electoral votes, whether the split is 51% to 49% or 99% to 1%. Cons: Smaller states don't get as much of a say and people would demand a national recount National Bonus Plan Winner of popular vote gets extra 102 electoral votes Pros: No winner of popular vote losing overall Cons: Basically exactly like the Direct plan District Plan Win popular vote in each district, you get one electoral vote. Richards earned a master's degree at Carnegie Mellon University. Without any sort of broad support, the politics of the country could become even more fractured than they already are. Once effective, states could withdraw from the compact at any time except during the six-month window between July 20 of an election year and Inauguration Day (January 20). "The National Popular Vote Plan." sale of united methodist church property. 1. 5. Of the 538 Electoral College votes available, Donald J. Trump received 304 votes, Hillary Clinton received 227 votes, and seven votes went to others: three for Colin Powell, one for Faith Spotted Eagle, one for John Kasich, one for Ron Paul, and one for Bernie Sanders). Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. cons of the national popular vote plansuper lemon haze greenhouse. The candidate who placed second in the popular vote was elected in 2016, 2000, 1888, 1876, and 1824. Here are six reasons why legislators should reject this attempt to jettison our electoral system: 1. The issue raised by the National Popular Vote campaign is fundamental: What kind of a democracy should America be? For the popular vote, however, Hillary Clinton received 65.8 million votes, while Donald Trump received 62.9 million votes. We have seen this outcome in the 2016 Presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and in the 2000 election between George H.W. The National Popular Vote initiative transpired in 2006. June 7, 2022 . If enacted by enough states, the National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. However, a popular vote system, although hard to implement, is a more purely democratic system than the Electoral College. However, some critics argue that the advantages of a direct popular election including reflecting democratic principals, outweigh the disadvantages. 1. However that presumably rare exception happened in the 2000 election when Florida could not complete their statewide recount in time for the Electoral College deadline and the Supreme Court forced Florida to use their first vote count without a statewide recount. For more information, please see our https://www.thoughtco.com/the-national-popular-vote-plan-3322047 (accessed March 4, 2023). With the polarization in global politics today, especially in the United States, a switch to the popular vote would likely increase costs even further. Politicians would focus on fewer swing states (Bigger states more potential votes) District Plan CONS Technically still possible, but A LOT hard to do so District 1 = Romney 57% District 2 = Romney 52% District 3 = Romney 70% Gerrymandering. Get breaking news and updates from Common Cause. During the 2012 elections, 38 states, also known as spectator states, were ignored and forgotten. The Electoral College was established in the Constitution to protect minority interests and mitigate the possibility of a regional candidate. 41 States (with 80% of U.S. population) will be Ignored in the 2024 Presidential Election. Image the country thinks it is going to elect the president by National Popular Vote and then changing back to using the old Electoral College/Winner-Take-All system just four months before an election. Like most issues involving politics, the U.S. Constitution is largely silent on the political issues of presidential elections. They have only won the popular vote once. Using the NPV system means that every vote counts the same. The use of the Electoral College has been the only approach the U.S. has used to gain a President, but this way has generated numerous issues. Before the 2016 election, the largest vote deficit in the popular vote was Al Gore securing over 500,000 votes more than George W. Bush. This advance is referred to as the winner-take-all approach. One of the biggest reasons why voters dont vote is because they feel like their vote doesnt count. The National Popular Vote plan would eliminate what critics of the Electoral College system point to as the "winner-take-all" rule - the awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in that state. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the president. But don't forget, Bush won the popular vote four years later by three million votes. The time to stop its momentum is now. Part of HuffPost Politics. The National Popular Vote Bill is not a Democrat or Republican bill. Second, some believe itll intensify election problems, such as illegally extended voting hours or irregularly high voter turnout (Richards). List of the Cons of Using the Popular Vote 1. The states would implement this plan once enough states controlling 270 electoral votes have signed on, guaranteeing that the national popular vote winner will win the presidency.. 7. That's almost 1.5 billion . In states with large population centers, individual voters have less power than voters in smaller states. Then, election officials in all participating states would choose the electors sworn to support thepresidential candidate who received the largest number of popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is not at all clear that it would similarly prosper under the direct election regime being pushed by NPV. This National Popular Vote Compact wouldn't take effect until states with 270 electors a majority joined in. But sometime in the future the popular vote will change back and lean Republican. It would eliminate the threat of a faithless elector. The one-vote approach does not align with the way the electoral votes operates. Many cities and school districts, under threat of a lawsuit by a Malibu attorney, have already adopted or are in the process of changing to district elections rather than remaining citywide or . 5. It has been enacted into law in 11 states with 165 electoral votes, and will take effect when enacted by states with 105 more. Retrieved from https://samploon.com/electoral-college-and-national-popular-vote-pros-and-cons/, Should the Electoral College Be Abolished, Pros for The Electoral College in the United States, Electoral College is Undemocratic but We Have no Better System, The Electoral College Should Be Terminated, The Electoral College Annotated Bibliography. A simple change in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact could fix the flaw and still provide the benefits of a popular election. 1. But the national popular vote plan doesn't require a . The years-old effort is slowly making its way through state legislatures in hopes of changing the way Not only it already happened five times, but in theory, a candidate could win the presidency with only 22% of the popular vote in a two-candidates race. Richard F. Potthoff looks critically at a proposed alternative way of electing the US president, the National Popular Vote plan, where all states in an interstate compact which cover 270 or more electoral votes would cast their electoral votes for the candidate who won the nationwide vote, no matter who wins their state. That means a candidate who receives a majority of their votes in a high-delegate state, such as California, could make a dramatic impact on the rest of the election. The National Popular Vote plan is a bill passed by participating state legislatures agreeing that they will cast all of their electoral votes for the presidential candidate winning the nationwide popular vote. According to Article II, Section 1, "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress." It would reduce the threshold necessary to win the office. In the 2016 election, only 58 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. However, this also means that regions with a quite low population density will almost have no influence on the election outcome at all since they only have far too few votes to make a real difference. Also the NPV Compact allows states to withdraw from the compact as late as four months before an election. 48 Vitosha Boulevard, ground floor, 1000, Sofia, Bulgaria, Samploon, Inc. 2022. This would happen in the extremely unlikely situation where this candidate would win just for one vote in some . Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. To determine the National Popular Vote winner, state election officials simply would tally the nationwide vote for president based on each states official results. I fear that most, if not all, of the states signing onto the NPV Compact will be just blue states. Learn more about how the National Popular Vote compact works and the ways it could make our elections better for everyone. Without the popular vote bill, swing states would continue to get more leverage and attention from candidates to ensure that they would be able to capture their votes. ThoughtCo. The only election in the United States which is not governed by the popular vote is the presidential election. It would reduce diversity in the election structures. Just 12 Closely Divided Battleground States Got 96% of 2020 Campaign Events. Even though pre-election polls made conspicuous predictions of Hilary Clinton winning the presidency and . evergreen funeral home live stream. Our experts will write for you an essay on any topic, with any deadline and requirements from scratch, Electoral College and National Popular Vote Pros and Cons. Either would provide a reason for both parties to compete in most states because there would be electors to win. On Dec. 22, 2016, the results were certified in all 50 states. That structure makes it easier for extremist views to find official representation. On April 15, 2014 Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York State quietly signed into law the National Popular Vote, making New York the 10th state -- along with the District of Columbia -- to support this effort, while also boosting the total numbers to 165 of the 270 electoral votes needed to make a true national popular vote a reality. In 2016, Hillary Clinton had more than 10 million of these votes, while Donald Trump had more than 8.3 million, even though Trump won 30 states and Clinton won 20 and the District of Columbia. As of December 2020, the National Popular Vote bill has been adopted by 15 states and the District of Columbia, controlling 196 electoral votes: CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, HI, IL, MA, MD, NJ, NM, NY, OR, RI, VT, and WA. Under the electoral college system (and other voting systems not based on popular voting), it only takes one extra vote more than the other candidate to create the needed results for the election. The votes of those who do not live in closely divided battleground states effectively count less. Definition and Examples, How Political Party Convention Delegates are Chosen, What Is a Caucus? Each states electoral votes are tallied by Congress in the House chamber by House and Senate representatives on the 6th day of January following the Presidential election. After the process, the President of the Senate reveals who has officially been voted in as President and Vice President of the United States. As of July 2020, a National Popular Vote bill has been signed into law in 16 states controlling a total of 196 electoral votes, including 4 small states, 8 medium-sized states, 3 big states (California, Illinois, and New York), and the District of Columbia. 13 Early College High School Pros and Cons, 18 Major Advantages and Disadvantages of the Payback Period, 20 Advantages and Disadvantages of Leasing a Car, 19 Advantages and Disadvantages of Debt Financing, 24 Key Advantages and Disadvantages of a C Corporation, 16 Biggest Advantages and Disadvantages of Mediation, 18 Advantages and Disadvantages of a Gated Community, 17 Big Advantages and Disadvantages of Focus Groups, 17 Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Corporate Bonds, 19 Major Advantages and Disadvantages of Annuities, 17 Biggest Advantages and Disadvantages of Advertising. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement where states in the compact award all their electoral votes to the winner of the . 1, 2023 at 1:16 PM PST. It would be a national mandate to put someone in office, even if that winning candidate received less than 50% of the vote. In each instance the republic has survived, and democracy has prospered despite the challenges presented. National Popular Vote - Pros and Cons "The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the entire U.S. In summary, a popular vote is simply a vote in which the individual or issue with the most total votes from a population of voters is the winner. A direct popular election would make it more possible for third-party candidates to succeed and would also encourage political parties to become more radical and extreme.
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