805 15th Street, NW, Suite 800 At that stage, anyone who received an electoral vote is eligible to become the next president. A shift of a relative handful of votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in six of the last 12 presidential elections. Battleground states would disappear in U.S. elections. I fear that most, if not all, of the states signing onto the NPV Compact will be just blue states. If some of the 50 states and DC cannot certify their popular votes by the December deadline that could create a constitutional crisis where we would not have all of the state Electoral College votes certified by the time the Electoral College is required to vote according to the Constitution. A candidate could be elected without the popular vote. It would eliminate superfluous votes. 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). The last amendment, the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, was ratified nearly 200 years after it was originally proposed. cons of the national popular vote plan. Politicians would focus on fewer swing states (Bigger states more potential votes) Under the Electoral College/Winner-Take-All system votes in small states, like Wyoming or Delaware count double what votes in large states like California or Texas. The election is held every four years on the first Tuesday in November and prior to election day, the two candidates endure state-level primaries, caucuses, debates, and conventions. Thats how politics works in America. National Popular Vote is a constitutional and practical way to implement nationwide popular election of the President a goal traditionally supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans. The NPV is a multi-state agreement that, when active, would ensure that the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote nationally also wins in the Electoral College. Or states might explore what was recently proposed in Colorado -- that electors be allocated in proportion to each candidate's share of the popular vote above a certain threshold. In fact, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which has now been adopted by 15 states and the District of Columbia, totaling 196 electoral votes, is an actionable and realistic . It is perhaps the most simplistic form of an election. Rural voters would almost always be in the minority. Each vote would affect each candidate instead of being overlooked due to which state those votes would be coming from. The cost of a presidential election in the United States is already several billion dollars. The danger of NPV is that it will undermine the complex and vital underpinnings of American democracy. The selection of presidential electors is specifically entrusted to the states by the Constitution. It is not even a liberal or conservative bill. Among the others: By its very size and scope, a national direct election will lead to nothing more than a national media campaign, which would propel the parties' media consultants to inflict upon the entire nation what has been heretofore limited to the so-called battleground states: an ever-escalating, distorted arms race of tit-for-tat unanswerable attack advertising polluting the airwaves, denigrating every candidate and eroding citizen faith in their leaders and the political process as a whole. Though the original, some would say highly undemocratic, purpose. Because of the winner-take-all rule, a candidate can be elected president without winning the most popular votes nationwide. In fact, let's tally up all the votes cast for president between 1932 and 2008. How about receiving a customized one? Note: Today we are in a phase where the popular vote in presidential elections leans Democratic. (2021, Jun 14). Under the electoral college system of voting, the number of representatives a state has in Congress (Senators and Representatives) is the total number of electoral votes it is allowed. That would give the Compact states only 3 days( and two of those days were weekend days) to certify their state votes. All other elections in the U.S. are through the popular vote. Due to some states being heavily populated in comparison to others, that may help a candidate quickly obtain a win. To date, the bill has passed at least one legislative chamber in 9 states possessing 82 combined electoral votes: AR, AZ, ME, MI, MN, NC, NV, OK, and OR. Currently, 48 of the 50 states follow the winner-take-all rule. During a popular vote, a candidate who withdraws from the race or dies before the election can be held could still be on the ballot. Or the opposite could be true. Lincoln Chafee (D) made his state the latest to sign on. It was a great idea in 1787 but the country has changed since 1787 and the people today want to elect the president by a simple, direct popular vote where whoever gets the most votes wins like we do in every other election in the country. evergreen funeral home live stream. The states' approval of the compact is a victory for democracy and the principle of "one person, one vote." 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. Wyoming had just 3 electoral votes, but only had 255,000 voters as well. The Electoral College distorts presidential campaigns . Opines that the national popular vote plan is the wrong way to abolith the electoral college. Under the plan, Michigan's 15 Electoral . Going to the popular vote would eliminate this issue altogether. The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources) demonstrate what every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate in every state already knows namely that when every vote matters, the campaign must be run in every part of the state. There are logistical issues that are managed at the local level in each election. The issue raised by the National Popular Vote campaign is fundamental: What kind of a democracy should America be? Activating the National Popular Vote compact would reshape our . 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. In 2016, Gary Johnson received 4.48 million votes and 0 electoral votes, but the potential is always there for this to happen. pros and cons." dave leip's atlas of u.s. presidential elections. Currently, the National Popular Vote bill has 172 electoral votes. National Popular Vote values rural and urban voters equally. Part of HuffPost Politics. However, Hilary Clinton won 2.6 million more popular votes nationwide than Donald Trump. America is known to have the costliest, prolonged, and complicated structure when electing a head of state. Many of these states dont participate in campaign visits or get televised ads. Web. This divide creates natural divisions between groups of people who both support their country, but in different ways. Watch out! And that would undermine the legitimacy of the NPV among those people. On a close popular vote, often defined as a difference of 0.5% or less in the tabulated results, an automatic recount would likely be triggered. Explains kimberling, william c., and dave leip's . With the polarization in global politics today, especially in the United States, a switch to the popular vote would likely increase costs even further. 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. This was the intent of the Founding Fathers. The National Popular Vote (NPV) refers to the concept of allocating a state's presidential electors to the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide regardless of the state results in a presidential election. That's almost 1.5 billion . In the case of a tie, there are contingencies in place to determine which person will serve in the elected office. A popular vote election would bring the presidential election in line with the rest of the election structures. If this happens many people in the red states will not feel that the change is legitimate even if its legal and technically constitutional. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-national-popular-vote-plan-3322047 (accessed March 4, 2023). 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. 3. Using a popular vote system, candidates could campaign regionally, targeting major areas of support, to secure enough votes to win an election. A direct popular election also ensures that citizens' votes have equal weight. If the National Popular Vote bill was secured within the American government, it would protect every vote and would allow those votes to equally matter in the presidential election. That means the cost of counting all the votes would be duplicated. In contrast, in a direct popular election, each vote matters equally. Hence, the National Popular Vote plan is an interstate compact a type of state law authorized by the U.S. Constitution that enables states to enter into a legally enforceable, contractual obligation to undertake agreed joint actions, which may be delayed in implementation until a requisite number of states join in. Instead, each state and Washington D.C. is assigned a certain number of electoral votes based on its population. Just 12 Closely Divided Battleground States Got 96% of 2020 Campaign Events. One of the biggest reasons why voters dont vote is because they feel like their vote doesnt count. Start and finish your paper with ease. After all, the Electoral College makes it possible that a candidate who wins the majority of the votes could still lose the election. Inside Ohio or Florida, to pick two examples, the big cities do not receive all the attention, and they certainly do not control the outcome. The Electoral College was established in the Constitution to protect minority interests and mitigate the possibility of a regional candidate. It would reduce the influence of third parties on the U.S. presidential election. Now, the states are considering the National Popular Vote plan, a system that, while not doing away with the Electoral College system, would modify it to ensure that the candidate winning the national popular vote is ultimately elected president. Only Nebraska and Maine do not. For under its plan, the next time the U.S. has very close national vote, a recount would not be of six million votes in one state but of more than 130 million votes in all states and the District of Columbia, all with their own rules for conducting a recount. Although the 20th Amendment to the Constitution provides clarity to this situation, that process is based on the electoral college. Samploon is a database of free essay samples. A faithless elector in the United States is someone who casts an electoral ballot for someone other than the individuals to whom they are pledged. Although many supporters of the electoral college argue that a two-party political system is more stable, some critics counter that having more than two parties would give Americans more choice. It would eliminate the threat of a faithless elector. April 8, 2016 National popular vote far better than Electoral College system for choosing presidents, Stanford professors say. Past Event: The League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties has announced plans to broadcast a webinar discussing the National Popular Vote (NPV) on Monday, Feb. 27 at 7:00 p.m. National Popular Vote has been leading the campaign to fix the electoral college and elect the president by national popular vote since its founding in 2006 . A popular vote structure would virtually eliminate the idea of a third-party candidate having a chance in an election. And that would lead to chaos in how political parties campaign for president and could also undermine the legitimacy of the process. Maryland and New Jersey passed this bill in 2007, Hawaii and Illinois in 2008, Washington in 2009, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia in 2010, California and Vermont in 2011, Rhode Island in 2013, New York in 2014 and Connecticut in 2018. 4. If a popular vote were allowed to declare a winner instead, it wouldnt be through a state-by-state counting of electoral votes. 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. It happened once, in 1876. Since the Constitution and the Bill of Rights became governing documents in the United States, there have only been 17 amendments made to it. Even if states impose fines on faithless electors for their actions, it is not a guarantee that the behavior will stop. As a result, the bill will take effect when enacted by states possessing an additional 74 electoral votes. A popular vote system would significantly impact voters and turnout. http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/. Probably the NPV Compact would be enacted into law with as little as a simple majority of the states and possibly even less. In Maine, both houses of the legislature passed the bill in 2019, but it failed at the final enactment step. Security would be improved across the country. However, many people believe that a direct popular election is more democratic and fair than the Electoral College. Although moving to a popular vote election would balance the weight of each vote, it would also create more sway in larger population states. List of the Cons of Proportional Representation. cons of the national popular vote plansuper lemon haze greenhouse. The appeal of NPV is the simplicity of its message. An electoral college would solve . Inicio; Nota Biografica; Obra; Blogs. mike matarazzo last photo. All other votes cast for that candidate are therefore superfluous.