![]() When has the Electoral College picked the “wrong winner”? But the system remains intact despite numerous attempts to abolish it in the last two centuries - more than 700, according to the Congressional Research Service. The best permanent solution is to amend the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College. As we have seen, their forecast turned out to be correct - twice since 2000. In the 1991 book Wrong Winner: The Coming Debacle in the Electoral College, two political scientists predicted that the Electoral College would select the “wrong winner” within twenty years. While that’s unlikely to ever happen, the system can and does fail. award their votes on a winner-take-all basis,* it is technically possible for a candidate to win the presidency with around 23 percent of the national popular vote. For example, Wyoming voters have nearly four times as much influence as California voters do.Īdditionally, under the Electoral College system, electoral outcomes can undermine the popular vote. Basing the elector count off of congressional delegations continues to give disproportionate voting power to people in smaller states. The system has endured despite the expansion of suffrage and the abolition of slavery.īut the problems with the Electoral College extend beyond its historical roots. Under a provision that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation in Congress, Southern slave states gained outsize influence in selecting the president. The Electoral College was also designed to protect the influence of slave states. Many of the framers of the Constitution were uncomfortable with giving power to the people, and in part devised the Electoral College as a democratic bypass. It was originally included in the Constitution as a means to thwart direct democracy. The Electoral College is one of the most unique - and undemocratic - elements of the U.S. Why not stick with the Electoral College? The addition of these four new states brings the number of pledged electoral votes to 196, 72 percent of the needed total. Since then, 15 states (Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, Colorado, New Mexico, Delaware, Oregon) and Washington, DC, have signed on. The campaign to pass the compact began in 2006, earning its first victory in Maryland the following year. While the compact would not abolish the Electoral College, it would guarantee that the winner of the Electoral College vote and popular vote are the same. In the election after that threshold is reached, the NPV states would ensure that the winner of the national popular vote becomes president. The Compact will go into effect only when states controlling at least 270 electoral votes have joined. But under the NPV system, states would commit to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote instead. Since the 19 th century, each state (with the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska) has awarded its electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in that state. The Constitution gives state legislatures the right to choose how presidential electors are chosen. In the current Electoral College system, the presidency is awarded to the candidate who wins at least 270 of the 538 available electoral votes. Here’s what you need to know about National Popular Vote and the Electoral College: How does NPV work? There’s still more work to be done before we can wave goodbye to the current function of the Electoral College - one of the most fundamentally undemocratic parts of U.S. However, this does not mean that these states will award their collective 24 electoral votes to the biggest national vote-getter in 2020. The states’ approval of the compact is a victory for democracy and the principle of “one person, one vote.” 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. In 2019, Colorado, New Mexico, Delaware and Oregon became the latest states to take a stand against the Electoral College and join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPV). Attend the Brennan Legacy Awards Dinner.Advance Constitutional Change Show / hide.National Task Force on Democracy Reform & the Rule of Law.Government Targeting of Minority Communities Show / hide.Campaign Finance in the Courts Show / hide.Gerrymandering & Fair Representation Show / hide.Ensure Every American Can Vote Show / hide. ![]()
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