But don't forget, Bush won the popular vote four years later by three million votes. But the biggest problem with changing how we elect our president using the NPV Compact is that its too easy to change it back. A popular vote election would bring the presidential election in line with the rest of the election structures. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the president. 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. The principal flaw in the plan is its assumption that under the plan there will still be only two major parties competing for the presidency in 2020. . Definition and Examples. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. 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. When the Constitution was set in place in 1789, the U.S. elected its first president. It has been enacted into law in 11 states with 165 electoral votes, and will take effect when enacted by states with 105 more. For example, if a candidate was very popular in New York City, Los Angeles and other large cities, she might not need to earn votes from other areas of the country. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. The one-vote approach does not align with the way the electoral votes operates. The last amendment, the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, was ratified nearly 200 years after it was originally proposed. Probably the NPV Compact would be enacted into law with as little as a simple majority of the states and possibly even less. For the 7 presidential elections between 1992-2016, the Republican candidate has won the Electoral college 3 times. Con:not Eliminate possibility that loser of the popular vote can still win the electoral vote The Proportional Plan A proposed reform where each presidential candidate would receive the percent of electoral votes that they win from each state Proportional Plan Pro:Possible for loser of popular vote to win presidency. That means every state is allowed a minimum of 3 electoral votes. Because of the state Winner-Take-All rules, which arent even part of the Constitution, they can lead to presidential elections where the winner of the election doesnt have the most popular votes. Today the Democrats want to replace the Electoral College/Winner-Take-All system with a direct popular vote and the Republicans adamantly want to keep it. The United States has a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy: Citizens elect representatives rather than voting on each bill. 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. 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. The states' approval of the compact is a victory for democracy and the principle of "one person, one vote." If the election is based off a popular vote, each of these areas would need to be closely examined in real-time, which would enhance the security of each vote that is cast. 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. The electoral requires that an election which does not receive a majority of electoral votes be taken into the U.S. House of Representatives. Under the Electoral College system, voters in states that are overwhelmingly in support of one candidate might feel like their vote is unimportant. 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. sale of united methodist church property. Also the NPV Compact allows states to withdraw from the compact as late as four months before an election. Six Reasons to Reject National Popular Vote - Pelican Policy Imagine a scenario where a presidential candidate focuses on Los Angeles, New York City, Portland, OR and Seattle. These are the states that may go to either major party candidate in the election. By adding this new interstate compact to the Electoral College/Winner-Take-All system to elect our president we are in fact making this system even more complicated and even harder for the voters to understand. Would it aid a fight to eliminate first past the post or would it further entrench the established party system voters American voters have expressed disdain for. District Plan by Hannah Patzer - Prezi E pluribus unum -- out of many, one. As of December 2020, the bill has been fully adopted predominately by Democratic-majority blue states which delivered the 14 largest vote shares for Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential Election. It has also happened four times out of the 56 presidential elections. Electoral College pros and cons: is popular vote better? - netivist 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 appeal of NPV is the simplicity of its message. Without any sort of broad support, the politics of the country could become even more fractured than they already are. cons of the national popular vote plan. National Popular Vote Plan page 3 that non-member states that fail to hold such elections will not be included in the determination of 'the national popular vote winner.' This sidesteps the problem and provides an incentive for all states (non-members as well as members) to (continue to) hold such elections. The amendment requires that any change to the rate of compensation for members of Congress can only take effect after a subsequent election in the House of Representatives. How about receiving a customized one? 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. It would be a national mandate to put someone in office, even if that winning candidate received less than 50% of the vote. Here is the entire text of the proposed "Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote." Tweet Email this More on The Electoral College: Honorable Steve Cohen There would be fewer opportunities to illegally alter the results of an election. A popular vote system would significantly impact voters and turnout. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-national-popular-vote-plan-3322047. National popular vote - frequently asked questions - Common Cause every decade states are redistricted could be redrawn to capture house seats and corrupt the Presidential election The NPV movement seeks to create an unfair and unconstitutional system that diminishes the voting rights of citizens throughout the country and raises the prospect of increased voter fraud and. For more information, please see our Some areas may bend the rules of an election by extending voting hours illegally. It is not even a liberal or conservative bill. 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 view of democracy recognizes the existence and desirability of organized interests and enshrines that principle under the concept of pluralism. And that would undermine the legitimacy of the NPV among those people. That means the cost of counting all the votes would be duplicated. In 2016, Gary Johnson received 4.48 million votes and 0 electoral votes, but the potential is always there for this to happen. 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. what connection type is known as "always on"? That effectively means that votes in the the 75% of the country that are in swing states effectively dont count at all. In Maine, both houses of the legislature passed the bill in 2019, but it failed at the final enactment step. Over the years, the National Popular Vote bill has been introduced in the legislatures of all 50 states. There are a number of pros for this method. Michigan Legislature considers plan to enact national popular vote 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. The National Bonus Plan was proposed by historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Each vote would affect each candidate instead of being overlooked due to which state those votes would be coming from. The Constitution specifically leaves details like how the electoral votes are cast up to the states. 2. In each instance the republic has survived, and democracy has prospered despite the challenges presented. It gives more voting power to individual voters in smaller states. 1. Under the current structure of the electoral college, the focus of a presidential campaign is on the so-called battleground states. 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. Here are the essential pros and cons of popular vote elections to examine. Because every vote is equal inside Ohio or Florida, presidential candidates avidly seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns. The time to stop its momentum is now. Washington, DC 20005, Common Cause pays tribute to our leader, our friend, and a lifelong advocate for our democracy, Constitution, Courts & Other Democracy Issues, Ensure Fair Districts & Reflective Democracy, Expand Voting Rights & Election Integrity, Promote Free Speech & Accountability in Media, Protect the Constitution, Courts & Other Democracy Reforms. Either would provide a reason for both parties to compete in most states because there would be electors to win. N.p., n.d. 5. Is this a solution to first past the post or is it merely reinforcing our current two party system? Every state is allocated several votes according to the number of senators and representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation. The Pros and Cons of the Electoral College - SmartAsset This blog post is a joint effort with Leslie Francis, former executive director of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. 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.
cons of the national popular vote plan
cons of the national popular vote plan
