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Contents: (1) Intro.; (2) Competing Approaches: Direct Popular Election v. Electoral College Reform; (3) Direct Popular Election: Pro and Con; (4) Electoral College Reform: Pro and Con; (5) Electoral College Amendments Proposed in the 111th Congress; (6) Contemporary Activity in the States; (7) 2004: Colorado Amendment 36; (8) 2007-2008: The Presidential Reform Act (California Counts); (9) 2006-Present: National Popular Vote -- Direct Popular Election Through an Interstate Compact; Origins; The Plan; National Popular Vote, Inc.; Action in the State Legislatures; States That Have Approved NPV; National Popular Vote; (10) Prospects for Change -- An Analysis; (11) State Action -- A Viable Reform Alternative?; (12) Concluding Observations.
Electoral College Reform by Congressional Research Congressional Research Service Pdf
The electoral college method of electing the President and Vice President was established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, as revised by the Twelfth Amendment. It provides for election of the President and Vice President by electors who are themselves elected by the voters. A majority of 270 of 538 electoral votes is necessary to win. For further information on the electoral college system's operations, see CRS Report RL32611, The Electoral College: How It Works in Contemporary Presidential Elections, by Thomas H. Neale. The electoral college has been the subject of reform proposals since 1800. Constitutional and structural criticisms have centered on several of its features: it is not fully democratic, providing indirect election of the President; it can lead to the election of candidates who win the electoral college but fewer popular votes than their opponents or to contingent election in Congress if no candidate wins an electoral college majority; it results in electoral vote under- and over-representation between censuses; and that "faithless" electors can vote against the people's express choice. Legislative and political criticisms include the general ticket system, currently used in all states except Maine and Nebraska, which is said to disenfranchise voters who prefer the losing candidates in the states; various asserted "biases" that are alleged to favor different states and groups; and the electoral college "lock," which was once claimed to provide an advantage to Republican candidates, but is now said to favor Democrats. Electoral college reform options include the following: end it, mend it, or leave it alone. Proposals to end the electoral college almost always propose direct popular election, with the candidates winning the most popular votes nationwide elected. Almost all reform proposals would eliminate electors and award electoral votes directly by one of several methods: the general ticket system; the district system that awards electoral votes on a congressional-district and statewide-vote basis; and the proportional system that awards state electoral votes in proportion to the percentage of popular votes gained by each candidate. Despite more than 30 years of legislative activity from the 1940s through the late 1970s, proposed amendments never managed to win the constitutionally required two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress. Since 2004, some of the reforms identified above have been attempted in the states. District plan initiatives have been offered in California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Proportional plans have been proposed in Colorado and Pennsylvania. Nebraska has considered returning to the general ticket system. None of these, however, has been enacted to date.
The United States has not updated the Electoral College system since the Twelfth Amendment was ratified in 1804, despite public opinion polls showing a majority of Americans are in favor of changing or outright abolishing it. So why hasn't the United States reformed this system? Electoral College Reform brings together new essays examining all aspects of this crucial debate, including the reasons for reform, the issues surrounding a constitutional amendment, the effect of the Electoral College on political campaigns and the possibilities for extra-constitutional avenues to change. The authors consider both the Federalists' vision of balanced representation and a more democratic and equality-based ideal. These competing frameworks, perhaps more than any other factor, account for centuries of American indecision on this key issue. By offering an unprecedented and carefully researched analysis of an always controversial subject, this volume explores the potential for changing a system that many contend is long overdue.
Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? by Alexander Keyssar Pdf
A New Statesman Book of the Year “America’s greatest historian of democracy now offers an extraordinary history of the most bizarre aspect of our representative democracy—the electoral college...A brilliant contribution to a critical current debate.” —Lawrence Lessig, author of They Don’t Represent Us Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Congress has tried on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College, and in this master class in American political history, a renowned Harvard professor explains its confounding persistence. After tracing the tangled origins of the Electoral College back to the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Keyssar outlines the constant stream of efforts since then to abolish or reform it. Why have they all failed? The complexity of the design and partisan one-upmanship have a lot to do with it, as do the difficulty of passing constitutional amendments and the South’s long history of restrictive voting laws. By revealing the reasons for past failures and showing how close we’ve come to abolishing the Electoral College, Keyssar offers encouragement to those hoping for change. “Conclusively demonstrates the absurdity of preserving an institution that has been so contentious throughout U.S. history and has not infrequently produced results that defied the popular will.” —Michael Kazin, The Nation “Rigorous and highly readable...shows how the electoral college has endured despite being reviled by statesmen from James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson to Edward Kennedy, Bob Dole, and Gerald Ford.” —Lawrence Douglas, Times Literary Supplement
American Bar Association Commission on Electoral College Reform
Author : American Bar Association Commission on Electoral College Reform Publisher : Unknown Page : 74 pages File Size : 53,6 Mb Release : 1967 Category : Electoral college ISBN : STANFORD:36105012285164
Taming the Electoral College by Robert William Bennett Pdf
This book examines the history and weaknesses of the electoral college and proposes reforms that could be made to our electoral process without a constitutional amendment.
United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on the Constitution
Author : United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on the Constitution Publisher : Unknown Page : 96 pages File Size : 55,6 Mb Release : 1999 Category : Political Science ISBN : LOC:00063324292
Proposals for Reform of the Electoral College by Charlotte Byrd Pdf
Every four years, Congress gathers to count electoral votes and certify a winner of the presidential election. That process is usually uneventful. No longer--on January 6, 2021, supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, seeking to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's victory. There is a law meant to prevent the chaos of that day: the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (the "ECA").1 This book will examine the ECA and argue that it is badly in need of reform.
Proposals for Presidential Election Reform by Maureen Stone Pdf
The National Popular Vote (NPV) initiative proposes an agreement among the states, an interstate compact that would effectively achieve direct popular election of the President and Vice President without a constitutional amendment. This book monitors the NPV's progress in the states and identifies and provides an analysis of further developments as warranted. When Americans vote for President and Vice President, they are actually choosing presidential electors, known collectively as the Electoral College. It is these officials who choose the President and Vice President of the United States. The complex elements comprising the Electoral College system are responsible for one of the most important processes of the American political and constitutional system: election of the President and Vice President. A failure to elect, or worse, the choice of a chief executive whose legitimacy might be open to question, could precipitate a profound constitutional crisis that would require prompt, judicious, and well-informed action by Congress. This book discusses the contemporary issues for Congress and how the Electoral College works in contemporary presidential elections.
Let the People Pick the President by Jesse Wegman Pdf
“Wegman combines in-depth historical analysis and insight into contemporary politics to present a cogent argument that the Electoral College violates America’s ‘core democratic principles’ and should be done away with..." —Publishers Weekly The framers of the Constitution battled over it. Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule. How can we tolerate the Electoral College when every vote does not count the same, and the candidate who gets the most votes can lose? Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question—and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president. Now, as political passions reach a boiling point at the dawn of the 2020 race, the message from the American people is clear: The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed—now. Isn't it time to let the people pick the president? In this thoroughly researched and engaging call to arms, Supreme Court journalist and New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College. In Let the People Pick the President he shows how we can at long last make every vote in the United States count—and restore belief in our democratic system.
