Why The Electoral College Exists

with the 2020 election approaching many voters recognize that where they vote may be more consequential than who they vote for like most elections a handful of states will determine the winner that's because of the Electoral College the Electoral College chooses the president based on state vote totals and recent history has shown the winning candidate for president doesn't even need to earn the most individual votes to win the electoral college vote two outcomes have ignited the debate on the fairness of the electoral college in 2000 former Vice President Al Gore received the most votes nationally winning what's called the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes over former Texas Governor George W Bush we see news is now taking Florida out of vice president Gore's column and putting it back in the too close to call Gore lost by five electoral votes following a Supreme Court decision that settled a recount dispute in Florida in 2016 president Donald Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 74 electoral votes despite losing the popular vote by nearly three million I've just received a call from Secretary Clinton she congratulated us it's about us victory so why does the Electoral College exist and do these results suggest the need for something new the Electoral College is a body of legislative officials that directly elects the President of the United States it's a system that's been in place for more than 200 years and while it's changed over time the concept has stayed the same the idea was adopted during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia this was actually a compromise there was a big fight inside the convention they worked out a compromise they had to work out a compromise because otherwise you know many of the states would never have agreed to ratify the Constitution and become part of the United States of America I think the compromise takes into account on the one hand people being able to vote and choose the candidates they want but on the other hand ensuring that candidates don't ignore large parts of the country the Constitution sets up the Electoral College and it assigns a certain number of electoral votes to each state now there's a total of 538 of them and the presidential electors meet in mid-december after the people vote in November and they're the ones who actually elect the president when you are at a polling booth to vote you are actually voting not directly for a candidate but you are voting for electors who have pledged that when the electors meet in December they will vote for a particular candidate in order to be elected president the candidate must receive 270 or a majority of the 538 votes cast here's how those 538 votes break down representatives in the House of Representatives plus 100 which is the number of senators plus 3 which is representation for Washington DC a States population determines how many electors it gets that number may change every 10 years when the census is conducted and states lose or gain population most states follow a winner-takes-all approach one of the advantages of the winner-take-all system which forty-eight states have two states don't do it that way is that it means that even when an individual wins and there's a relatively small margin of victory the winner-take-all system gives that winning candidate a mandate Maine and Nebraska are the two exceptions to this rule they allow for more than one candidate to earn electoral votes the framers were afraid that if we had a system based simply on the national popular vote then candidates would simply go to the big cities the big urban areas and they would ignore the more rural less populated parts of the country it may seem complicated but the creation of the Electoral College is consistent with the founders emphasis on indirect democracy there's no sort of national politics properly speaking and so it wasn't clear that you could basically ask ordinary people in the street in all of the different parts the city may not know of the same people right so the idea of making an indirect of having the state legislators do what state legislators they thought you know would have a sort of awareness of what was going on in national politics what the Constitution doesn't say is how these presidential electors are selected electors are chosen one of two ways nominees can be selected before their election by their political parties as a reward for their support they can also be directly elected by voters during the general election electors can only cast their vote once but vote twice one for the vice president and the president and they cannot vote for the president and vice president if both candidates are from the electors home state those in favor of the Electoral College credit the in stitute in with facilitating a peaceful transfer of power for more than two centuries we've had an extremely stable government for over 200 years that's actually a historical record when you look at the history of the world and I think those who argue that we should get rid of this have not really presented good and valid reasons to get rid of a system that has led to such stability it really is remarkable that every four years or eight years when a present serves more than one term the keys to the power of the most powerful government in the world have been peacefully handed over but not everyone is convinced some opponents of the electoral college say the system is unfair people who have the the direct vote on deciding how the president is elected are the four hundred state legislators and what our organization does a national popular vote is we visit with them one-on-one across the country and explain our legislation to them explain why the current system is bad because it elects second-place candidates and it leaves three out of four states as spectators in the presidential election and that it doesn't make every vote equal and it's inherently unfair others say population disparity gives larger states an unfair advantage taking power away from smaller states the integrity of the system has been called into question the problem is not in the electoral college it's in these state laws that the states have passed that give all of their electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes on a state-by-state basis so we would have a national popular vote for president and still have the electoral college under the national popular vote legislation purpose of the national popular vote interstate compact is to guarantee the presidency to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia those who believe in the electoral college say the institution actually promotes the states right to be fully recognized in the voting process in addition to preventing wreak count chaos additionally it prevents the kind of recount chaos that we could potentially have that would make what happened in Florida in 2000 look mild by comparison some of this debate might be settled soon the Supreme Court stated in January 2020 that it would rule on whether or not electors have the constitutional right to vote for candidates who didn't win the state popular vote the Supreme Court justices said they'll review two separate cases of the members of the Electoral College in Washington and Colorado in both states electrons to vote for 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton even though she won the popular vote Washington and Colorado like the majority of states mandate that electors vote at the will of their citizens but now some members say that these laws are unconstitutional the Electoral College does not require members to vote for the most desired candidate instead they tend to do so out of precedent the case in Washington focused on three electors who voted for : Powell in the 2016 presidential election these three members were each fined $1,000 the Washington Supreme Court upheld the fines saying electors must stick to the state popular vote the case in Colorado meanwhile was centered around a member of the electoral college who tried to vote for John Kasich along with two other members who refused to vote for Clinton the two members eventually backed down while the Kasich voter was replaced he appealed the state's decision to throw out his vote saying he has the right to choose his own candidate the Supreme Court's decision may change the way the electoral college votes in the next presidential election however experts still disagree if the country will move to a national popular vote any time soon the United States will adopt the national popular vote interstate compact probably in time for the 2024 election I don't foresee that in the future I think there have been since the beginning of the country over 700 proposals to get rid of the Electoral College through constitutional amendments none of them have been successful

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Id: WlYyC5-xv_A

Length: 10min 0sec (600 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 02 2020