The Electoral College was never intended to be the “perfect” system for picking the president, says George Edwards III, emeritus political science professor at … Some even floated the idea of letting state governors vote to decide which candidates would be in charge of the executive branch. One idea was to have the Congress choose the president. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]. J.F. In France, the president was elected by the legislature from 1875 to 1954. — And they thought the Electoral College would serve as a check on a public who might be easily misled, especially by foreign governments. Every four years, American citizens head to the polls to cast their vote for who they want to be President and Vice President of the United States. 1. Each state establishes how their respective electors will be chosen. Because electoral votes for president and vice president were not listed on separate ballots, Democratic-Republican running mates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in the Electoral College, sending the contest to the House of Representatives. November 4, 2020 12.02pm EST The delegates in Philadelphia agreed, in the summer of 1787, that the new country they were creating would not have a … So how exactly does the electoral college work? Asked by Wiki User 0 1 2 Answer Top Answer Wiki User Answered 2018-04-26 22:14:41 2018-04-26 22:14:41 The first U.S. presidential election was in … Until proposed changes are accepted, it still remains the method by which the President of the US is chosen. Should New Hampshire join in? And there was a serious move decades ago to abolish the Electoral College altogether. — In the final tally, the candidates who receive the majority of the electors (270) will have been chosen as the next President and Vice President of the United States. In addition, the president might feel indebted to Congress and yield some power back to the legislative branch. But if credit is to be given to one person, it’s often attributed to James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who proposed the idea prior to the committee of eleven making the recommendation. Towards Strategic Leadership - In a Time of Prolonged Crisis, CDES Distinguished Public Lecture 2020: featuring Noble Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Applying behavioural science to create change, Proud Partnerships in Place: 2021 First Peoples Public Administration Virtual Conference, in truth, one of the most difficult of all we have to decide, various systems were proposed, discussed, and rejected, Howard Chandler Christy/Architect of the Capitol, could have no knowledge of eminent characters, would render it the executor as well as the maker of laws, making the Executive the mere creature of the Legislature, In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit, in proportion to their actual populations, counting each enslaved person as three-fifths of a free person, unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character, unfinished business, including how to elect the President, proposed the adoption of a system of electors, mirrored other structures in the Constitution, ensure that only a qualified person became president, Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter, Democratic-Republican running mates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied, Research Assistant - Biomedical Signal Analysis, Lecturer/ Senior Lecturer - Korean Studies. 2 / 50 The winner would need a majority (26 states) to assume the presidency. [Deep knowledge, daily. Voters won't know who the electors are and it wouldn’t matter either way. The short answer is the founding fathers (aka the framers of the Constitution.) When the Constitution was created, the purpose of the Electoral College was to ensure a democracy while also guaranteeing a qualified, well-rounded president. Some delegates at the Constitutional Convention thought that letting Congress pick the president would provide a buffer from what Thomas Jefferson referred to as the “well-meaning, but uninformed people” who, in a nation the size of the United States, “could have no knowledge of eminent characters and qualifications and the actual selection decision.”. Ackerman Professor of Social Studies Education; Director, Ackerman Center; Associate Director, Purdue Center for Economic Education, Purdue University. The president and vice president of the United States are elected by the Electoral College, which consists of 538 electors from the fifty states and Washington, D.C. Electors are selected state-by-state, as determined by the laws of each state. How many Electoral College votes are needed to win? The most notable, of course, is the possibility of a candidate losing the popular vote, but winning the election. Chile had an electoral college established by the 1828 Constitution, which was used to elect its president in the elections from 1829 to 1920. The Electoral College polarized Americans from its inception. The 23rd Amendment gave electors to the District of Columbia. The short answer is the founding fathers (aka the framers of the Constitution.) Who invented the electoral college? Doing so would most likely require amending the constitution to do away or to alter the twelfth amendment. Now, there seems to be little need for it. The number of electors in each state is proportionate to how many members of congress represent the state. To understand why the Electoral College, and not the people, ultimately determines who is president requires a brief look into our country's turbulent beginnings. Hamilton and the other founders were reassured that with this compromise system, neither public ignorance nor outside influence would affect the choice of a nation’s leader. But the founding fathers were fairly apprehensive about strictly letting the people make such an important decision regarding their government. The Electoral College was created for two reasons. — The Electoral College was created as a compromise among the founding fathers on how the president should be elected during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The somewhat convoluted nature of the electoral college can make for some tricky situations. Some delegates thought getting states directly involved in picking the leader of the national government was a good approach for the new federal system. Additionally, it was the work of the Founding Fathers, who were also obviously responsible for the Constitution. For example, should the election end in a tie or if none of the candidates were able to garner a majority of electors, the vote gets tossed to congress, where each state gets one vote. Contrary to the popular belief that the Electoral College is a brilliant and well-established system, the reformers – those who wish to abolish the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote – believe that the Electoral College The electoral college is the formal body which elects the US president and vice president. The second as part of the structure of the government that gave extra power to the How Many Electoral Votes Does a Candidate Need to Win? These 11 men agreed on a compromise that created the Electoral College. The Southern states objected, arguing that they would be disadvantaged in a popular election in proportion to their actual populations because of the large numbers of enslaved people in those states who could not vote. The Electoral College: A 2020 Presidential Election Timeline https://crsreports.congress.gov Archivist), while six duplicates of the Certificate of Ascertainment must be provided to the electors by December 14, the date Forty-eight of the states award the entire slate of electors to the winner of the popular vote while the other two, Maine and Nebraska, divvy up their electors more proportionally with the loser potentially still receiving electors. Masterclass series, Victoria, CDES Distinguished Public Lecture 2020: featuring Noble Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz Because we are, once again, talking about the Electoral College a lot, this is your reminder that the Electoral College is bad and that there are zero coherent arguments in favor of keeping it. Hamilton also observed that legislators are often slower to move than top leaders might be expected to: “In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit.”. Conference, Victoria, Copyright © 2010–2020, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention had to invent an entire new form of government. Was the electoral college established? In some instances, the electors are legally obliged to vote for their party’s candidate. Online, Victoria, Applying behavioural science to create change Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. But generally, each party puts up a list of electors that have pledged to support the party’s chosen nominees. In the end, the electoral college was set up as a compromise between those who disagreed on whether the people or congress should elect the next president. The Constitutional Convention considered several possible methods of selecting a president. But others, including Alexander Hamilton, worried that states would select a weak executive, to increase their own power. The 12th Amendment—ratified in 1804—changed the original process, allowing for separate ballots for determining the President and Vice President. For example, California has 53 representatives in the United States House of Representatives and two senators, so California has 55 electors. The Electoral College has 538 members and will vote on the current presidential candidates Dec. 14. This happened most recently in the 2016 election, when Donald Trump was elected president over Hillary Clinton, despite being bested by nearly three million votes — Clinton won 2.1% more of the popular vote. Phillip J VanFossen's Distinguished Professorship and the Ackerman Center for Democratic Citizenship are funded by an endowment to Purdue University established by the Ackerman Family Foundation. What Happens If the Presidential Election Is a Tie, Presidents Elected Without Winning the Popular Vote, How Presidents and Vice Presidents Are Elected, Vice President of the United States: Duties and Details. It’s not as pithy as the musical, perhaps, but the point is clear: Don’t trust the state legislatures. The Electoral College has met every four years since the first meeting. The committee’s third report to the Convention proposed the adoption of a system of electors, through which both the people and the states would help choose the president. In total, there are 538 electors, which include three electors from the District of Columbia. Some states are considering legislation that essentially bypasses the Electoral College. Victoria, Proud Partnerships in Place: 2021 First Peoples Public Administration Virtual Conference The final approach debated was that of popular election. The Electoral College has aided in presidential elections since 1804, when the American government was first being established. Selecting the president was one of those compromises. George Mason, a delegate from Virginia, shared Jefferson’s skepticism about regular Americans, saying it would be “unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would, to refer a trial of colours to a blind man. While the Electoral College was established in the Constitution, the details of the process are governed by Chapter 1 of Title 3, United States Code. The problem was resolved in 1804 when the 12th Amendment was ratified, allowing the electors to cast separate ballots for president and vice president. The extent of the Country renders it impossible that the people can have the requisite capacity to judge of the respective pretensions of the Candidates.”, The delegates appointed a committee of 11 members – one from each state at the Constitutional Convention – to solve this and other knotty problems, which they called the “Grand Committee on Postponed Questions,” and charged with resolving “unfinished business, including how to elect the President.”. In 1787, two things forever changed the face of American politics: First, a group of national leaders drafted the U.S. Constitution, and second, they decided the average citizen wasn't erudite enough to elect a president without the bridge of a system known as the Electoral College. Updated October 22, 2019 Who invented the electoral college? — However, fears were raised that Congress picking the winner would give that branch too much power. Others were concerned that this approach threatened the separation of powers created in the first three articles of the Constitution: Congress might choose a weak executive to prevent the president from wielding veto power, reducing the effectiveness of one of the system’s checks and balances. When you vote for a presidential candidate, you are in fact voting to instruct the electors from your state to cast their votes for the same candidate. But should the race remain deadlocked, the senate selects a vice president to take over as acting president until the deadlock is somehow resolved. It’s the electors whose vote will determine the next president. It has been that way ever since. The Electoral College was created by the framers of the U.S. Constitution as a compromise for the presidential election process. Still others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of … The Electoral College website now has an easy-to-remember address. The electors are picked by the citizens through a contest called the popular vote. How the US Electoral College System Works. Originally, the Electoral College provided the Constitutional Convention with a compromise between the popular election of the President and congressional selection. Towards Strategic Leadership - In a Time of Prolonged Crisis This idea was rejected, however, because some felt that making such a choice would be too divisive an issue and leave too many hard feelings in the Congress. Some delegates, like New York delegate Gouverneur Morris, viewed the president as the “guardian of the people,” whom the public should elect directly. : Throughline What is it, why do we have it, and why hasn't it changed? However, the framework they put into place for the election of the nation’s president is not only oddly undemocratic, but also opens the door to some quirky scenarios, such as a candidate who wins the presidency without having captured the most votes. info)), pl. The Electoral College is not a place, it’s the process that takes place to election the President of the United States. There are currently 538 electors, and an absolute majority of electoral votes, 270 or more, is required to win the election. Some wanted a purely democratic popular vote and others wanted Congress to pick the victor. The college is established in Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution. But if credit is to be given to one person, it’s often attributed to James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who proposed the idea prior to the committee of eleven making the recommendation. Now wouldn’t it simply be easier (not to mention more democratic) to go with a straightforward popular vote? There are also a host of other very unlikely, yet still possible complications. Make sure to update your bookmarks! This was eventually resolved – in one of those many compromises – by counting each enslaved person as three-fifths of a free person for the purposes of representation. Want another one? What Happens if There Is a Tie in the Electoral College? In fact, this was the very last thing written into the final draft. At the beginning, six of the 11 members preferred national popular elections. Also keep in mind that at the time of the constitution we didn’t have a primarily two-party system the way we do now and so it can easily be assumed that citizens would likely just vote for their favored candidate of their state, hence giving entirely too much leverage to candidates from bigger states. But they did not agree on how to choose that president. Even though the aggregate national popular vote is calculated by state officials, media organizations, and the Federal Election Commission, the people only indirectly elect the president. As a system that undermines democracy, the Electoral College exists as evidence that the Founding Fathers did not trust the people to choose someone to represent them. For one, they saw the potential for a tyranny of the majority, wherein 51 percent of the population elected an official that 49 percent wouldn’t accept. At the time, some p… 2. And what was the founder’s reasoning behind creating it? When all is said and done, it's the Electoral College vote — not the popular vote — that decides the presidency. James Madison of Virginia was particularly concerned that holding a popular vote would disadvantage southern states, which were less populated than those in the north. When was the electoral college created? Who invented the Electoral College? But for practical purposes, voters stepping into the booth shall be given a choice to cast their ballots for one of the party nominees or write in their own candidate. The Electoral College system was established in Article II of the Constitution and amended by the 12th Amendment in 1804. When the Electoral College was established, the Founding Fathers had no idea what the United States would grow to be in size — 50 states, 331 million people and over 200 million voters. The constitution was amended in 1925 and the electoral college was replaced with direct elections by popular vote since 1925. Any candidate who wins a majority or plurality of the popular vote nationwide has a good chance of winning in the Electoral College, but there are no guarantees (see the results of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 elections). 12th Amendment: Fixing the Electoral College, Landslide Victory: Definition in Elections. The Electoral College system was established in Article II of the Constitution and was amended by the 12th Amendment in 1804. However, the Electoral College has … They were at risk of concluding their meetings without finding a way to pick a leader. How about the fact that in some instances electors aren’t required to vote for state winner and can defy the will of the people, a problem known colloquially as the “faithless elector.” It happened in 2000 when a Washington DC elector didn’t cast a vote in protest of the district's lack of congressional representation and also in 2004 when an elector from West Virginia pledged ahead of time to not vote for George W. Bush. Had no agreement been reached, the delegates would not have approved the Constitution. This Chapter on Presidential Elections and Vacancies includes provisions on the The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. They believed that the electors would ensure that only a qualified person became president. By the election of 1800, political parties had arisen. Sure. In the case in which no candidates receive at least 270 electors, the decision goes to the U.S. House of representatives where a vote is held between the top three presidential candidates who received the most electors. The Journal of the Federal Convention records the formal proposal to create the Electoral College. Melbourne, Victoria, Future public sector leaders' series See Electoral College and Indecisive Elections for more information. Purdue University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with … What is the process? Since the election of 1824, the majority of states have chosen their presidential electors bas… But perhaps the biggest problem is that while the electoral college is considered by many to be inherently unfair and can thus lead to a number of unsatisfying scenarios, it’s unlikely that politicians will be able to do away with the system anytime soon. Instead, the votes go toward choosing electors that are part of a group called the electoral college. The reason why the Electoral College was created and if it’s the right system will always be subject to debate. In some elections, the Electoral College has voted presidents into office by extremely slim margins, as was the case in 1960, when John Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by fewer than 120,000 popular votes. A transcript from the Constitutional Convention records the official report creating the Electoral College. At the convention, there were delegates were so dead set against the dangers of directly electing a president that they proposed having congress vote on it. The House ultimately chose Jefferson as the third president, leaving Burr as vice president – not John Adams, who had led the opposing Federalist party ticket. The delegates in Philadelphia agreed, in the summer of 1787, that the new country they were creating would not have a king but rather an elected executive. The Electoral College was written into the U.S. Constitution in 1787, a time when our nation was new and still struggling in many ways, including politically. (The Twenty-Third Amendment, adopted in 1961, provided electoral college representation for Washington, D.C.) The electors would then meet and vote for two people, at least one of whom could not be an inhabitant of their state. Each state has its own ele Of primary concern was the possibility of a nationwide election breaking down into chaos and confusion. Between Aug. 31 and Sept. 4, 1787, the committee wrestled with producing an acceptable compromise. The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors from the all of the states. While it's far-fetched, crazier things have happened before. Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson called the problem of picking a president “in truth, one of the most difficult of all we have to decide.” Other delegates, when they later recounted the group’s effort, said “this very subject embarrassed them more than any other – that various systems were proposed, discussed, and rejected.”. Kurfürsten, Czech: Kurfiřt, Latin: Princeps Elector), or electors for short, were the members of the electoral college that elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. I am a civics educator who has also run Purdue University’s Constitution Day celebration for 15 years, and one lesson I always return to is the degree to which the founders had to compromise in order to ensure ratification. The founding fathers established it in the Constitution. The current date was changed in 1936 due to the Twentieth Amendment setting the start of presidential terms to January 20th. Of course, there are other ways to get around the flaws, such as one proposal to have in which states can all collectively pass laws to hand all electors to the winner of the popular vote. But they realized they could not get the Constitution ratified with that provision: The Southern states simply would not agree to it. Electors have even The Electoral College is a process, not a place. — The Electoral College system was created in 1787 It was established as part of the Constitutional Convention. The first meeting date was decided by the Continental Congress, because members of the first US Congress had not been selected. Virginia delegate James Madison was concerned that giving Congress the power to select the president “would render it the executor as well as the maker of laws; and then … tyrannical laws may be made that they may be executed in a tyrannical manner.”, That view persuaded his fellow Virginian George Mason to reverse his previous support for congressional election of the president and to then conclude that he saw “making the Executive the mere creature of the Legislature as a violation of the fundamental principle of good Government.”. The first purpose was to create a buffer between the population and the selection of a President. The Electoral College is an important process that was implemented into the Constitution to provide a compromise between Congress and citizens when voting for our nation’s leader. But the original system – in which the winner of the Electoral College would become president and the runner-up became vice president – fell apart almost immediately. But they’re not voting to elect candidates directly and not every vote counts in the final tally. Three approaches were debated during the Constitutional Convention: election by Congress, selection by state legislatures and a popular election – though the right to vote was generally restricted to white, landowning men. New Hampshire has four of those electors. It’s not clear which delegate came up with the idea, which was a partly national and partly federal solution, and which mirrored other structures in the Constitution.
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