why did they start the electoral college?why did they start the electoral college?

Edmund Burke and James Madison. A quiz to (peak/peek/pique) your interest. This allowed Florida's previous certification of electoral votes to stand. By the same token, if no one receives an and vice president of the same party), the 12th Amendment requires that each But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Make sure to update your bookmarks! Introduction: Why does the United States have an Electoral College? California has the most electors - 55 - while a handful of sparsely populated states like Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota (and Washington DC) have the minimum of three. The Kentuckian forged an alliance between electors in Ohio and New England (including states that had voted decisively for Jackson) in order to hand the White House to Adams, who later appointed Clay as his secretary of state. president rather than casting two votes for president with the runner-up being made vice Who invented the electoral college? Born from a rushed, fraught, imperfect process, the origins and evolution of the Electoral College might surprise you and make you think . Rationale for the Electoral College Many believe that the origins of the Electoral College are more complex. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you But the deepest political divisions in America have always run not between big and small states, but between the north and the south, and between the coasts and the interior. The New York Times called the last two states on its map on. lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. This ugly debate was resolved with the so-called three-fifths compromise, by which each Black person would count as three-fifths of a person when determining congressional representation for each state by population. It was a controversial method for electing a president when it was first adopted and remains the subject of much debate to this day. The first purpose was to create a buffer between the population and the selection of a President. With Florida's 25 votes, Bush received 271 total Electoral College votes and was declared the winner by a very narrow margin. Five times in the nation's history, the winner of the popular vote was not elected President. How did we get the Electoral College, and why do we still have it? - WTOP I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. States. None of the four other media markets in Georgia are in the Top 100. Alaska's population is relatively sparse. What is the Purpose & Process of the Electoral College? | Role population as determined in the decennial census). Wagner's network in Africa faces uncertain future, Prigozhin's soldiers rage while others cry conspiracy, Cyclone survivors go hungry as junta blocks aid, Trafficked for a kidney and now forced into hiding. Alternatively, a candidate could win by a landslide and still pick up the same number of electoral votes. Finally, a so-called "Committee of Eleven" in the Constitutional Convention This essay borrows from his recently published book, The Constitution Today. The Law of the Land: A Grand Tour of Our Constitutional Republic, One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy. Jefferson and Aaron Burr (both of that party) an equal number of electoral votes. All other features of the Electoral thereby creating new and different problems in the selection of a president. The cheapest electoral votes come from states that have tight margins and lots of electoral votes. More than 74 million votes had been counted for Mr. Trump. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves. much in a dozen or so years. In any case, eliminating the Electoral College would not be an easy process. This created the sense that Obama won handily. from among the top two contenders for that office. Here's why the Electoral College existsand how it could be reformed But it's possible the candidate with the most votes from the public won't be the winner. When i started this oh so long ago, my mentors always emphasized this: always be training your replacement. Electoral College Overview & History | What is the Electoral College? Still, the two Why is it Called the Electoral College? | Merriam-Webster To win the Presidential Election, a candidate must gain 270 electoral votes. One aspect of the electoral system that is not mandated in the constitution is the fact that the winner takes all the votes in the state. (described in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution): In all, this was quite an elaborate design. The method that the states vote for the electoral college is not mandated by the constitution but is decided by the states. Another potential weakness in the Electoral College system is the existence of so-called faithless electors, who for whatever reason choose to vote against their states chosen candidate. Updated: October 23, 2020 | Original: December 13, 2016. Early examples of the term are from religious contexts, such as "Jesus Christ and his college of apostles" or "the Vatican's College of Cardinals." Obviously, the 2020 results changes the numbers, (and adds Nevada, which wasnt included in his first analysis), including the lineup of most efficient pathways to 270. But the president and vice president are not elected directly by citizens. Texas ranks 46th in thecost of voting index. How Hillary Clinton Is Going to Win Today, How We Can Learn to Live with COVID-19 After Vaccinations, 2023 TIME USA, LLC. sufficient to govern the whole country. public office (The saying was "The office should seek the man, the man should not presidential candidate has to be from a State other than that of the Electors. president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party. With two parties dominating the US system, this is unlikely to happen today. During the 15th century, elect and elector are voted into the English lexicon. The body of electors chosen from each state to elect the president and the vice president is called the electoral college. One way of modifying the system is to eliminate the winner take all part of it. There have been 157 such faithless electors over the years, starting way back in 1796, when a Pennsylvania elector changed his vote from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, for reasons that remain unclear. Get HISTORYs most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week. The Troubling Reason the Electoral College Exists - TIME What information do we collect from this quiz? be because the physical and demographic circumstances of the country had not changed that After a chaotic process, including no fewer than 36 votes, Jefferson was elected president and Burr V.P. presidential election of 1800, the Electors of the Democratic-Republican Party gave Thomas Chapter 8 Flashcards | Quizlet Then he walks through the various scenarios for how Clinton could have beaten Trump (a lot of us would argue that she not only beat Trump but should have won the Electoral College, if things had been fair), and specifically calls the Democratic path through Texas: To win Texas, Clinton have needed to net over 800,000 more voters. Of these, 100 votes represent our U.S. senators. Texas and Florida have the weakest Democratic Party organizations, Florida worse than Texas. In other words, the Founders didn't trust ordinary people would have enough knowledge about candidates to choose wisely. the U.S. Senate would break the tie by deciding between the two. They're obscure. - Definition & Overview, What Is the Electoral College? This creates an unfair advantage to voters in the small states whose votes count more than those people living in medium and large states. Why the Electoral College exists - National Geographic had emerged in the United States. Create your account. There are other factors the Biden campaign will consider, and i wasnt attempting to be thorough here. Electoral and college become official running mates during the late 17th century, which is also the period when the adjective itself gains popularity. Representatives, as the chamber closest to the people, would choose the president from Why did they create the Electoral College? national government. been mentioned previously in the Constitutional Convention. They did not trust the choice of the president to a direct vote of the people. Debate over the system used to choose the president and vice president of the United States is as old as the U.S. Constitution itself. The History of the Electoral College Debate | HISTORY president. Even though slaves didn't vote, they were counted in the US census (as three-fifths of a person). revolution (and its fairly rapid degeneration into dictatorship) had given the populists Others felt that such a procedure would invite outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their At the time of the founding of the United States, the great body of the people were only land-owning white men 21 and older, it did not include people of color, women, or non-land owning people. I have done my small part but my family lives there, i do not. Campaigns and Governing do not require the same skills or skillset. Overview The election of 1800 pitted Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson against Federalist John Adams. president. The Electoral College - Origin and History - Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones. The Donald Trump view of elections was just rejected again - CNN However, the term "electoral college" does not appear in the Constitution. This is a narrow margin considering the approximately 125 million popular votes cast in that election. Though Jackson got the most electoral votes (99) and held a slight lead (38,149 votes) in the popular vote, no candidate received a majority in the Electoral College, and the decision again fell to the House of Representatives, who would decide between the top three finishers, Jackson, John Quincy Adams (who received 84 electoral votes) and Secretary of State William Crawford. There are only two states (Maine and Nebraska) which divide up their electoral college votes according to the proportion of votes each candidate receives. In Federalist Paper #68 Alexander Hamilton explained that this method would ensure that the President is chosen by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station. But it cant be until we solve a lot of issues holding Texas back. Hamilton believed most voters were not knowledgeable enough to pick the President. The Electoral College currently is made-up of 538 Electors, one for each of the Senators and Representatives in Congress (535), and three Electors from the District of Columbia. For example, if a candidate wins 50.1% of the vote in Texas, they are awarded all of the state's 38 electoral votes. The remaining 438 votes are divided between our congressional districts, including the District of Columbia. Direct election Under Article II of the United States Constitution, each state may choose electors to elect a president and vice president. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. They feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power. If the systems pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. The short answer is the founding fathers (aka the framers of the Constitution.) A New Theory of Cooperation to Tackle Crises Such as Climate Change Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election. One Founding-era argument for the Electoral College stemmed from the fact that ordinary Americans across a vast continent would lack sufficient information to choose directly and intelligently. After the 1800 census, Wilsons free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes. The amendments modifications of the electoral process transformed the Framers framework, enabling future presidential elections to be openly populist and partisan affairs featuring two competing tickets. As Americans await the quadrennial running of the presidential obstacle course now known as the Electoral College, its worth remembering why we have this odd political contraption in the first place. On the other hand, supporters of the Electoral College see it as an integral part of our federal union, and a necessary way to give the states, as well as the people, a role in choosing the leadership of the government. life in American presidential elections. Georgia and Wisconsin have the strongest state Democratic Party organizations, with Michigan very close up there. The news Tuesday is that the US Supreme Court squarely rejected the fringe legal theory by which far-right activists and supporters of Trump hoped to be able to ignore election outcomes. Electoral college | Definition, Map, History, Votes, & Facts Democrats and progressives have largely moved away from building from the ground up, allowing each states party orgs and grassroots to lead. Together, they have 165 electoral votes. The Electoral College is also part of compromises made at the convention to satisfy the small states. And at least people are thinking about it. The Modern Part of an Universal History, 1764, By this time the Emperor's son Joseph was by the electoral college chosen King of the Romans. This is because the president is not . Therefore it makes no difference if you win a state by 50.1% or by 80% of the vote you receive the same number of electoral votes. seemingly slight changes, the 12th Amendment fundamentally altered the design The US presidential election takes place 3 November. Some claim that the founding fathers chose the Electoral College over direct election in order to balance the interests of high-population and low-population states. In theory, the electors of the Electoral College take this state wide information and cast their own votes. State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. The Electoral College would allow a candidate to win a majority of the popular vote and lose the election four more times in historyin 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. Origins of the Electoral College The Constitutional Convention considered several possible methods of selecting a president. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial However, the. The word "college" here simply refers to a group of people with a shared task. How to change the Electoral College system. What is the Electoral College? | National Archives For example, the state of New York is densely populated. The Electoral College was created by the framers of the U.S It is noteworthy in passing that the idea of electing the president by direct popular vote But the early emergence of national presidential parties rendered the objection obsolete by linking presidential candidates to slates of local candidates and national platforms, which explained to voters who stood for what. Each elector represents one electoral vote, and a candidate needs to gain a majority of the votes - 270 or more - to win the presidency. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The second as part of the structure of the government that gave extra power to the smaller states. In terms of real costs, specifically media costs, it is the most expensive swing state in terms of total advertising costs, as well. However, the framework they put into place for . It's Not Possible to 'Win' an Argument With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Those states do get a boost from their . The original US election 2020. If that, too, was tied, many hard feelings in the Congress. Since the number of electoral votes was determined by the size of a state's population, southern states had more influence in electing a president than a direct public vote would have given them. Each state receives one vote. Electoral College Timeline of Events | National Archives In 2016, seven electoral college votes were cast this way, but no result has been changed by faithless electors. The second as part of the structure of the government that gave extra power to the smaller states. own State or region. The Electoral College was created for two reasons. The electors have the discretion to choose the candidates they vote for, but in practice they vote for the candidates that win the majority of the popular vote in their respective states. In some states, electors could vote for whichever candidate they prefer, regardless of who voters backed. Electoral College | USAGov Unfortunately, the party that has the advantage in the state is unlikely to agree to a unilateral change. But it was also a very clever one when you consider that the whole operation was supposed Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College. How are the number of electors chosen for each state? It was originally included in the Constitution as a means to thwart direct democracy. It would take a constitutional amendment ratified by 3/4 of states to change the system. some pause to reflect on the wisdom of too direct a democracy. What happens if no candidate gets a majority? The founding fathers established it in the Constitution. Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an email, or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805. We need tens of thousands Democrats and progressives more committed to turning Texas blue. communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought This is because the president is not chosen directly by the voters, but what's known as the electoral college. Competent govern-ors and campaign staff are not equally distributed in Texas and i am all for campaign or government staff to step up to fill those roles. What is the Electoral College? | The Presidential Election Process Excerpt from an original publication: Kimberling, William C. (1992). Every once in awhile, someone asks me, basically, why not Texas? In this case, DKos commenter glorificus asked: Ohio has 18 electoral votes. United States Electoral College - Wikipedia At best, the choice of president would always be several possible methods of selecting a president. As mentioned, electoral is related to the familiar verb elect, which is from Latin electus, the past participle of eligere, meaning "to select" and formed from the prefix e- ("out") and the verb legere ("to choose" or "to pick"). It is hard to imagine the smaller states agreeing. Ten other countries have versions of an electoral college. The United States Supreme Court eventually halted the recount due to constitutional concerns. This was a common view after the 2008 presidential election. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. The cost of an electoral vote is how many voters a candidate would have needed to net per Electoral College vote to win a state. We need more people to knock on doors, more people to run for office, more people involved. So be sure to vote. Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers: It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. 68 of the Federalist Paperswrote of the new Electoral College system that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.. The very people who had been condemning parties publicly But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons. "Kos" and "Daily Kos" are registered trademarks of Kos Media, LLC. College remained the same including the requirements that, in order to prevent Electors The cost of an electoral vote is how many voters, same thing for the last presidential cycle, Ways to get involved in the upcoming elections. Ashley has a JD degree and is an attorney. Lexington and Concord Date, Significance & Outcome, What Are the Alien & Sedition Acts? We can look at the math and it looks really simple. electoral votes for president, then the U.S. House of Representatives will select the Another factor that campaigns and independent orgs have to consider is the ease of voting. Since this sort of bargaining over the presidency was the very thing the Electoral College Each State was allocated a number of Electors Representative (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's For . Its goal is to divide the power of selection between Congress and the people and allow a balance between federal and state powers in keeping with federalism. If they gain a total of 270 the majority needed to . This arrangement, Let's say Smith and Doe are our presidential candidates. In light of this more complete (if less flattering) account of the electoral college in the late 18th and early 19th century, Americans should ask themselves whether we want to maintain this odddare I say peculiar?institution in the 21st century. according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Though each state can choose how to divide its Electoral College votes, almost all states use a winner-takes-all method. Constitutionally, the method by which electors were selected was left up to the individual state legislatures. All four leading candidates in the 1824 election were from the same party, the Democratic-Republicans. State Democratic Parties do not focus on winning the presidency, but they do factor into any decision expend time and resources in their state. The Electoral College Explained - The New York Times Every state they win gets them closer to the 270 electoral college votes they need. In the summer of 2006, I jumped into the ring for a few rounds of debate with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was peddling reckless claims about an important issue on which he lacked expertise. The founding fathers were afraid of direct election to the Presidency. The United States Electoral College is the group of presidential electors required by the Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of appointing the president and vice president.Each state and the District of Columbia appoints electors pursuant to the methods described by its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation (representatives and senators). Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. States being required to elect a president. This happened for the first time in 1824, to Andrew Jackson, who had risen from the backwoods of the Carolinas, with little formal education, to become a successful slaveholding lawyer in Tennessee and the celebrated hero of the War of 1812. This idea was rejected, however, lessons. This is far more than any of the other routes explored above and over 10 times as many as the Rust Belt path in. But of that, more later. Remember that there are two U.S. senators from each of our 50 states. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window). Where is Prigozhin going? the president? William Belsham, Memoirs of the Kings of Great Britain, 1796. The Electoral College, Explained | Brennan Center for Justice A simple way to keep them apart. It's therefore possible for a candidate to become president by winning a number of tight races in certain states, despite having fewer votes across the country. Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. Electoral in the name is a shoo-in . By Perrine Juillion / May 27, 2019 The Electoral College was created by the framers of the U.S. Constitution as an alternative to electing the president by popular vote or by Congress. The Electoral College goes on to meet Dec. 14 to cast the real votes for president, which are counted by Congress Jan. 6, in time for Inauguration Day Jan. 20. The shall meet in their respective states', They will sign and certify the vote tally and transmit it under the seal of the Federal Government to the President of the Senate, The Electoral College has 538 members, called Electors. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. political parties, without national campaigns, and without upsetting the carefully All Rights Reserved. The vice presidency would go to whatever Texas will have 40 in 2024. So, the number of Electoral College votes a state has is dependent on how many congressional districts that state has. Those of us who live outside of Texas need to be supportive, but we have to let Texans lead. All Rights Reserved. Delivered to your inbox! We are largely working on a top down model, which is what every single presidential campaign does. The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. Learn the definition of the Electoral College, the purpose of the Electoral College, as well as the Electoral College process and its flaws. Electoral College votes are apportioned to the states based upon the number of Senators and Representatives each state has, with a minimum requirement of three votes. The quirks of the Electoral College system were exposed in 2016 when Donald Trump secured the presidency with an Electoral College majority, even as Hillary Clinton took a narrow lead in the popular vote. In his new book, Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory, Bernard E. Harcourt, the Isidore and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and professor of political science, underscores how liberal democracy is in crisis around the world, unable to address pressing problems such as climate change.There is, however, another pathcooperation democracy.