To become president of the United States of America, you must be at least 35 years old, have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years and be a natural-born citizen. America is known to have the costliest, prolonged, and complicated structure when electing a head of state. The election is held every four years on the first Tuesday in November and prior to election day, the two candidates endure state-level primaries, caucuses, debates, and conventions. After all, is said and done, the candidate who attains the largest number of votes can still lose. Many Americans are confused about how a win is obtained under these conditions and are on a quest to change this traditional statute.
When the Constitution was set in place in 1789, the U.S. elected its first president. According to the Constitution, the Electoral College is a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens (National Archives). The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors and a majority of 270 electoral votes is mandatory to nominate the President. Electoral votes are designated among the states based on Census. Every state is allocated several votes according to the number of senators and representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation. The senators in the U.S. Senate make up two votes in addition to the votes that represent the number of its members in the U.S. House of Representatives (Archives).
In the early 19th century, many states ratified an approach that would allow the candidate with the most votes in that state to be the winner. This advance is referred to as the winner-take-all approach. Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that are not affected by this approach. Each state’s electoral votes are tallied by Congress in the House chamber by House and Senate representatives on the 6th day of January following the Presidential election. After the process, the President of the Senate reveals who has officially been voted in as President and Vice President of the United States. The President-Elect takes the oath of office and is sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th in the year following the Presidential election (Archives).
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The use of the Electoral College has been the only approach the U.S. has used to gain a President, but this way has generated numerous issues. The first problem it creates is the opportunity for the loser of the popular vote to win the electoral vote. We have seen this outcome in the 2016 Presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and in the 2000 election between George H.W. Bush and Al Gore (Black). It has also happened four times out of the 56 presidential elections. Secondly, it creates a minimalist depiction in the minds of the candidate towards more than 40 states. Many of these states don’t participate in campaign visits or get televised ads. Candidates feel they either can’t win or lose with the votes from these states.
More attention is given to the swing states, such as Florida and Iowa, which causes the third problem the Electoral College can cause. Candidates feel these states need a little bit more of their attention and apply pressure to supply these states with solutions to their problems in order to gain their vote. Lastly, the biggest problem that the Electoral College produces is the reality that a person’s vote really doesn’t matter (Black). The one-vote approach does not align with the way the electoral votes operates. An individual’s vote doesn’t make a difference when it is counted against the votes of the delegates in the House of Representatives and Senate. All in all, the Electoral College causes many problems that seem unfair to American voters during such an important election.
The National Popular Vote initiative transpired in 2006. This move would ensure that the Presidency would be given to the candidate that received the most popular votes all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The National Popular Vote stems from the winner-take-all approach that validates the presidential candidate interactions with only 4 out of 50 dates during their campaign. During the 2012 elections, 38 states, also known as spectator states, were ignored and forgotten. Two-thirds of the campaign events were in four states, Florida, Iowa, Virginia, and Ohio, that year. These ‘battleground’ or ‘swing states’ receive 7% more federal grants, twice as many presidential disaster declarations, more Superfund enforcement exemptions, and more No Child Left Behind law exemptions (National Popular Vote). 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.
Currently, the National Popular Vote bill has 172 electoral votes. It has been enacted by twelve states, which include Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Washington, New Jersey, Illinois, New York, and California. The bill has crossed paths with 36 legislative chambers and has been sponsored or voted for by 3,112 state legislators (National Popular Vote). Maryland and New Jersey passed this bill in 2007, Hawaii and Illinois in 2008, Washington in 2009, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia in 2010, California and Vermont in 2011, Rhode Island in 2013, New York in 2014 and Connecticut in 2018. Some states, such as California and Hawaii, both had their bills vetoed by their governors before it was overridden and enacted by state legislators. At the moment, 98 more electoral votes are needed to pass this bill in all 50 states (National Conference of State Legislators).
While we look further into the National Popular Vote, let’s investigate some of its pro and cons for the American democracy. The first advantage allows for electoral votes to be fairer than the Electoral College (Richards). 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 second advantage is that the all votes would be equally weighed (Richards). Each vote would affect each candidate instead of being overlooked due to which state those votes would be coming from. Without the popular vote bill, swing states would continue to get more leverage and attention from candidates to ensure that they would be able to capture their votes. Lastly, some Americans believe that there would be an increase in voter turn-out if people felt that their vote was viewed as a significant asset to their country.
Surprisingly enough, the National Popular Vote bill could possibly bring forth some problems. Due to some states being heavily populated in comparison to others, that may help a candidate quickly obtain a win. Currently, candidates focus more on swing and battleground states to help them gain those electoral votes. A candidate may not have to concentrate anymore, but they may have to move their attention to states such as Texas, New York, California, and Alaska. If that was to take place, America could potentially face the same issues it is facing now. The country could become less stable and divided if he or she did not have a vast amount of support (Richards). Second, some believe it’ll intensify election problems, such as illegally extended voting hours or irregularly high voter turnout (Richards). Lastly, it may cause a third-party candidate to prevail and win, which would allow Americans to be given more choices besides the two primary parties (Richards).
