{"id":6263,"date":"2020-03-02T12:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/?p=6263"},"modified":"2020-03-21T11:25:20","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T15:25:20","slug":"elected-by-unpopular-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/elected-by-unpopular-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Elected by unpopular vote"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Electoral College votes by states (Kyra Lieberman\/In Motion)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

     In the United States, we don\u2019t vote to choose our president. We vote for electors to choose our president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n The Electoral College is the institution which elects the president. It\n is made up of 538 party-appointed electors from the 50 states plus Washington\n D.C. There is one elector for each congressperson from that state plus \ntwo electors to represent the state\u2019s senators, so each state has a \nminimum of three electoral votes. All of the electoral votes in most \nstates are given to the candidate who won the state\u2019s popular vote, or vote by the people. A majority of 270 electoral votes is needed to win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n The number of electors adjusts every 10 years with the Census, which \ndetermines population, among other factors. In the 2020 election, Fla. \nwill have 29 electors, as will N.Y., tying the states for third-most electors behind Calif., with 55, and Texas, with 38.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n Among 125 democracies, the U.S. is the only system in which voters \nelect a body of electors whose sole function is to choose the president.\n It is also only one of seven democracies that indirectly elect a leader\n who acts as both head of state and head of government (the others are \nBotswana, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, South Africa, the \nMarshall Islands and Suriname, but the\n leaders are chosen by the countries\u2019 legislatures). In other countries \nwithout direct democracy, legislatures choose the head of government \nand\/or state, such as Germany, whose president is chosen by 630 members of their legislature and 630 representatives chosen by state parliaments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n Proponents of the Electoral College say that without it, candidates \nwould only focus on urban, coastal areas that are dense in population \nand ignore rural, sparsely populated states. However, in this system, \ncandidates focus on battleground or \u201cswing\u201d states almost exclusively. \nOver the years, states that tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats \n(such as Calif., Vt.or\n N.Y.) or Republicans (such as Texas, Ala. and S.C.) are largely ignored\n by candidates as they are a sure win or lose. In 2016, more than \ntwo-thirds of all campaign events took place in just six swing states \n(Fla., Ohio, Va., N.C., Penn. and Mich.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Others say that smaller states will have a disproportionate representation. This is true, but not in\n the way the argument is framed. Wyo. has a population of 577,000 people\n and three electoral votes, while Calif. has a population of more than \n39 million and has 55 electoral votes. This actually leaves Wyo. voters with more representation than Calif. voters. In Wyo., an elector represents 192,000 people, while in Calif., an elector represents 709,000 people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n The Founders believed in indirect democracy and thought that the \ngeneral population should not choose the president. In fact, the Senate \nwas elected\n by state legislatures and not popularly until 1913. Then why not \nabandon the Electoral College and switch to a popular vote across the \nboard? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The winner-takes-all system in place currently gives the candidate that wins the popular vote in a state all of the electoral votes, save Maine and Neb., which allot their\n electoral votes proportionally. Some states and activists are taking \nthis into their own hands. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact \nis an agreement among states to award all of their\n electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote and would \nonly go into effect when it would guarantee that outcome. It would be \nused in a time such as the 2000 or 2016 elections when the candidate who\n lost the popular vote won the electoral college and became president.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n As of February 2020, 15 states plus the District of Columbia have \nadopted this legislation and together account for 196 electoral votes, \nwhich is 36% of the Electoral College.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Electoral College creates an inherent\n disadvantage and acts against the will of the people. A national \npopular vote would give each person\u2019s vote equal meaning and let the \npeople choose their president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth \nWarren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer are in favor of abolishing \nthe Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote. Even though \nyour vote doesn\u2019t directly elect the president, it still counts and \ncould someday count equally. Visit vote.org to register to vote today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

     In the United States, we don\u2019t vote to choose our president. We vote for electors to choose our president.       The Electoral College is the institution which elects the president. It is made up of 538 party-appointed electors from the 50 states plus Washington D.C. There is one elector Continue reading Elected by unpopular vote<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6265,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6263\/revisions\/6265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}