Download or read book Representation and the Electoral College written by Robert M. Alexander and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly 800 proposals have been made to amend or abolish the Electoral College, and its divisiveness raises many questions. What role do electors play in American democracy? How should they vote? Should the Electoral College exist at all? Much confusion surrounds this institution, in large part because of how the original Electoral College varies from its contemporary counterpart, the evolved Electoral College. This book helps readers to understand the distinction and how we got where we are today. Focusing on the controversial 2016 election, in which Trump received nearly three million fewer popular votes than Clinton, Representation and the Electoral College shows how the Electoral College acts on behalf of the American public and alters election outcomes. In exploring the origin, development, and practice of the Electoral College, this study also presents the most extensive analysis of presidential electors to date.
Download or read book Representation and the Electoral College written by Robert M. Alexander and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly 800 proposals have been made to amend or abolish the Electoral College, and its divisiveness raises many questions. What role do electors play in American democracy? How should they vote? Should the Electoral College exist at all? Much confusion surrounds this institution, in large part because of how the original Electoral College varies from its contemporary counterpart, the evolved Electoral College. This book helps readers to understand the distinction and how we got where we are today. Focusing on the controversial 2016 election, in which Trump received nearly three million fewer popular votes than Clinton, Representation and the Electoral College shows how the Electoral College acts on behalf of the American public and alters election outcomes. In exploring the origin, development, and practice of the Electoral College, this study also presents the most extensive analysis of presidential electors to date.
Download or read book Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College written by Alexander Keyssar and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-31 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New Statesman Book of the Year “America’s greatest historian of democracy now offers an extraordinary history of the most bizarre aspect of our representative democracy—the electoral college...A brilliant contribution to a critical current debate.” —Lawrence Lessig, author of They Don’t Represent Us Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Congress has tried on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College, and in this master class in American political history, a renowned Harvard professor explains its confounding persistence. After tracing the tangled origins of the Electoral College back to the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Keyssar outlines the constant stream of efforts since then to abolish or reform it. Why have they all failed? The complexity of the design and partisan one-upmanship have a lot to do with it, as do the difficulty of passing constitutional amendments and the South’s long history of restrictive voting laws. By revealing the reasons for past failures and showing how close we’ve come to abolishing the Electoral College, Keyssar offers encouragement to those hoping for change. “Conclusively demonstrates the absurdity of preserving an institution that has been so contentious throughout U.S. history and has not infrequently produced results that defied the popular will.” —Michael Kazin, The Nation “Rigorous and highly readable...shows how the electoral college has endured despite being reviled by statesmen from James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson to Edward Kennedy, Bob Dole, and Gerald Ford.” —Lawrence Douglas, Times Literary Supplement
Download or read book Let the People Pick the President written by Jesse Wegman and published by All Points Books. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Wegman combines in-depth historical analysis and insight into contemporary politics to present a cogent argument that the Electoral College violates America’s ‘core democratic principles’ and should be done away with..." —Publishers Weekly The framers of the Constitution battled over it. Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule. How can we tolerate the Electoral College when every vote does not count the same, and the candidate who gets the most votes can lose? Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question—and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president. Now, as political passions reach a boiling point at the dawn of the 2020 race, the message from the American people is clear: The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed—now. Isn't it time to let the people pick the president? In this thoroughly researched and engaging call to arms, Supreme Court journalist and New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College. In Let the People Pick the President he shows how we can at long last make every vote in the United States count—and restore belief in our democratic system.
Download or read book The Electoral College written by William C. Kimberling and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Electoral College Reform written by Thomas H. Neale and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contents: (1) Intro.; (2) Competing Approaches: Direct Popular Election v. Electoral College Reform; (3) Direct Popular Election: Pro and Con; (4) Electoral College Reform: Pro and Con; (5) Electoral College Amendments Proposed in the 111th Congress; (6) Contemporary Activity in the States; (7) 2004: Colorado Amendment 36; (8) 2007-2008: The Presidential Reform Act (California Counts); (9) 2006-Present: National Popular Vote -- Direct Popular Election Through an Interstate Compact; Origins; The Plan; National Popular Vote, Inc.; Action in the State Legislatures; States That Have Approved NPV; National Popular Vote; (10) Prospects for Change -- An Analysis; (11) State Action -- A Viable Reform Alternative?; (12) Concluding Observations.
Download or read book Who Will Be the Next President written by Alexander S. Belenky and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book addresses the peculiarities of the current presidential election system not yet addressed in other publications. It argues that any rules for electing a President that may have a chance to replace the current ones should provide an equal representation of states as equal members of the Union, and of the nation as a whole. This book analyzes the National Popular Vote plan and shows that this plan may violate the Supreme Court decisions on the equality of votes cast in statewide popular elections held to choose state electors. That is, the National Popular Vote plan may violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The book proposes a new election system in which the will of the states and the will of the nation as a whole are determined by direct popular elections for President and Vice President in the 50 states and in D.C. This system a) would elect President a candidate who is the choice of both the nation as a whole and of the states as equal members of the Union, b) would let the current system elect a President only if the nation as a whole and the states as equal members of the Union fail to agree on a common candidate, and c) would encourage the candidates to campaign nationwide. The second edition has been updated to include a proposal on how to make established non-major party presidential candidates and independent candidates welcome participants in national televised presidential debates with the major-party candidates.
Download or read book Representation of the District of Columbia in Congress and the Electoral College written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book On the Representation of Minorities of Electors to Act with the Majority in Elected Assemblies written by Thomas Gilpin and published by . This book was released on 1844 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Abolishing of the Electoral College written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Election of President, Vice-President, and Representatives in Congress and published by . This book was released on 1933 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Electoral College written by Phil Corso and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2019-12-15 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Electoral College is the body of people who elect the president and vice president of the United States. Many U.S. citizens are confused by this system, which dates back to the creation of the U.S. Constitution. When citizens vote for a presidential candidate, they're actually voting for an elector who will cast a vote for their state for that candidate in the Electoral College. This system is a controversial subject in American politics. Primary sources and informative sidebars lend historical context to help young readers understand this essential aspect of U.S. presidential elections.
Download or read book The Electoral College written by Lucius Wilmerding and published by New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 1958 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Saving the Electoral College written by Robert M. Hardaway and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-08-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2016 election caused many pundits and citizens alike to decry the Electoral College. This book explains the dangerous and unconstitutional implications of the National Popular Vote Bill, which is quietly passing in state houses across the nation. Ever since the Founding Fathers created the Electoral College, Congress has tried to overturn it. The latest attempt is taking place not in Congress, but in state legislatures around the country, where a well-financed campaign by a private California group calling itself "National Popular Vote" (NPV) is proposing an "interstate compact" to circumvent the process for amending the U.S. Constitution. If adopted by states representing a majority of electoral votes, the signatory states would bind themselves to ignore the popular votes within their respective states, and instead allocate their electoral votes to the candidate whom the media proclaimed to be the "national popular vote" winner. In this new history of the Electoral College, law professor Robert M. Hardaway lays bare the constitutional loopholes that have allowed this movement to succeed in states representing approximately half the electoral votes necessary to purportedly bind those states to ignore the popular vote of the people within their respective states. The presentation of the information in this book to state legislatures considering the compact, resulted in complete reversal of preconceived perceptions about how presidential elections should be conducted.
Download or read book The Electoral College written by Thomas Neale and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2012-11-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Americans vote for President and Vice President, they are actually choosing presidential electors, known collectively as the electoral college. It is these officials who choose the President and Vice President of the United States. The complex elements comprising the electoral college system are responsible for one of the most important processes of the American political and constitutional system: election of the President and Vice President. A failure to elect, or worse, the choice of a chief executive whose legitimacy might be open to question, could precipitate a profound constitutional crisis that would require prompt, judicious, and well-informed action by Congress. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, as amended in 1804 by the 12th Amendment, sets forth the requirements for election of the President and Vice President. It authorizes each state to appoint, by whatever means the legislature chooses, a number of electors equal to the combined total of its Senate and House of Representatives delegations, for a contemporary total of 538, including three electors for the District of Columbia. Since the Civil War, the states have universally provided for popular election of the presidential electors. Anyone may serve as an elector, except Members of Congress and persons holding offices of "Trust or Profit" under the Constitution. In each presidential election year, the political parties and other groups that have secured a place on the ballot in each state nominate a "slate" or "ticket" of candidates for elector. When voters cast a single vote for their favored candidates on general election day, Tuesday after the first Monday in November (November 6 in 2012), they are actually voting for the slate of electors pledged to those candidates. The entire slate of electors winning the most popular votes in the state is elected, a practice known as winner-take-all, or the general ticket system. Maine and Nebraska use an alternative method, the district plan, which awards two electors to the popular vote winners statewide, and one to the popular vote winners in each congressional district. Electors assemble in their respective states on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December (December 17 in 2012). They are expected to vote for the candidates they represent. Separate ballots are cast for President and Vice President, after which the electoral college ceases to exist until the next presidential election. State electoral vote results are reported to Congress and are counted and declared at a joint session of Congress, usually held on January 6 of the year succeeding the election, a date that may be altered by legislation. Since January 6 falls on a Sunday in 2013, Congress will likely set another date for the joint session in 2013, possibly January 8. A majority of electoral votes (currently 270 of 538) is required to win, but the results submitted by any state are open to challenge at the joint session, as provided by law. Past proposals for change by constitutional amendment have included various reform options and direct popular election, which would eliminate the electoral college system, but no substantive action on this issue has been taken in Congress for more than 20 years. At present, however, a non-governmental organization, the National Popular Vote (NPV) campaign, proposes to reform the electoral college by action taken at the state level; eight states and the District of Columbia have approved the NPV compact to date.
Download or read book Representation written by Jack H. Nagel and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-07-03 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In any democracy, the central problem of governance is how to inform, organize, and represent the opinions of the public in order to advance three goals: popular control over leaders, equality among citizens, and competent governance. In most political analyses, voting is emphasized as the central and essential process in achieving these goals. Yet democratic representation encompasses a great deal more than voter beliefs and behavior and, indeed, involves much more than the machinery of elections. Democracy requires government agencies that respond to voter decisions, a civil society in which powerful organized interests do not dominate all others, and communication systems that permit divergent voices to be heard. Representation: Elections and Beyond brings together leading international scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explore the twenty-first-century innovations—in voting laws and practices, in electoral systems, in administrative, political, and civil organizations, and in communication processes and new technologies—that are altering how we understand democratic representation. Featuring twelve essays that engage with national, provincial, and municipal governments across three continents, this volume tackles traditional core elements of democratic representation, such as voting, electoral systems, and political parties, while also underscoring the ways in which beliefs and preferences of citizens are influenced, expressed, and aggregated and the effects of those methods and practices on political agendas and policy outcomes. In pinpointing deficiencies in contemporary democratic practices and possibilities for reform, Representation provides an invaluable roadmap to improve democratic representation in the twenty-first century. Contributors: André Blais, Pradeep Chhibber, Archon Fung, Jacob Hacker, Zoltan Hajnal, Matthew Hindman, David Karpf, Georgia Kernell, Alexander Keyssar, Anthony McGann, Susan Ostermann, Paul Pierson, Dennis Thompson, Jessica Trounstine, Mark E. Warren.
Download or read book No Easy Victories written by William Minter and published by William Minter. This book was released on 2008 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African news making headlines today is dominated by disaster: wars, famine, HIV. Those who respond - from stars to ordinary citizens - are learning that real solutions require more than charity. This book provides a comprehensive, panoramic view of US activism in Africa from 1950 to 2000, activism grounded in a common struggle for justice. It portrays organisations, activists and networks that contributed to African liberation and, in turn, shows how African struggles informed US activism, including the civil rights and black power movements.
Download or read book Life in Numbers The Electoral College written by Margaret King and published by Teacher Created Materials. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 51 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Electoral College is a complex system influenced by various factors in the United States' rich history. Some of the ideas behind the Electoral College--such as ensuring that smaller states were given a vote--still apply today. However, the Electoral College has changed over the years in ways that the framers of the Constitution did not anticipate. Learn everything you ever wanted to know about the Electoral College with this full-color informational text that explores contemporary issues through high-interest content! Packed with fun facts, fascinating sidebars, and featuring TIME© content and images, this nonfiction book has text features such as a glossary, an index, and a table of contents to engage students in reading as they build their comprehension, vocabulary, and reading skills. The Reader's Guide and extended Try It! activity increase understanding of the material, and develop higher-order thinking. Check It Out! offers print and online resources for additional reading. Keep students reading from cover to cover with this captivating text!
