The Popular Vote vs. the Electoral College | 5 Minute Video
Right now, there’s a well-organized, below-the-radar effort to render the Electoral College effectively useless. It’s called the National Popular Vote, and it would turn our presidential elections into a majority-rule affair. Would this be good or bad? Author, lawyer, and Electoral College expert Tara Ross explains.
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Script:
In every presidential election, only one question matters: which candidate will get the 270 votes needed to win the Electoral College?
Our Founders so deeply feared a tyranny of the majority that they rejected the idea of a direct vote for President. That’s why they created the Electoral College. For more than two centuries it has encouraged coalition building, given a voice to both big and small states, and discouraged voter fraud.
Unfortunately, there is now a well-financed, below-the-radar effort to do away with the Electoral College. It is called National Popular Vote or NPV, and it wants to do exactly what the Founders rejected: award the job of President to the person who gets the most votes nationally.
Even if you agree with this goal, it’s hard to agree with their method. Rather than amend the Constitution, which they have no chance of doing, NPV plans an end run around it.
Here’s what NPV does: it asks states to sign a contract to give their presidential electors to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the state’s popular vote.
What does that mean in practice? It means that if NPV had been in place in 2004, for example, when George W. Bush won the national vote, California’s electoral votes would have gone to Bush, even though John Kerry won that state by 1.2 million votes!
Can you imagine strongly Democratic California calmly awarding its electors to a Republican?
Another problem with NPV’s plan is that it robs states of their sovereignty. A key benefit of the Electoral College system is that it decentralizes control over the election. Currently, a presidential election is really 51 separate elections: one in each state and one in D.C.
These 51 separate processes exist, side-by-side, in harmony. They do not — and cannot — interfere with each other.
California’s election code applies only to California and determines that state’s electors. So a vote cast in Texas can never change the identity of a California elector.
NPV would disrupt this careful balance. It would force all voters into one national election pool. Thus, a vote cast in Texas will always affect the outcome in California. And the existence of a different election code in Texas always has the potential to unfairly affect a voter in California.
Why?
Because state election codes can differ drastically. States have different rules about early voting, registering to vote, and qualifying for the ballot. They have different policies regarding felon voting. They have different triggers for recounts.
Each and every one of these differences is an opportunity for someone, somewhere to file a lawsuit claiming unfair treatment.
Why should a voter in New York get more or less time to early vote than a voter in Florida? Why should a hanging chad count in Florida, but not in Ohio? The list of possible complaints is endless.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/popular-vote-vs-electoral-college
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Want more democratic and popular vote? Drop the winner take all policy and do a third party.
doing away with the Electoral College would most likely cause a major Civil WAR. have a nice day.
The only thing I don't like about the electoral college is the winner take all scenario. Most states are far more red by county. In the same way the electoral college protects states rights, removing the winner yake all would help to serve the rights of red counties in these states where densely populated areas sway the entire state vote.
Winning electoral but popular is rare. It barely ever happens anyway. 95% of the presidents we had would still have become president, even if we had popular vote
Those pushing for the NPV (National Popular Vote) would no longer have the United States to govern. All of those less populated states would become disenfranchised and would secede to form a more representative government, a government that the Electoral College now provides.
In Germany we vote for a party, not our Chancelor directly and we have more than 2 parties. Seems so odd to me that in a 2 party system you can be president with a minority of votes….
In Germany a goverment (can be a coalition, and usually is, of several parties) needs to either have a mojority of votes and thus seats or have a majority on each policy that is voted on.
The Electoral College is a joke! Every person's vote should count.
Look at Marks v. Stinson to see how the Dems have been using ballot harvesting to cheat in elections for thirty years at least.
If the electoral college system is fair for a national election, maybe States should adopt the same system for the counties in their state, helping to balance the power between the more populated counties and the less populated.
A popular vote would increase individual sovereignty as it allows for ppl to get a direct say in whos elected and decrease voter fraud as it would take more fake votes to win an election as if you fake an election in florida for example all of those electors would go to however win and easily could win an election both of the main arguments are just dumb.
The United States is not a democracy,,it is a republic,The States joined by popular votes and technically they can vote to leave.
Yet almost every democracy manages to do an NPV
The world doesn’t need any more garbage, prageru. Knock off the nonsense and tell the actual history of the Electoral College.
If you vote democrat your at fault for loosing our rights
The Crooked Democrats never cease to try to steal an elections! Pure evil!!!
Glad that arent enacted
The only problem I have with the EC is how most states implement it currently with the "winner take all" method, instead of something of a proportional nature.
A two-round runoff or a parliamentary system would be best
The United States is a federation of states and not a giant monolithic superstate. Abolition of the Electoral College will make all rural states and rural counties totally irrelevant and permanently make the path to the presidency merely pandering to the 20 or 50 biggest cities . Avoiding the tyranny of 50% plus one is why we have the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Bill of Rights.
Did this go through?
Sure, this way, California alone will select the president!
I see the “two wolves and one lamb” argument being spouted all thre time, here’s a better analogy for the electoral college:
Two female wolves and one male wolf are deciding how to split their food. The female wolves want to split it equally three ways, but the male gives himself more voting power, and thus gets all the meat to himself.
How to start a comment war:
CGP grey made a better video on the topic
The loser compesational vote is the perfect vote system!
Here in Mexico, we have a President that was voted by popular vote. They all have been that way.
Just look at how Mexico is and ask yourselves if you want to live as we do. Your Electoral College system may be flawed, but it's way more useful than what we have here in Mexico.
The same goes for gun laws: law-abiding citizens can't protect ourselves from criminals who are armed even with small weapons. We are at the mercy of criminals because we can't own guns (well, according to our Constitution, we can own guns, but there is so much red tape that makes it impossible to do it).
Screw the majority
Besides the electoral college was eliminated a Republican would never get elected again. We're the only democracy where the minority rule. A handful of swing States determine the president. States should be able to split their votes instead of All or nothing.
The Founder adopted the EC in for three main reasons:
a) so that if the unwashed masses were to vote for a populist demagogue, the Electors could exercise their superior wisdom and save us from that;
b) so that if a foreign power were to influence the unwashed masses so as to raise "a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the union," as Alexander Hamilton phrased it The Federalist No. 68, the Electors could exercise their superior wisdom and save us from that, and
c) because the slave-holding states were afraid that the more populous non-slave-holding states would use their greater numbers to ram abolition down their throats, so the EC was installed (in part) to mollify these states.
I will leave it as an exercise for the reader whether or not a and b have failed in this century, but will point out that Electors are no longer allowed to exercise any superior wisdom which they may (or may not) possess, but instead are doing a job which a single clerk and a 1915 hand-cranked adding machine could do.
Thus, reasons a and b have already failed. Reason c also failed, because the American Civil War happened anyway, and in any case reason c is now moot.
Today, voter fraud would need only target a small number of swing states. Changing a few hundred votes in each could be enough. With NPV, millions of votes would have to be changed, all over the country.
Currently, candidates concentrate on swing states. Big state, little state, red state, blue state, if you're not a SWING state you get little or no attention.
I easily find videos supporting NPV, and decided I needed to hear what the arguments against were. I find that I have to go to the American Enterprise Institute or, worse, Prager U to find arguments against. This tells me as strongly as any words that NPV is a good idea.
The NPV is unconstitutional and disenfranchises the voters in the individual states.
Another disadvantage of the national vote is that Republicans would never win. Gore beat Bush. Hillary beat Trump. Joe beat Trump this time with both the electoral college and the popular vote. Republicans just aren't that popular on a national basis. We are the only democracy in the world that believes in minority rule.
The electoral college contributes to a minority control over the majority. Believing it to be fair in any way is foolish. Both sides will manipulate the system regardless of which system is in place. Our government is currently moving slowly in the direction of idiocy and has been moving that direction for a very long time. We need to do away the electoral college. Please remember that when you mention the founders intentions, it must be put in context of the time they lived. They never could have imagined how big this would all become and that's the best place to start. We shouldn't keep going back to archaic views that got us here in the first place. It's time to adjust our political system to deal with contemporary problems and thought, not what the very flawed founders were thinking. They got this thing started, but they are in fact very dead and their world was nothing like ours today.
That’s unconstitutional. They won’t make it stick even if the states sign the contracts.
The woman is AMAZING
My god, right-wingers are now finally being honest about how the Founding Fathers wanted to damp down democracy and "filter the popular will of the majority faction (i.e. the PEOPLE").
I'm amazed. Keep swallowing the propaganda my right-wing friend. This is indeed the best democracy money can buy, and you know so because its coming from PragerU (the biggest right-wing social media propaganda machine money can buy)
😂
Imagine making a nearly 5 minute video making no valid points
The popular vote is better
Not NVP, NaPoVoInterCo. Get it right
Here is a crazy idea: Proportional representation!
Why is this so hard for Americans to grasp?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytv38r1hXnA
Sorry PragerU, but you’re wrong on this issue. No other nation with a democracy does the electoral college system. It’s overall popular vote that determines the winner.
There is NO voter fraud of ANY consequence……this is just a way for Republicans to keep winning the presidency without winning the pop vote. One thing she NEVER points out is that due to the Electoral college system a vote in North dakota is literally worth more than a vote in Calf. due to each state havinf two senators (this does not seem to bother her democracy; one person one vote)
It's like the NBA FINAL, it's about how many games each team won and not about how many points each team scored total.
This literally predicted the 2020 Presidential election 6 years early. Kowing history is power.