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• Electoral college 25 marker

  1. Federalism and electoral college
  2. Smaller states given a voice
  3. disproportionately amplifies swing state influence
  4. Direct system = more democratic, higher turnout
  5. Direct would better reflect voter preference
  6. Multiple candidates could split the vote massively - >50% of vote needed to win
  7. Provenience
  8. NYT - Liberal, criticised trump
  9. Article 2 months after 2016 election -> trump lost pop vote
  10. Editorial - inform about current debate on electoral college, relevant
• Federalism and electoral college

  • EC aligns with federalism, ensures states have an active role in elections -> EC ensures candidates more widely and diversely appeal to voters instead of just large population states
  • 2016 - Trump won EC, lost popular vote by almost 3 million votes -> he targeted key swing states (Michigan Pennsylvania Wisconsin)
  • Forces candidates to target competitive states
• Federalism and EC strength

  • EC preserves federalism, prevents national campaigns being dominated by population dense states (Texas, California, New York)
• Federalism and EC Weaknesses

  • disproportionately amplifies influence of swing states - safe states are usually ignored
  • 2020 - Biden and Trump focused many resources and money into swing states -> Pennsylvania, Georgia . Ignored Wyoming (safe republican) and california (safe democrat)
  • Discourages campaigning in states where outcome seems pre-determined
• Direct System may be better

  • EC allocates fixed number of electoral votes to states based on population - can lead to low election turnout
  • People in safe states may feel their vote doesn’t matter
  • Direct elections may incentivise higher turnout -> even could be election holidays
  • 2020 - states w/ high turnout (Colorado 76%) had little more advantage over those with low turnout (Hawaii 57%) - direct elections would mean votes directly contribute to vote count, leading to higher turnout
• Direct election strength

  • direct would be more democratic as votes would carry equal weight
  • outcome would more accurately reflect voter preference
  • Eg 2004 Had John Kerry won crucial state of Ohio, he would’ve won presidency with 272 ec votes -> a direct system would prevent a president being decided by one or two battleground states as opposed to the general will of the people
• Direct Election Weakness

  • Possibility of multiple candidates splitting vote, candidate could win with less than 50% of the vote
  • 2010 Alaska Us Senate race, incumbent republicans Lisa Murkowski won re-election as a write-in candidate with a minority of the vote 39.9%
  • Defeated Joe Miller, republican, 35.5% of vote, Scott macadams, Democrat, 23.4% of vote
  • Alaska doesnt require a candidate to get a majority, just to receive the most votes
• Article Provenance

  • Published 2 months after 2016 election where Trump won electoral college but not popular vote (T: 46% H: 48%)
  • NYTimes = liberal, criticised trump a lot during campaign season
  • Editorial - made to inform and contribute to current and relevant (for 2016) debate
  • 2016 Vox polling showed that 62% of voters wanted the President to be directly elected
  • 2016 Sen Barbra Box introduced a constitutional amendment to elect president via popular vote
  • Because of outcome of 2016, this was a key debate in culture at this time -> only had happened in 2000 with Bush before this