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Author: Alexander Keyssar
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067497414X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 545
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Book Description
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
Author: Alexander Keyssar
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067497414X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 545
Get Book Here
Book Description
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
Author: Norman J. Ornstein
Publisher: A E I Press
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 126
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Book Description
The new edition of this popular guide examines how the electoral college and postelection processes work and includes a short history of contested elections.
Author: Jesse Wegman
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250221986
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
“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.
Author: William C. Kimberling
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electoral college
Languages : en
Pages : 20
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Book Description
Author: Thomas H. Neale
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437925693
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 34
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Book Description
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.
Author: Eric Burin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692833445
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 152
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Book Description
The 2016 presidential election has sparked an unprecedented interest in the Electoral College. In response to Donald Trump winning the presidency despite losing the popular vote, numerous individuals have weighed in with letters-to-the-editor, op-eds, blog posts, videos, and the like, and thanks to the revolution in digital communications, these items have reached an exceptionally wide audience. In short, never before have so many people had so much to say about the Electoral College. To facilitate and expand the conversation, Picking the President: Understanding the Electoral College offers brief essays that examine the Electoral College from different disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, mathematics, political science, history, and pedagogy. Along the way, the essays address a variety of questions about the Electoral College: Why was it created? How has it changed over time? Who benefits from it? Is it just? How will future demographic patterns affect it? Should we alter or abolish the Electoral College, and if so, what should replace it? In exploring these matters, Picking the President enhances our understanding of one of America's most high-profile, momentous issues.
Author: Jack N. Rakove
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307434516
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465
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Book Description
From abortion to same-sex marriage, today's most urgent political debates will hinge on this two-part question: What did the United States Constitution originally mean and who now understands its meaning best? Rakove chronicles the Constitution from inception to ratification and, in doing so, traces its complex weave of ideology and interest, showing how this document has meant different things at different times to different groups of Americans.
Author: Alexander S. Belenky
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319446967
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 179
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Book Description
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.
Author: George F. Will
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0316480916
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 598
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Book Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist's "astonishing" and "enthralling" New York Times bestseller and Notable Book about how the Founders' belief in natural rights created a great American political tradition (Booklist) -- "easily one of the best books on American Conservatism ever written" (Jonah Goldberg). For more than four decades, George F. Will has attempted to discern the principles of the Western political tradition and apply them to America's civic life. Today, the stakes could hardly be higher. Vital questions about the nature of man, of rights, of equality, of majority rule are bubbling just beneath the surface of daily events in America. The Founders' vision, articulated first in the Declaration of Independence and carried out in the Constitution, gave the new republic a framework for government unique in world history. Their beliefs in natural rights, limited government, religious freedom, and in human virtue and dignity ushered in two centuries of American prosperity. Now, as Will shows, conservatism is under threat -- both from progressives and elements inside the Republican Party. America has become an administrative state, while destructive trends have overtaken family life and higher education. Semi-autonomous executive agencies wield essentially unaccountable power. Congress has failed in its duty to exercise its legislative powers. And the executive branch has slipped the Constitution's leash. In the intellectual battle between the vision of Founding Fathers like James Madison, who advanced the notion of natural rights that pre-exist government, and the progressivism advanced by Woodrow Wilson, the Founders have been losing. It's time to reverse America's political fortunes. Expansive, intellectually thrilling, and written with the erudite wit that has made Will beloved by millions of readers, The Conservative Sensibility is an extraordinary new book from one of America's most celebrated political writers.
Author: George Grant
Publisher: Vision Forum
ISBN: 9780975526422
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
In this timely primer on the electoral process, Dr. George Grant makes the case for the brilliance, wisdom, and continuing necessity of the Electoral College. This book is a must for students, lawyers, statesmen, pastor, and citizens of all ages interested in understanding and defending the providential system of elections bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers.
