Who Will Be the Next President?

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 boththe 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.

Describes a new plan to improve the current election system under which every voter gains and no state loses its current Electoral College benefits, which has a chance to be introduced in the form of a constitutional amendment Provides explanations of why the National Popular Vote plan may violate the Equal Protection Clause from the Fourteenth Amendment and why the underlying claim of the plan is no more than wishful thinking of its originators and proponents Analyses what the Founding Fathers overlooked and describes a logical mistake that they made in the initial design of the presidential election system Describes seven puzzles of the Twelfth Amendment embedded in presidential election rules whose application may produce weird election outcomes Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Klappentext
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license

Zusammenfassung

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 boththe 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.

Inhalt
1 The Initial Design of the Electoral College: Basic Ideas,Logical Mistakes, and Overlooked Problems.- 2 The Electoral College Today.- 3 Curbing Contingent Elections.- 4 Inconvenient Facts About the Electoral College.- 5 The Electoral College and Campaign Strategies.- 6 The National Popular Vote Plan: A Brilliant Idea or a Dead-on-Arrival Delusion?.- 7 Equalizing the Will of the States and the Will of the Nation.- 8. Conclusion: Fundamental Merits, Embedded Deficiencies, and Some Urgent Problems of the U.S. Presidential Election System.