Abolir le collège électorale: la tentative de Birch Bayh

Les deux derniers présidents républicains, George W. Bush et Donald Trump, ont été élus grâce au collège électoral même s'ils avaient perdu le vote populaire. Le collège électoral avait été pensé pour éviter que des hommes comme Donald Trump puisse accéder à la présidence, mais des modifications à son fonctionnement explique qu'il ne puisse plus jouer ce rôle aujourd'hui. La dernière tentative sérieuse d'abolir le collège électoral fut celle du sénateur Birch Bayh qui proposa un amendement dont le sort fut décidé au sénat. The Atlantic relate cet épisode dans un article publié ce matin.

 "The measure was bipartisan. Three Republican senators were key supporters, and President Richard Nixon was open to the idea. Reform was broadly popular across party lines prior to 2016, when Trump’s election sent Republican support for a direct popular election from 54 percent, in 2012, to 19 percent, according to a Gallup survey. (Democratic support surged from 69 to 81 percent in the same poll.) But in 1969, when the proposal was introduced, opposition was just as bipartisan, with the brunt of it coming from a set of Southern senators including Sam Ervin and Strom Thurmond. Most were ardent segregationists.

 The measure’s supporters pushed hard. Out of at least 700 attempts in Congress to alter the presidential election system, the 1969 proposal came closest to making an actual constitutional change. Bayh argued against the potential for candidates like George Wallace—the Alabama governor who garnered 46 electoral votes as a third party candidate in 1968—to swing the election. Bayh’s proposal called for a minimum of 40 percent of the vote to achieve victory. If no candidate reached that threshold, a runoff election would be held between the two highest vote-getters."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/electoral-college-gives-trump-and-gop-boost/576448/