The foundation of democracy rests in the hands of the people. Voting and political participation are essential privileges of a democracy. Not being able to vote for whatever reason is a denial of citizenship. However, in recent times voting has become extremely difficult for a majority of the country. Voters have the right to express their voice for change through voter registration reform and compensating the lower class and middle class.
The United State of America has the lowest voter turnout than any other country. There is no doubt in mind that the vast majority of American would agree this is unacceptable. The low turnout during elections are an inaccurate result of the true winner. If you compare United States to other European countries
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Stated in one of the articles Brown (2012) states that “First, America's not a democracy. It's a representative republic. The only place in our federal government where "one person equals one vote" is the House of Representatives” (p.158). Brown (2012) explains “It's not "equal" that California and Rhode Island each have two senators. California has close to 38 million residents; Rhode Island has about 1 million. This means that a person from Rhode Island has about 38 times more representation in the Senate than a Californian” (p.158). He goes on if were thinking about abolishing the Electoral College why not the senate as well. I think that Brown is trying to state how much smaller states favor with senators like South Carolina and Rhode Island. House of Representatives favor more for larger states like California and Florida. Many ideas of reform to the Electoral College is getting rid of it all together, however it is somewhat imbedded into the constitution which would be hard to get around. One pro to Electoral College is it allows small states and small town America to have more of an impact and a say in the election. The candidates go to every corner of the battleground states and many people get the opportunity to meet and question them. A con to the process of the electoral is that many states are totally left out of the entire process including Democratic state like California and Republican state Texas. I feel that an advantage that is given to the winning candidate is the majority of the vote. In the 1992 election Bill Clinton received approximately 42% of the vote. However, he still won a convincing majority in the Electoral College. A con to this is some states are worth a lot more than others. Candidate definitely would head to Ohio, a swing state, which has 18 electoral votes instead of New York, a democratic state, which has about 29electoral votes. If you think
In a chart from Document G, there are 4 past elections listed that compare the popular votes to the electoral votes. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush won by 271 electoral votes, while Gore won by 266 electoral votes. This may seem reasonable for Bush to be the president, but when it comes to the popular vote, Gore had the highest amount of popular votes than Bush did. So why did Bush win instead? This is one of the main reasons why the Electoral College should be abolished.
The Electoral College is the name given to a group of electors who are nominated by political activists and party members within the states. The electoral college really isn't necessary and should be abolished. There are numerous reasons why this is so. With the Electoral College in affect third parties don't have a chance to become the president, which isn't fair. Electors are expected to be honest but in the past our country has caught some untruthful ones. The electoral College was created so long ago that it is now outdated, so we shouldn't even have electors. People of the U.S. may think that they are participating in a direct election for the president, but with the Electoral College system technically, this isn't the case.
...on of 2008, in Montana half of million people voted, on the other hand in Wyoming nearly two hundred thousand popular votes were recorded. Even though there was a difference of quarter million popular votes, same numbers of votes were provided. Thus, this system discriminates people who live in states with high turnout. Rather than having statewide electoral vote distribution, vote distribution in congressional district could be little more effective in way to represent people’s will.
2016 is slowly approaching as 2015 comes to an end and thus ushers in a new president at the end of the year! The 2016 election will be held on November 8th, 2016 and will be the 58th quadrennial presidential election. With each presidential election comes the controversy on the basis of how they were elected. Primarily, the public’s opinion on the Electoral College and how it is the actual determining factor, in who is chosen for the presidency. The problems that may spring forward will be what the Electoral College actually is and how it works, why the Founding Fathers created the Electoral College, major criticisms on the Electoral College, and why it should be abolished.
The Electoral College was created by the framers at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. They believe that it wasn’t a good idea for the people to elect the president directly because they did not trust that voters would have enough information to make a good choice. The Electoral College basically chooses who the next president will be since it takes away our freedom to vote. The Electoral College should be abolished because it’s undemocratic, the small states are overrepresented, and it hurts third parties. The United States of America is a democratic country that is characterized by the equality of rights and privileges.
Such as, there are two senators for each state. But there are states that have a higher population than others, but still only represented by two senators. Since, there are places that have a smaller population, their vote towards the senate or for certain ideas is much more impacted. For example, if a state has ten people living it compared to a hundred then the being in the state with ten people is more beneficial. Your voice is heard and placed into the votes that the senator takes to the Senate. Whereas, if you are in a state with one hundred people, your voice is less likely to be heard and will have less of an impact. This is what Dahl is trying to share with us throughout the novel. I began to understand that we need more representation in the Senate close to Chapter
According to a study done by Nonprofit Vote only “an estimated 58.7% of eligible voters turned out to vote” ("Voter Turnout" ) in 2012’s presidential election, which is below the 62% that was achieved in 2008. (Ginsberg 306). According to the United States Census Bureau in 2012 71.2 percent of Americans reported that they were registered to vote, but only 61.8 reported that they actually did so. ("Voting and Registration"). While each source didn’t report the exact same statistics in America these percentages are considered highs in political participation. Even worse, in midterm elections voter turnout is normally closer to 33% and even lower for any local elections. (Ginsberg 306). While we may consider any of those statistics good for America, looking at world democracies we are trailing far behind, in many “European countries and other western democracies [the] national voter turnout is usually between 70 to 90 percent.”(Ginsberg 306). The question is then asked why don’t American’s vote, which is then an...
The Electoral College today is a very complex system of voting and campaigning. When it was first created, the Framers thought the average citizen of their day was not intelligent enough to know who should be leading their country. So they created the Electoral College which was run by people who knew what they were doing. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent each state and they determine the president. The real question is: Has the Electoral College gotten too far out of hand where it needs to go? The answer is yes. The reasons are because any third party candidate running in the election has no chance of winning any electoral votes. Also, it gives too much power to the big states in electoral votes. Finally, it creates problems on majority electoral votes and equality of smaller states is diminished.
There are some advantages of the Electoral College such as, it preserves the voices of the states with the lowest population. It also favors a two-party system and dissuades third-parties which creates more stability. Even with all these pros I think without an overhaul that we should eliminate the Electoral College. This would simplify this process and more people would get out and
First of all I would like to bring to your attention that many votes don't even get counted if you call the United States a democracy. The way the whole Electoral College thing works is that each state is allowed a certain number of "electors" (the state's number of Representatives plus its Senators), who then vote for the president. The elector's vote based on the state's popular vote. After the state verifies the votes, the candidate that receives the most votes get all of that state's elector's votes. Because the state's constitution awards electoral votes that way, the innumerable individual votes become meaningless. Does that sound fair to you? It doesn't to me.
The Electoral College should be abolished because the United States today is much more populous and very different than when the founders wrote the Constitution more than two centuries ago (Raasch 1)...
However, it does not speak about states needing to draw districts boundaries based on their representatives.Not only is it very controversial, state legislatures and politicians are taking advantage of the broken system. Based on what district an individual lives in sometimes their vote would not count or one county's vote counts more than another. This system of apportionment is a complicated system that your average American citizen doesn’t get nor understands. Throughout apportionment which turns into malapportionment on many occasions, there is an underlying or hidden reason as to why state legislatures use this approach. Whether it’s to keep their party in power or to not grant certain group's voting
Regardless of the political environment, it is the responsibility of voters to take initiative in becoming politically involved. However, the current electoral system in the United States is not one that fosters voter participation, but instead often discourages voting altogether. This is evidenced through the lackluster voter turnout in the United States, which is amongst the lowest of any democratic nation. While it is convenient to blame this lack of democratic participation on a lazy and apathetic public, the root of the problem lies elsewhere. The current system of winner-take-all elections, strategic gerrymandering, incumbency advantage and governmental unresponsiveness to constituent desires is enough to deter even the most politically consci...
...WHY THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN IS THE WRONG WAY TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. Columbia Law Review, 108, 182-230.
In conclusion, voting is an opportunity to express oneself. Voting has a background that is long and drawn out. People in the colonial times went through a significant amount of laws and regulations about who could not vote, and who could. It led to Americans receiving our voting rights, still today. However, many people may not vote, it is important to know the background, the reasons for voting, and the reasons why people choose not to vote.