Evolving Democracy: A Critique of U.S. Voting System

A democracy has been in place over the entire history of the United States, and included in that democracy is the right for citizens to vote for their leader. Over the course of history, many changes and adjustments have been made to the rules to make them fairer to those citizens. In the beginning, only white, property owning males could vote. As the years passed, the rules loosened to women, and African Americans and all other races, and now, the main requirements are 18 years of age, a US citizen, and a registered voter, among others.

Although the rules and regulations for voting in the United States have been changed over the course of history, there are some major updates needed to the voting system as a whole. The system used today may have worked well in the past, but with the hardcore and fast-paced politics used today, and the advancements in technology over the past few centuries, the system has holes throughout it, and has failed time and time again, with a good possibility of failing once again in future elections. As described in CPG Grey’s video The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained (2011), the current system the US uses is a combination of First Past the Post (FPTP) and a Majority vote. That means the candidate who receives the most votes of all the running candidates wins, but because of the majority rule,

The 538 members are based off the current representation of the Senate and House of Representatives: 100 Senators, 435 House representatives, and 3 representatives for the District of Columbia (“What is the Electoral College?”, n.d.). A state’s representation is not how it would be expected though, as each state starts with three representatives, and then gains more proportional to its population. However, to make candidates pay more attention to smaller states, they are given more electoral votes, which are taken from larger