...The 2000 presidential election was contested by the U.S. Vice President Al Gore (D) and Texas Governor George W. Bush (R). On the evening of November 7, 2000 there was no clear winner in the Presidential Election. It was evident around the time the results were being calculated that the vote would be extremely close. In fact, the results from the state of Florida were believed to determine the overall winner of the election. There were less than 600 votes that were to establish the winner. When the votes were cast and counted, George W. Bush was declared the winner. However, there were reports of many issues with the ballots in Florida which led to many questions regarding the validity of the outcome. It was clear that Gore won the popular...
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...The 2000 presidential election in which Al Gore won the popular votes and George W. Bush, the electoral vote, dramatized that parties care more about your vote depending upon where you live. Cuban Americans have a huge influence in national politics because of their concentration in the state of Florida. Florida is the state where the 2000 presidential election hung in the balance. The 2000 presidential election was one of the closest races in history. The original design of our federal system of government was thoroughly and wisely debated by the founding fathers and proposing a process that has been around for the last 150 years is probably more complex than any of us think. In the majority of states, the candidate having the majority of votes acquires all the electoral votes of the state. A few states hold the history of voting consistently Democrat or Republican. The system of the Electoral College offers power to the small, less populated states and traditionally those smaller states have privileged the Republican Party. I am in favor of replacing the Electoral College because currently it violates the principle of one person, one vote. "One person, one vote" or "one man, one vote" means legislative districts need to be divided according to population, so that each person (and each interest) has an equal amount of representation in government. Furthermore, the addition of two electors to each state, for its senators produces significant distortions in how much...
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...Democracy: Alive in America? Everyone is nervously awaiting the final decision of the year 2000 Presidential election with George W. Bush and Al A. Gore running closely side by side. There was debate in the legitimacy of the electoral votes cast in Florida earlier in time, so the suspense rising in America’s final decision is enormous. Looks like Gore holds this trophy for popular votes with a close 543,895 votes winning over Bush. According to previous elections, Gore has this competition conquered, the results come in; George W. Bush is our new president! With a slim win by 5 electoral votes, Bush is our new president. Wait a second, popular vote is that not the votes of qualified voters of the population? In America today, political decisions are decided democratically by its residents. Although Al Gore won the popular vote, George Bush is still the decided president. Then what is democracy, where did it come from, is our current democratic society a progression or is it a regression of democracy’s evolution? America has a government decided by the population of America; at least that is of the idea of a democratic society. Let us then compare American democracy to where democracy was created. The reason why everyone votes is to make a unanimous decision of who will become the leaders of a country. Democracy is just that, a government where the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation...
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...Yiwen Yao ENGL 212 7/14/2015 Original Letter in New York Times: More Than a Celebrity To the Sports Editor: Re “Portraying Bill Bradley, a Star Who Had a Sense of Where He Was,” March 29: As Bradley himself has acknowledged, the pressure of celebrity, to be all things to all people, at an age when most of us are just finding our way, was stifling. One reason he decamped to Oxford was to escape its grasp. I’ve always believed that the hallmark of Bradley’s career is not excellence per se, but his willingness to push beyond mere celebrity, to think for himself and find his own voice. Like Bradley said, “You’re also always working on who you are.” VIVEK VISWANATHAN, Palo Alto, Calif. Premise:” He decamped to Oxford was to escape its grasp.” Conclusion:” The pressure of celebrity, to be all things to all people, at an age when most of us are just finding our way, was stifling.” No argument:” I’ve always believed that the hallmark of Bradley’s career is not excellence per se, but his willingness to push beyond mere celebrity, to think for himself and find his own voice.” Rewrite: More Than a Celebrity To the Sports Editor: Re “Portraying Bill Bradley, a Star Who Had a Sense of Where He Was,” March 29: As Bradley himself has acknowledged, the pressure of celebrity, to be all things to all people, at an age when most of us are just finding our way, was stifling. Because he decamped to Oxford was to escape its grasp. The reason why Bradley said “You’re...
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...The year 2000 election between Presidential candidate George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore will forever be remembered in history as one of the most widely debated elections of all time. Not only was it controversial, but it gave great insight as to exactly how a presidential race can be ran and lost as well. The Presidential election of 2000 sets itself apart from any other election because of the controversy surrounding the outcome. Even though Al Gore won the election based on popular vote, George Bush came out on top with winning the electoral vote over Gore, 271 to Gore’s 266. Although both sides fought a good fight, only one came out on top, the Bush campaign. Many were left wondering exactly why Vice President Al Gore lost. Research shows that the reasons as to why Vice President Al Gore lost the presidential election of 2000 to presidential candidate George W. Bush are due to, the inability to During the beginning of the 2000 campaign almost everyone believed that the outcome and win of the election was to lay rest with Vice President Al Gore. Having being Vice President during the successful Clinton administration in the 1990’s, analysts believed that a win was almost inevitable. According to the readings in Pomper, the question was not if Gore was going to win but by how much. The United States at that time had been used to a period of prosperity and had been living in an economy that was doing quite well. The only problem was that people were not entirely convinced...
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...Throughout our history in the United States some things changed simply to better us as citizens and as a nation. New technology, discoveries of new ways to do things, and many more have caused things to change in history. Many things have also stayed the same just because some people do not like change or they thought that it was already doing us good so why change it. Equality will always stay the same mainly because some people will always believe certain people are lower than them. When comparing the 1800-1880s to the 2000s, some similarities are war, equality, and immigration, some differences are slavery, presidential elections, and schools. When comparing 1800-1880 to the 2000s, some similarities are war, equality, and immigration....
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...The Electoral College: How it works Axia College University of Phoenix How do we elect the President? Many people do not understand the process by which we elect the President. They do not understand how the Electoral College works. Bill Stern (Andrews, 1996) said, “Our elections are free, it's in the results where eventually we pay.” Oftentimes, people vote based on public opinion or information obtained by the media. Voters should inform themselves on how the Electoral College works in order to make good decisions when voting for the president. Electoral College delegates elect the President. Voters elect Electoral College delegates. The Electoral College was created as a compromise between election by Congress or popular vote for the presidential election process. At the time, some politicians believed an election by popular vote was not good for the country, and others did not want to give that much power to the Congress. Although the Electoral College has had critics and controversy since its beginning, it has delivered a President and a Vice President in 54 elections. Our founding fathers formed the Electoral College in Article II, Section I, of the United States Constitution, it states, “each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress (U.S. Constitution, 1787)”. The Constitution does not state...
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...Presidential elections occur every 4 years, which allows United States citizens to vote for the next person who they want to run the United States. There are two ways in which United States citizens can vote for a president, either by popular vote, or electoral college vote. The next president of the United States is the candidate who “...wins 270 electoral college votes…”, but most people believe that the next president should be the candidate who wins the popular vote. Presidential elections like the 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 elections shows that candidates are able to become president if they win enough electoral college vote, but they don’t win the popular vote. The current Electoral College vote doesn’t show the true feelings of United...
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...Omar Sharif Should the Electoral College be abolished? The invention and approval of the electoral college by the Constitutional Committee in 1787 resulted in an electoral system whereby the election of the president, every 4 years, is determined by members of the electoral college and not the popular vote. Each state receives a number of electoral college votes (number of state congress members) and this is amended every 10 years to reflect changes in state populations. However, there is a growing movement to abolish and replace the current Presidential electoral system with a more democratic system that more accurately reflects the popular vote. Firstly, to understand why the electoral college became the chosen system, it is important to understand the issues faced by the Constitutional committee. James Madison wrote at the time "There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections." Therefore, whilst many members acknowledged that a nationwide popular vote would be ideal, state conflict over the rights of slaves, which divided the nation, was the ultimate deciding factor in the choice of electoral system. However, there were other highly influential...
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...1. List two reasons why Hamilton felt a small number of persons would be better suited to choose the President of the United States. The first purpose was to create a buffer between population and the selection of a President. He and other founding fathers were afraid of direct election to the Presidency. He feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power; basically the common men were not smart enough to make a correct selection or a select few elite “most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station.” The second reason; as part of the structure of the government that gave extra power to the smaller states. The Electoral College is also part of compromises made at the convention to satisfy the small states. The slave holding states did not want a direct election for president because slaves were not counted as population until 1783 then at only 5/8 of a person. A direct election for president did not sit well with most delegates from the slave states, which had large populations but far fewer eligible voters. Under the system of the Electoral College each state had the same number of electoral votes as they have representative in Congress, thus no state could have less then 3...
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...Silvia Vazquez BUS 2310-01 Case Brief April 1, 2014 Case name: BUSH v. GORE, 531 U.S. 98, 148 L.Ed.2d 388 (2000) Facts: In 2000, Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States was facing George W. Bush for the presidential election. On December 8th of 2000, a local court in the state of Florida forced the city of Palm Beach to manually recount almost 10,000 ballots. This recount was imposed because the voters in Florida had problems with the state’s electronic voting machines. This problem was amplified because the ballots were not properly punched, a large number of ballots did not reveal who the voter intended to vote for. The reason for the manual recount was the result of malfunctioning ballot machines and the suspicion that some of the members of the ballot counting committee were not being honest in their attempts to tally the votes. After losing the state of Florida and ultimately the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore petitioned that the ballots be recounted in a formal case, filed before the Circuit Court of Florida. After this filing, he won, and a manual recount was enacted. But then, the Bush team filed for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court on the basis that the Florida court’s opinion was contrary to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court reasoned that state of Florida violated the 14th Amendment by enacting a recounting procedure. Procedural History: Originally Gore won his case and the ballots were manually recounted; however, George W. Bush...
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...like their choices and are apathetic and feel that their votes don’t count and do little to alter public policy. It seems like the majority of people I know don’t like or trust politicians and feel they just tell us what we want to hear and never carry through with their campaign promises and disenchanted with the whole process of voting and politics in general. Assuming that low turnout is a reflection of disenchantment or indifference low turnouts can lead to unequal representation among various parts of the population. During presidential elections what really counts is the Electoral College. I know where I live the winner of the Presidential election is announced before the polls...
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...think that the presidential candidate with the most votes will become the next president, but that is not the case thanks to the electoral college. The electoral college was first established in 1787, almost when the government first started. The electoral college has decided every presidential election except one in 1824. If for some reason a presidential candidate do not get the amount of electoral votes needed, the House of Representatives will decide on the next president. The electoral college should be kept the same and not be changed or abolished. The electoral college should be kept the same because it gives smaller states a say in the election, the third party has a chance to persuade the election, and it takes away the chance of big population states to take over the whole election. The most important reason to keep the electoral college the same is because it takes away the chance of big population states taking over the whole election. An important reason the electoral college should be kept because it gives the smaller states have a say in the election. The electoral college is based off the population of the state voting towards electors which go towards the president as points basically. Each...
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...Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000) Judicial history On Nov. 8 2000, the day after the presidential election, it was shown that Governor Bush received 2,907,135 votes and 2,907,351 for vice president Gore with a difference of 1,784 in favor of Governor Bush. Because it was a win of a half a percent there was a recount using a machine which bush was still the winner but by a small amount. Gore demanded a manual recount in several counties that were later found out only democratic states were asked to revote. Some of those counties worried that they wouldn’t make the deadline and asked for an extension. The secretary of state declined that extension and the supreme court of Florida over turned that decision and granted more time until nov.26th. On that day Govern Bush won. They next day Gore filed a complaint in the Leon County circuit court saying that there were still illegal votes. After they ruled that he did not give enough burden of prove he then appealed and Florida Supreme Court took jurisdiction of the case and held some points in the case and rejected some. They ordered a hand account of 9,000 ballots in Miami Dade County. Facts On December 8, 2000, the Supreme Court ordered the Circuit court of Leon County to gather 9,000 ballots by hand and include 215 voted from Palm Beach County and 168 votes for Vice president Gore. Bush said that the vote for gore was 176. The court ordered manual voting for the counties that had “under votes” and Bush contested it through an...
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...An article by Bradford Plumer exemplifies this by showing who all wants to abolish the Electoral College. He says, “What have Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bob Doyle, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the AFL-CIO. . . agreed on? Answer: Abolishing the electoral college. . . over 60 percent of voters would prefer a direct election to the kind we have now” (The Indefensible Electoral College). An electoral tie is much more than just possible after “In the 2000 U.S. presidential race, Al Gore received more individual votes than George George W. Bush nationwide, but Bush won the election, receiving 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266” (The Indefensible Electoral College). The idea of having an even number of total electors introduces the possibility of a tie, which would result in the election going to the House of Representatives, which does everything but express the will of the people given that most people vote one party for President and another for Congress. And, because each state only has 1 vote, the population of the states no longer matter (The Indefensible Electoral College). Enough people agree with the idea that the uneducated and inexperienced decision the Founding Fathers made creating the Electoral College is simply out of...
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