...Should the Electoral College be abolished? Most Americans know very little about the Electoral College, unless it’s an election year in which an increased number of Americans gain a general understanding of the system. Among Americans who have an understanding of the Electoral College system there is often debate as to whether or not America should still use the system that dates back to our founding fathers. These debates unearth topics such as how the Electoral College is the best compromise for our country, or how the system is outdated and was only created so the founding fathers could perpetuate slavery. Although the Electoral College is not a perfect system, it should not be abolished. What is the Electoral College? “The Electoral College...
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...that the electoral college is undemocratic and outdated, in actuality, the electoral college is still necessary to prevent the more populated states from controlling the presidential election. The electoral college was put into place more than 200 years ago by our founding fathers. The founding fathers were striving to find the fairest way to selecting a new ruler and best avoid having a power hungry dictator. Their solution was...
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...in the United States because each state is responsible for a set amount of electoral votes, regardless of the voter participation. The Electoral College fails to accurately reflect the national popular vote, as well (The Electoral College – Pros and Cons). For example, in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore had 48.38% of the popular vote, while George W. Bush had 47.87%. George W. Bush ended up winning that presidential election without winning the popular vote (Infoplease). This has happened three other times in U.S....
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...Electoral College process Institutional affiliation Date How the Electoral College works The Electoral College is a process which was put in place in order to allow a nationwide system of fairness after selecting leaders. For instance, this process works with the fact that the results of the popular vote are not guaranteed to stand as the presidential election is usually decided by this system. Under this process, if you cast your vote for the president, you also vote for an often un-named elector who will cast a ballot in a separate election that eventually chooses the president. The main pros and cons in the debate about whether to keep or abolish the current Electoral College process. There are certain pros and cons in the debate about whether to keep or abolish the current Electoral College process. For instance, the Electoral College has hampered the democracy of United States in a manner inconsistent with current American practices. Taking for example, all voters are not given equal opportunities under the Electoral College (Bates, 2004). Even though the Electoral College inflates the victories of the winners, such as establishing their legitimacy, these victories do not give presidents liberated ride in Congress, where their party may be in the minority or the politicians may not think that Electoral College landslide should be treated the same as a genuine popular majority landslide (Yale University Press, 2004). Taking for example, President Ronald Reagan won...
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...Caden Jenkins English 2010 February 21, 2016 Annotated Bibliography Berns, Walter. “Should The Current Electoral College Be Preserved?” Congressional Digest, 80. (2001): pg.16. EBSCOhost. Web. 21 February 2016. From being one of my databases I thought that it would be a good idea to have both sides of the argument, so that is why I selected to put another pro of the electoral college. The reason for this is to simply receive more credibility from my audience that I have looked at all sides of this and from all of this information was able to draw my own conclusion. Furthermore the audience is always pleased with the fact that you do not simply hammer on the topic but show the good things about it as well. It answers key questions as to why it should be kept what good things it does for the smaller states in giving them power. It argues that if we were to take it away it would mean that the smaller states would then become more over powered by the larger ones. Durbin, Richard J. “College System Be Preserved?” Congressional Digest, 80. (2001): pg.17. EBSCOhost. Web. 21 February 2016. This article is a little bit older being published in 2001 but it still holds very good information on whether or not the college should be preserved or not. This is a very credible source to me simply because it comes from a man who has been working in politics for quite sometime. The audience would be pleased reading about this as well because they will be able to receive the opinion of a man...
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...Electoral College Debate Introduction As said by Juan Williams, a journalist for FOX News, “In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush, but still lost the election. The Supreme Court's ruling in Florida gave Bush that pivotal state, and doomed Gore to lose the Electoral College. That odd scenario - where the candidate with the most votes loses - has happened three times in U.S. history.” Although forty-five U.S. presidents have been elected and this scenario has only happened three times, it still leads to scrutiny, questions, and arguments about the effectiveness of the Electoral College. These disputes have gone on for quite a while as to which method of choosing the president is the best option. The electoral...
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...POS/110 Democracy in America Democracy in America is something that has been the topic of the news for many years. It has caused many debates among several different individuals. Democracy, like anything, has its pros and its cons as well. In the following paragraphs will be the tip of the iceberg of some things that are debatable about democracy in America. One topic in particular that has been debated is the Constitution. The Constitution was written in 1787. The Constitution is a nation’s basic laws. It creates political institutions and divides or assigns power among governments (Edwards, Wattenberg, & Lineberry, 2008). When the Constitution was written all those years ago the founding father were putting a system together to make sure that no official received to much control and go power crazy. One of the best pros to the constitution is that the power is divided among government officials. As stated in the paragraph above, this helps to keep power equal among those government officials. For example, a president is only able to serve two terms in office and the president has to be elected back in office at that. This keeps new ideas and new people in office. Where there are pros, there are always cons. One con that comes with the Constitution is it is very hard to have the Constitution amended. There have only been a handful of times that the Constitution has been amended. The Bill of Rights is one that was able to be amended, and it was for...
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...Changing the Voting System in America In the United States of America, the Electoral College system is used to elect the President. This system was created to make voting a quicker and easier process when the country was established. Horseback was the quickest way to transport votes at the time and to speed up the process of voting, the founders created the electoral college system. To eliminate the delay of travel, the electors who represent each state could be updated more quickly. Today we now have the internet and information can be easily transmitted instantly with no time delay when votes are counted and coming in from all states on the day of the election. The United States is a technologically advanced country so why do we keep using this process to elect our next president? This citizen criticizes the Electoral College system in the U.S. It must be replaced because it is outdated and unfair. The main issue that citizens have with the Electoral College is how it decreases the voting power. According to William Kimberlin, “States are given three voted regardless of their population but based on the state's population, the citizens votes are given to the states”. (uselectionatlas) This system is giving votes to citizens who are not in the states boundaries. In smaller states, a vote has more influence than a vote in a larger state because votes from larger states are distributed among the smaller states. For example, eight votes are taken away from California and redistributed...
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...called the Electoral College. The process of the electoral college is complex and has many components to how it works. The only power the people have over the electoral college is the ability to appoint our electors through the popular vote; however, the electors have free reign, without needing consent from the people, over who is in charge every four years. Within the Electoral College is a rich history, pros and cons, how electors are chosen, how the difference of the popular vote cause Serbian states to be swing states, and why past elections have brought up questions about if the electoral college should be amended. The original philosophy behind the electoral college is what has caused the rich history of the electoral college. Everything began in 1789 when the idea of the electoral college came to elect our very first president. The Electoral College is a system of selecting the next president by electors who vote based on the popular vote of America (U.S. Electoral College). Alexander Hamilton created the original form of the...
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...chosen by the Electoral College, a group of 538 electors. These electors are distributed amongst the states based on the number of senators and representatives it has in Congress. A candidate must then try to gain a majority of electoral votes from these states to win the election. For many years, the Electoral College has been debated. Some argue the Electoral College is unneeded, while others believe it is necessary. The Electoral College is a necessary system because it ensures the selection of a qualified president, contributes...
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...The Electoral College vote is a process that two candidates must go through to receive the majority of the public vote. To win the presidential election, they must receive more than half of the vote. However, these votes come from each state, and the number of votes varies depending on the state's population. The electoral college vote would vary in every state from 3 votes to 55 votes. But this system is somewhat tricky to determine the number of people, we start with the census, which gives us the number of people who live in any of the U.S. states. With this, parties create boundaries inside the state to govern or influence, which is a process called gerrymandering. By creating this boundary, I believe it creates an uneven result, causing...
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...‘The Irish electoral system of PR-STV is fundamentally flawed and should be replaced by the Single Member Plurality System (commonly referred to as ‘first past the post’)’. Critically analyse the above statement with a comparison between the two systems identified. 1631 words (including bibliography) Firstly, what is an election system? In my eyes it’s a means of finding the most popular outcome by converting votes casted in an election into government seats. However there countless different types of election systems and the two which we are going to look into and scrutinise right now is the PR-STV system and the Single Member Plurality system. Before delving further into the above controversial statement we must fully understand the meaning and results of both of these systems, beginning with the PR-STV (Proportional Representation-Single Transferable Vote) system. The PR-STV system is by far the least popular of these two systems in terms of countries it is used in, only being used in Ireland and Malta to help elect our (and their) National Parties. It runs on a basis of casting your vote in order of most preferred to least preferred. A quota is then announced and the those who reach the quota is deemed elected and their excess votes are put back in the system and goes towards the next electable candidate on the ballot sheet. The Single Member Plurality system (sometimes known as the ‘first past the post system’) differs greatly...
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...Electoral College, Time for Change? By Chris Brady May 21, 2014 Introduction: The history of the Electoral College was born by the founding fathers during the Constitutional Convention. There were roughly four ideas of how to elect a president to the United States. First was the idea of giving the power to Congress to choose the president, but detractors worried that giving the authority to Congress could create corruption, political bargaining, and foreign influence on their choice. Plus this could upset the balance of power that the founding fathers were trying to create with the Constitution. Secondly was the idea of giving the authority to the state legislatures. This idea was swiftly rejected for the fact that many believed that the president could be controlled by the State Legislature and decrease the federal authority and undermine the founding fathers idea of separation of powers. The third idea was to let the president be chosen by a direct popular vote. This was also rejected because the founding fathers believed that because of the lack of information for a candidate a state would just vote for a candidate from that particular state or region. The framers saw the possibility of at worst that no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. They believed that for a best case scenario would be that the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones...
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...III) Articles of Confed a) Confederation b) Specific Terms c) General Results d) Shays Rebellion IV) Constitution a) 4 key debates B) Specific terms of the articles (about the national govt.) • Unicameral legislature • No power to tax • No power to raise army • No executive branch (could make laws but not enforce them) • No judicial branch • Unanimous vote needed to change Articles C) General results of the Articles • Weak and incomplete national govt. • Economic chaos o States fund the war by borrowing money from federal govt. o Govt. wants the money back o Economy dries up and leads to a “trade war” with competing interest o States taxes their own citizens since they can’t borrow money o People (mostly farmers) lose their possessions and property since they can’t pay taxes o Damages the economy even more since farm family is out of work • No sufficient national defense o Enemy 1 the British o French and the Spanish also potential threats o Native Indian tribes also potential threat • States are left largely on their own (13 separate states, no unity) D) Shay’s Rebellion 4 Key debates 1. Representation of the states (large population vs. small population) o States might be equal but not for individuals o Creates a Bicameral Legislation (2 houses) 1. Senate 2. House of reps (representation based on population) which is known as “the great compromise” o Defensive compromise; better at not getting stuff done than getting stuff done. 2. Slavery...
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...Competing demands balance by Congressman -what I think -whats best for my constituants -whats best for the country -whats the right thing Bicameral- two houses, one more populace, one more elitist. Reapportionment- happens every 10 years after census, readjusts how many representatives. Redistricting- within a state, you redraw districts according to how many representatives you have Gerrymandering- You mess around with redistricting…the state senate redraws the districts in favor of how they want. Advantages of being an incumbent- they win 85% of the time. They have name recognition Pro’s for term limits- when politicians become professional they begin to lose touch with the people and become corrupt… Con- when you have a really good one, they are limited to what they can do Who presides over the Senate? Vice President Powers of the Speaker of the House- Call on people to speak, assign bills to committees, set time limits for debates. Nancy Pelosi- Speaker of the House, from San Francisco, California. Pro tempore- has to do with the fact that the vice president never shows up to the senate, the senior member of the major party is the leader of the senate Majority leader- the person who sets the agenda for the party Whip- the one who counts the votes and makes sure it gets done…twists peoples arms to get them to vote their way. Filibuster- somebody talks as long as they want Cloture- two thirds majority vote in the senate, you can...
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