...In 1787, the Constitutional Convention were trying to devise a method for electing the President. This method included selecting congress, state governors, state legislators, and other high political people to represent each state and ultimately help in choosing the President. This would later be known as the Electoral College. The only people allowed to be an elector are, Representatives, Senators, and a person who holds an office of trust in the United States. According to my textbook American Democracy Now, The Electoral College by definition is “a group of people elected by voters in each state to elect the president as well as the vice president”(Harrison Harris Deardorff 3rd Edition, 285) . But looking into the historical origins of the Electoral College, I realize that there is more to it than just that....
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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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...have turned into a socialist country. We still have the vote and the Electoral College. That is an example of how we are still a republic. An example of how we have turned to democracy is the unions. When a union gets together and votes on something such as a strike, that is mob rule and, with the exception of making a deal, there is nothing that anyone can do. An example of how we have become more socialist is the fact that the progressives want to make everything equal and with the current President and Senate, they are succeeding in some things such as healthcare. People think that the healthcare bill is a good thing. It is not. It is just more government taking over what citizens can do and buy. This is unconstitutional at best. Many people think that healthcare is going to be free but it is not and the government will make everyone buy it. The argument is people do not get healthcare when they need it. That is simply not true. The United States of America has the best healthcare in the world and everyone gets healthcare if they choose. The framers of the United States Constitution would be appalled at how the Constitution is being interpreted today but I do not think that they would be surprised. They knew that eventually this system of government would eventually fail or at the very least need a “recharge” for lack of a better word. One way bad interpretations could have been avoided is if the framers of the Constitution were more specific in some of what they wrote....
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...Electoral College In order to increase the ease of creating and establishing a federal government with a central figure of office. The framers of the Constitution created the Electoral College. The College was formed to ease the process of electing a president every four years. The idea behind this Electoral College is that each state received a certain number of electoral votes according to its population. All of which went to candidates who win the states popular vote. Each state is allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S Senators. It’s always two plus the number of its U.S Representatives. This could vary according to the size of each State’s population as determined in the census. There’s twenty-nine electoral votes in the states of Florida. President Obama won State Electoral votes for 2012 election in Florida. Obama won Florida’s popular vote as well with 4,237,756 votes. Doing research there are some advantages and disadvantages with The Electoral College. The Electoral College protects minority interests. It preserves the voice of the States with lower populations and more rural areas. It promotes two-party system of governance. Some political activists may not be fan of the two-party system, but the Republican Verses Democrats structure creates more stability. The Electoral System allows majority of Americans favors and they may not win. It’s complicated and dissuades people from voting. A popular vote but win the electoral vote is a simple majority...
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...In the United States, the Electoral College is used to elect the President of the United States. However, people oppose it since the United States has dramatically changed throughout the years. Some demand popular vote, since it represents more of a direct democracy rather than a representative republic. Meanwhile, there are those who still desire the Electoral College due to the Constitution. There are at least three reasons why the Constitution shouldn’t be changed to abolish the Electoral College, which are federalism, organization, and party benefits. First of all, the Electoral College fortifies federalism. According to “The Electoral College Strengthens Federalism” by Michael M.Uhlmann, he uses Thomas Jefferson has a reference to support his perspective. “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” This quote is references to limited government and equal rights for all. It strengthens and supports states without any federal involvement. Small states receive less power than Larger states;...
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...The Electoral College Andie Downs ENG 105 Research Paper Final Every four years on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November, the election for the next President and Vice President of the United States takes place. Although thousands of individuals cast their vote for their candidate of choice on this day, it is really Electors that they are voting for. The electors that are selected will go on to choose the next President and Vice President of the United States. For example, the candidate that could win the popular vote of a state is not guaranteed because election is actually decided by the group of electors, called the Electoral College. The U.S Electoral College is the division of the government that selects the President and Vice President of the United States. It consists of 538 electors, where the amount from each state equals its number of members in its congressional delegation. In two states, Nebraska and Maine, the candidate is determined by majority vote and the winner of the popular vote receives 2 electoral votes (“What is the Electoral College?”). Allotting a number of votes to each state in this way is inaccurate and doesn’t properly represent the vastly larger or smaller states. Although the use of an Electoral College during a presidential election is considered a key element to democracy, its application to the process makes it unrepresentative of the voters and elections should instead be based on the popular vote of the people. When the constitution...
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...How Was The Greatest Constitution and Government Formed George Washington Political Science 201 Professor X August 24, 2012 Introduction The Greatest Constitution and Democracy on earth, these are my heartfelt feelings concerning the country that I live in. Why do I feel this way, because of the freedoms that we naturally have as citizens of the United State. Freedoms that are sometimes ignorantly ignored by the average citizen instead of being cherished and utilized. U.S. citizens have rights thanks to the original Bill of Rights, for example the right to free speech and the right to bear arms. The framers of the U.S. Constitution which is the basic structure of the American system of government. The U.S. Constitution is a written constitution, "it is the world's oldest written constitution still in force, drawn up in 1787, ratified in 1788 and inaugurated in 1789" (Powell, 2015, p. 687). Our constitution was developed to be a working document, meaning the framers created a document that can be edited and corrected through the political processes put in place that merit changing or amending by using our three branches of government, the executive, legislative and judicial. The Constitution The U.S. Constitution has several strengths and weaknesses that definitely make for it to be the keystone of our political system and the pillar for democracies throughout the world. A major strength to our Constitution is that it makes for a strong Central government with checks...
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...The Electoral College: The Fear of Mobocracy Katherine Kinert Olympic College, Bremerton Abstract The Electoral College is a very important part of the United States Electoral System. However, very few Americans actually understand how it works. The lack of political efficacy in this country is a large reason of why some people do not think the Electoral College should be abolished. However, as Eric Black (2012) stated in an article on PBS News Hour, “Polls for many years have reliably shown that a majority of Americans would prefer a straightforward popular vote for the presidency.” Originally the Electoral College was established to prevent majority factions from having too much power causing mobocracy to occur. However, this system is outdated and the conditions that prompted the founding fathers to institute this precaution no longer exist today. Also, the fact that almost all the states use a winner-take-all system to determine which candidate gets all of the electoral votes for the state. Will abolishing the Electoral College rid the United States from mobocracy? Introduction The Electoral College is outdated and does not follow the true spirit of American Democracy. David Stewart (2013), a lawyer in Washington, D.C., states that, “Because most people knew little about public events or leaders from distant states, the convention delegates reasoned, they would not make a wise choice between presidential candidates.” Today, people have access to information through TV...
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...Confederation, but later this idea was deterred. The Constitution was created on new precedent and adopted on September 17th, 1787. Our Constitution was written to be the backbone of our established government “for the people by the people”. According to the Independence Hall Association’s website, our country has the second oldest active Constitution in the world, behind the “1600 Statutes of San Marino”.(1) The Constitution has had Amendments conjoining or slightly altering it’s contents. But overall, The Constitution is arguably the same document at it’s core as when it was originally ratified. Sanford Levinson, in his book “Our Undemocratic Constitution”, pushes for the idea of another constitutional convention to revolutionize what he calls “hardwired” defects in the Constitution. These “hardwired” defects are whittled in the constitution’s grain and cannot be solved through even the most farfetched interpretation. A main theme of his book is based on the almost impossible but more than improbable process of amending the Constitution let alone holding his envied convention. Levinson’s defects are about but not limited to; Operation of the Electoral College and other disputed problems regarding the presidency, power being allocated in the Senate, bicameralism and resulting opportunity for the political minorities to block popular legislation. In America, we vote for electors in the Electoral College, who then...
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...legislature, or whether judges should be appointed for life, or whether the electorate should be able to vote on constitutional amendments. Topics that are not questions of interpretation, but rather, questions of the wisdom of the structural decisions of the Constitution itself, most of which were made way back during the Philadelphia Convention. His purpose in doing so is not so much to answer questions, but rather to ask them. He seldom gives his own positions on the questions that he asks - more so, he wishes to open up the public’s mind about such questions. In order to do so, he seldom uses expert jargon, preferring to explain himself as much a common man (or woman) would. His point throughout the entire book is not to chastise the Framers of the Constitution, but to explain how while decision made back in 1789 were sound in logic, they may not fit the needs of today, and as such, may need revision. Indeed, one of the first topics Levinson discusses is how politicians and the electorate alike rarely look at the Constitution as a flawed document, and more as an infallible one, and how that is a mistake. His ultimate goal is certainly ambitious: to create a new constitutional convention to...
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...1 Marks: 2 The party in government is made up of ___________ and has direct impact on governmental policy; it is largely independent of ___________________. Choose one answer. | a. the party organization/officeholders | | | b. officeholders/the party organization | | | c. voters/politicians | | | d. bureaucrats/the president | | | e. the electoral college/state legislators | | Question2 Marks: 2 A new order of demonstrated political loyalties, such as seen in Texas and the South from Reconstruction until the middle 20th century with the movement from a Democratic majority identification to a development of parity between the Democratic and then in the latter half of the 20thcentury the shift to Republican party majority identification is called Choose one answer. | a. dealignment. | | | b. alignment. | | | c. realignment. | | | d. party shift. | | | e. political epoch. | | Question3 Marks: 2 The right to vote was not extended to women in the United States until Choose one answer. | a. the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. | | | b. the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. | | | c. the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. | | | d. the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. | | | e. an executive order that was issued and signed by President John F. Kennedy just weeks before his assassination in November of 1963. | | Question4 ...
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...The Constitutional Convention was an important event because it is what lead us to the government we have now. The different compromises are what lead to the methods that were used and still being used nowadays The Constitutional Convention was a meeting that took place in Philadelphia in 1787. The purpose of that meeting was to rewrite the Articles of Confederation. There were fifty five men who were delegates, their purpose was to have the federal government strengthen. The delegates did not think that rewriting the Articles of Confederation would actually work out. Eventually they wrote the U.S. Constitution. George Washington was chosen to lead the convention. All of the delegates had to agree that every state would get one vote. They did not want anyone to know about what was going on during the convention meetings. The delegates made sure to keep everything a secret, anyone who was not a delegate were not allowed to attend any meetings. We have no written documents because they kept everything a secret of what had occurred during the meetings. The only details we have today is from a notebook that belonged to James Madison. However, James Madison is known as the “Father of the Constitution.” He had also helped write the federalist papers. At the Constitutional Convention James Madison had done a very good job. When the delegates had to decided to write the “Bill of Rights” he was against it. James Madison was afraid that the future people would just go by those...
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...The Politicization of Civil Rights Moshe Pols-101 To most people, the Civil Rights Movement means equality for blacks and whites. However, over the years, the Civil Rights movement has been a politicized movement for the push of candidates and parties on all sides. They played a role with the southern states seceding from the USA, and the Civil War. Many people don't know that for a long time in fact blacks did play important roles through many important times, and weren't just mere slaves, as most think today. The reason for such a political polarization on the issue, for a wide multitude of reasons. This paper will sort through the beginning of America to more modern times to show how different political parties and policies shaped the civil rights movement and made it take almost 200 years for equality to start taking a foothold from the founding of America. Many seem to think America was founded only by white men wearing wigs. I found looking through history books over years, and looking at paintings of many of the important founders, and in turn the black founders. I will only point out a few and their accomplishments as they are so numerous: Peter Salem, a black hero at the battle of bunker hill, and saved scores of american lives that day. Reverend Jonas Clark and Prince Estabrook were both important in the Battle of Lexington, with the “shot heard around the world”. He called his congregation to the mixed church, and then rallied his black and white patriots...
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...THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC Office of Election Administration (The views expressed here are solely those of the author and are not necessarily shared by the Federal Election Commission or any division thereof.) In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that: • was composed of thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government contained only 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable) believed, under the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry St John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil, and felt that gentlemen should not campaign for public office (The saying was "The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office."). • • • How, then, to choose a president without political parties, without national campaigns, and without upsetting the carefully designed balance between the presidency and the Congress on one hand and between the States and the federal government on the other? Origins of the Electoral College The...
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...Population; the people who live within the boundaries of the state 2. Territory; land with known and recognized boundaries 3. Sovereignty; the supreme and absolute power within a state’s territory to decide its own foreign and domestic policies 4. Government; the institution through which society makes and enforces public policies 5. Force theory; the state was born of force, when one person or a small group gained control over people in an area and forced them to submit to that person’s or group’s rule. 6. Evolutionary theory; the state evolved from early families that united to form clans. Later, clans united to form tribes. As tribes settled into agricultural groups over time, they formed states. 7. Divine right theory; God created the state and gave a chosen few the right to rule. 8. Social contract theory; people voluntarily agreed to create a state and give to the government just enough power to promote the safety and well-being of all. Government exists to serve the will of the people, and the people are the sole source of political power. Chapter Outline 2 I. Section 1: Government and the State A. Definition of Government and the State 1. legislative, executive, judicial 2. state B. Political Ideas and the Purpose of Government 1. force 2. evolutionary 3. divine right 4. social contract 5. Preamble II. Section 2: Forms of Government A. Who Can Participate? 1. representative democracy 2. direct 3....
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