I. Introduction
The United States of America was built on the fundamental principles of democracy. Democracy is government by the people for the people. The people have opinions about government that are expressed mainly through voting. It is common knowledge that anyone of age can choose to vote. **** There are many issues in the election system of the United States. Some issues include, the absence of a defined right to vote in the Constitution, the American ballots, the Electoral College, the cost of being a politician, and the electronic voting systems in use today. In this paper I will address problems in the electoral system and my opinion on various solutions.
II. Constitutional Issues Most Americans would tell you the right to vote
…show more content…
who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president. However, many Americans do not know how it works and why it exists. Popular vote should decide the president and vice president, not A process formed from a deal between two factions over whether Congress or the people should decide the president. There are many other problems with the Electoral College. With the Electoral College the loser of the popular vote can win the election. It also destroys the every person get a vote idea by using representatives to vote. One representative cannot possibly be able to speak for all of its people with one vote. This is why popular vote should determine who will be at the head of America’s executive branch. That way every single person has a say …show more content…
With the changing of times and technology, modern electoral politics have begun using touchscreen voting machines to cast votes. These machines fail ten percent of the time and voters have reported their choices change from one candidate to the other before their eyes (Thompson). With the technical knowledge and access to the software for these machines, one person could easily change the results. One team of state approved computer hackers took on the challenge of hacking these voting machines. They were able to breach the system of practically all California’s voting machines and change results or take control of system functions (Wildermuth). Therefore, in states using voting machines, computer hackers could be skewing the votes without any traceable
The United States is a privileged country with freedoms and opportunities many countries strive to achieve. People come into the United States in hopes to obtain these rights and make a better life for themselves; they strive to achieve “The American Dream.” Citizens are given the chance to vote, speak their mind, and live according to their desires without prejudice. However, the same government that promises hope has flaws that frustrate the American people; the Electoral College is one topic of debate. Many feel this system is a safe way to regulate who leads the country, while others feel that issues should be left to popular vote.
Upon this defectiveness of Electoral system, current system is failure the way it mislead results and misrepresent population. This system is being used to choose our president for a long time and it is hard to find a replacement for it, but little effective change in the system is possible. If that is done, that change may bring huge breakthrough to the way we Americans see election.
The Electoral College has been the favored method by the United States to elect the president for many years. When the College was first created in 1787 it was seen as an efficient and reliable way to vote the president into office. It has been more than 2 centuries since this method of electing was chosen, and many things have changed in U.S. society. The Electoral College is failing to keep up with these advancements in society and a new method must be chosen soon. Throughout the almost 2 and a half centuries since the beginning of the Electoral College there has been a large change in population.
Due to the discrepancy between the winner of the popular vote and the winner of the electoral college in the most recent election, there has been a lot of talk about eliminating the electoral college and moving to a direct popular vote. While many people argue for this shift, usually with little knowledge of what a popular vote election would look like, there are also many citizens who are opposed to the idea. In our polarized political climate, this fact is not surprising. Those who support the electoral college defend it by claiming that it is not only constitutional, but it also represents the whole county, and makes for a more certain, legitimate election process.
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.
I noticed that when one political party covers almost the entirely of the map, their party will continue winning the election for several years. Like how the election of 1932, the democratic party had about 88% of the electors votes and about 60% of the popular votes. The democratic party continued to win the next four elections.
In fact, the Constitution contains provisions for direct and indirect election of the different parts of the legislature and the executive, based on overlapping but distinct electorates (Muller 1251). In addition, many people believe that, the Electoral College process of electing the president necessitates replacement with a direct popular vote to honor our democratic form of government in the United States. Moreover, in a democratic form of government, the authority rests with the people rather than in one or a few as in a totalitarian or authoritarian form of government. People believe a direct election supports the 14th Amendment principle of “one person, one vote” (Wagner 577). Therefore, the winner-take-all system inaccurately represents the will of the American citizens since not all candidates garner any electoral votes. On the other hand, a popular vote for the president could lead to many runoffs if neither candidate reaches a majority, creating a bigger opportunity for voter fraud and manipulation of the vote, which would not truly represent the will of the people, states, or country. The Electoral College sometimes fails to represent the national popular vote because states use the winner-take-all approach and not some proportional method for the representation of its voters. However, the Founding Fathers were not too keen on
The Electoral College Should Be Abolished Many years after the United States was founded, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself; they later came to settle on the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a system in which the president and vice president are chosen indirectly. In general, the delegates did not believe that a direct popular vote was acceptable, however that it should be decided by the US senators and representatives instead. The way in which it works: a candidate must receive a majority of the electoral votes to be officially declared president. If no candidate obtains a majority, the US Representatives selects the president from the top three contenders; this means each state receives
The Electoral College can be considered one of the more misunderstood parts of our government. People have many misconceptions on how it works, at least I did until I took this class. When the Framers were developing how their new government was going to work, they ran into many problems. One of those problems was they has different ideas on how the president and vice president were to be elected. Some wanted to elect them like they do in Great Brittan with the parliament electing the prime minister. Others disagreed. The compromise was the creation of what we now call the Electoral College.
In this paper four subjects on the Electoral College will be addressed. These four subjects are: What is the Electoral College? Why did the founding fathers create the Electoral College? What are some major criticisms of the Electoral College? Should we keep it? Before these questions are addressed it should be noted that many people were not aware of the existence of the Electoral College, perhaps even the Author of this paper.
The author argues that without the use of an Electoral College that every vote by an American citizen would still create a big outcome in the election for a candidate. Instead of telling electors who citizens wished to cast their vote for, citizens would be able to really vote for the candidate in which they feel will be most effective for the country. The author believes that the Electoral College has soiled our elections and that we should make a better way in which we can make the elections more efficient and equal for each and every citizen in
The Electoral College has a final say in which president will be chosen. It’s not right because if the majority of the voters choose one president and the Electoral College chooses another then most of the voters will be upset. They chose that certain president for a reason and it would just be a waste of their time if the candidate they voted for didn’t get elected. There are some that feel that the Electoral College in its present form will cause a president to become elected who was not the winner by popular vote.
Beginning in America in 1787, the Electoral College was originally created during the Constitutional Convention to help make a fair way for the president to be elected without giving too much power to either the national government or individual states. Over the years, the Electoral College has undergone a few changes in attempt to make it more fair, but there is still much debate about whether or not the Electoral College is the most effective way to elect a president. Some people believe that the Electoral College does an excellent job of creating an equal distribution of votes across all ethnicities and social classes of America. In contrast, others think that the Electoral College does not give an accurate portrayal of the popular opinion of Americans, believing that the Electoral College is no longer necessary for the election process in our society. The issue of whether or not the Electoral College should be a part of our government is important to our society, because it has had a dramatic effect on who is elected as president. Several times in American history a potential presidential candidate has obtained the presidential office only because of the Electoral College, despite the fact that they lost the popular vote. Therefore, the Electoral College should be removed from the government and replaced with an election system based on the popular vote.
According to Andrew Heywood, there are three main functions of elections. One such function is to "ensure the representation." However, it is arguable that some nations make such representation due to proportional electoral systems unrepresentative and lacking are the majority. There are plenty of electoral systems in use worldwide and each country seems to have adopted a particular system that works well for them, but can not by others. Many countries tend to use only a couple of high systems, however, the United Kingdom use several! The different systems British election are used for different purposes and this is a large number and the question of how the UK is proportional. If there is a need for different voting systems, each provides
As the new digital era has risen so has a new way of voting; online voting. Even though online voting is more convenient, lower cost, and quicker it could also lead to hackers stealing an entire election or an entire part of the voting public left out. The vote and voice of those without access to computers, persons living in poverty or those without technology knowledge will be missed.