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Advantages of political participation
Political participation and voting are important features of our democracy free essays
Voting and political participation
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Do you really understand the process of an individual getting elected into office? There are a few different ways in which parties may select a candidate for elected office in the United States government. Some primaries that are used are open, closed, and semi-closed primaries. Another way candidates are nominated for election is by caucus. There are also many strengths and weaknesses of the primary system. There are a few types of primaries used in our government. Any registered voter can participate in any party's primary in an open primary. A voter will usually choose a party's ballot on primary day at the polling location. In this situation, a republican can cast a vote for a democratic nominee in an open poll. Only registered party members are permitted …show more content…
A voter needs to be registered in a political party in a semi-closed primary. Independent voters can choose any party they want in the primary. However, voters who aren't affiliated with a party must give up their independent status in a semi-closed primary. However, some states use party caucuses. A party caucus is a conference in the legislative chamber with the members of a party. These members select leaders for their party. The republicans call this a conference, not a caucus. There are many strengths and weaknesses of the primary system. One of the advantages is that the voters select the candidates for political office, not the party bosses. Because of this, newcomers to the political system have an opportunity to run for political office. If political bosses chose the candidates, the system would be slightly corrupt and biased. However, there also a few weaknesses of the primary system. To win the election, studies show that a candidate must also appeal the more extreme voters in their political party. If they only appeal to the more moderate voters they have a much slimmer chance of becoming elected. Candidates must move back to the more moderate voters once they have prevailed
As a result, more states vie for earlier primaries to claim a greater influence in the
Despite what’s against 3rd parties they still do manage to make some important contributions in our political system. One contribution is there ability to shift other party’s views along the political spectrum slightly.
If the candidate doesn't win the electors' votes, then they will not have a chance of winning.
It pushes the two-party system and disregards states. Majority of the presidential campaigning is between the major parties in American: Republican and Democrats. So campaigning is spent on swaying the people to cast their votes for either candidate. Presidential campaigns have clear tendency to concentrated their resources on state both candidates have certainty pull while ignoring the states that favors one candidate or the other. With the winner-take-all system, a candidate that already is well ahead in a particular state doesn’t spend any more time trying to campaign in the state nor either does the losing candidate try to win over the state. So, candidates will tend not to bother with states where they are either ahead or behind. For example, Massachusetts’ residents said that during the 2000 general election, they rarely saw campaign advertising from either major-party candidate (Gregg, 2003). By fact that Massachusetts was counted to be in favor of Gore. And by contrast, residents of Illinois complained about having been overwhelmed by presidential campaign ads. Illinois was swamped with campaign ads because according to the polls, it was characterized as a “battleground state (Gregg, 2003). Another example is the 1960 election between Senator John Kennedy and Vice President Ricard Nixon. In Stanley Kelley’s study, it found out that both Kennedy and Nixon spent seventy-four percent of their total campaign
The candidates will have a better chance of getting elected.
First, let’s talk about the advantages of partisan elections compared to nonpartisan elections. It makes voting a lot faster because the people can just go to either a democrat, republican or independent column. They do not have to go through a big list of candidates to figure out who is the best choice, like it would be in nonpartisan elections. Another advantage of having partisan elections would have to be the free press and name recognition. These are really important in an election, especially name recognition, because you want the people to notice your name on the ballot when it comes to election time and vote for you.
Ever since the election season of 1972, presidential primaries have become “the dominant means of selecting the two major party candidates.”i[i] The primary system is one in which the eligible voters of each state do one of the following: 1) Vote for a presidential candidate to run for their party in the general election. 2) Vote for a delegate pledged to vote for a certain candidate at the party’s national convention. As intended, this process would bring the candidate selection processes out into the open and “let the people vote for the candidate of their choice.”ii[ii] On the surface, this may look very democratic (and admittedly, in some instances it was/is), but upon closer examination, it becomes overwhelmingly clear that the candidates are chosen long before the people cast their vote. The culprit: the structure of the presidential primary system.
myth. Votes in an election should not be cast for a party but for the
...lity of the votes (Shugart 632). Each states would be important under such a system, as candidates would be forced to address as many voters as possible, not just "voting blocs" that could swing a plurality in the state and, therefore, the entire state. More people would participate in elections because they would know that every vote did indeed count.
Second, the majority of Independents tend to be biased towards one party or the other. "When you narrow it down, look at actual voters, the turnout rate among independents is lower. When you look at actual voters and look at those who are truly uncommitted, you find that you’re down to less than 10 percent of the actual voters (Khan, 2012).... ... middle of paper ...
Before choosing the Electoral College, the Constitutional Convention came up with several methods of selecting a president with those reasons under consider...
...id of the two party system is that the American people would be less likely to vote because there would be a lot more people on the ballot and it wouldn’t be as easy as it is now, where most people just go in and look for the little ‘R’ or the little ‘D’. However as the gallup poll has shown the people seem to want more people on the ballot since they want to see more independents in the running.
In 'Political Parties: The American Two-Party System', the author writes, "Two-party systems are more stable than multiparty systems." Since a direct vote uses a multiparty system, it can become very unstable. The author states, "The two parties must appeal to the middle to win elections, so the parties tend to be more moderate." This causes two-party systems tend to be more stable. The author also writes, "Voters have only to decide between two parties. This makes voting with the electoral college much easier." All of these are advantages to the two-party system which a direct vote doesn't
Initially, the Founders intended to have a limit on the amount of time any one person could serve. In the Articles of Confederation, a rotation in office system was described, so that no one person could remain in a position for decades on end. However, this was abandoned in the Constitution because it was deemed unnecessary. At the time of the nation’s founding, the occupation of “politician” did not exist. One could hold an office for a number of years, but it was not considered a career path. Originally, politicians were seen as making great sacrifices, because they stepped away from their family and primary jobs for a number of years to serve their country, before returning to their normal lives (Vance, 1994, p. 429). In the words of Founding Father Roger Sherman, “The representatives ought to return home and mix with the people. By remaining at the seat of the government, they will acquire the habits of the place, which might differ from those...
Plurality voting and winner-take-all rules directly undermine any chance of a third party victory, leading to the perpetual existence of a two-party political system. With winner-take-all election rules making any third party victory far from possible, the two major parties can shift their identity early on in the election to align better with the concerns of the general public that may be expressed from third party support. Third parties do not pose much of a threat to the two major parties due to their inability to carry a state through electoral votes. Any large desire for policy change will likely provoke a major party critical realignment before it leads to any third party victory. The two major parties will likely, based off of historical patterns, bring forth a candidate whose campaign is unique to the nation-wide concerns, leading to a shift in overall voting