In 2011 the government held a referendum offering the public the chance to change the voting system from FPTP to AV but the public voted against changing it. One key advantage of FPTP is that it is straight forward and simple to use as it grants each person 1 single vote without an ordering system and generally means that government changeover is fast as the results are quick and easy to calculate. However in 2010 this was not the case, as for the first time in over 20 years, no single government won a majority of seats and so it took a few days for a new government to come into power. In this sense the 2010 election illustrates poorly the simplicity of the FPTP system as it failed to produce a government and so became much more complicated to decide who came to power and eventually the choice was essentially taken out of the public’s hands so was not simple or quick. Another advantage of the FPTP system is that it manages to marginalise extremist and revolutionary parties such as UKHIP and BNP as they are unlikely to win overall constituencies.
4/13,20 Chapter 6: Does Partisan Control make a difference in governmental control? First Studies started in 60’s and 70’s State economic status determines spending on governmental action, more so than political party intervention. Parties split over topics of: Welfare, Social Life, etc. (Health, Education, and Military) But no real influence Governor party affiliation affects spending in education Changes in SES affect governmental services, highly urbanized states increased spending on health and corrections, equals increase debt. W/ modest increases in education and state employment Higher Population = Increase Debt Spending on welfare and health care spending showed no change in relation to Party affiliation Aid to Family with Dependent Children evolves into Temporary Aid to Needy
As shown in 2010 where in the general election the Green and other small parties combined achieved 7.9% of the votes but the Green party was the only one of these parties to gain a seat and they only won one seat. This can encourage tactical voting with people voting for parties not that they want to win but for parties they feel will stop the parties they dislike from winning. However there are also positive attributes to the FPTP voting system as it provides a straight forward electoral choice to the voter and is simply just a mark is a box is all that is required to vote for your preferred party. This means the voter are far less likely to be confused or daunted by the prospect of voting. This makes also makes the count easier for a less time consuming.
We have seen the rise of the ‘Hastert rule’ among republicans, which dictates that the speaker shouldn’t allow the vote unless the majority of republicans support it. Today members of congress are much more likely to vote along party lines, particularly when it comes to key, controversial issues. For example in 2009 no republicans voted for the fiscal stimulus package, and when it came to the American Taxpayer Relief Act in January 2013 (aimed at avoiding the fiscal cliff) an overwhelming majority of Democrats voted in favour, and almost all republicans voted against. Furthermore the republicans are almost unanimously united in opposition to Obamacare and
Aside from the occasional unproven anecdote or baseless allegation, supporters of these laws simply cannot show that there is any need for them. Despite the Department of Justice’s 2002 “Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative” promising to vigorously prosecute allegations of voter fraud, the federal government obtained only 26 convictions or guilty pleas for fraud between 2002 and 2005 (“Voter suppression in”,
Topic: Voter Fraud or Voter Suppression Date: 10/26/12 There is no right more important than the right to vote. The civil rights act of 1965 expanded voting rights to African Americans by prohibiting the use of literacy test and other forms of discriminatory qualifications. The voting booth is the one place where all are presumed equal, yet the reality is that the playing field is far from level. Citizens are still denied an equal opportunity to cast a ballot and have it counted. Today we are witnessing the greatest attack on voting rights in over a century.
Truth-in-sentencing laws do not deter crime The argument that truth-in-sentencing laws deter crime is a conversation that has many states in our country divided. In 1994 the federal government authorized funding for states who met the criteria for the truth-in sentencing laws which is 85% of the sentence. Out of the 50 states only 27 met that criteria. So why do all the states not follow these laws? Because they don’t deter crime as advertised.
[Title of Your Assignment] Student name Professor’s name Course: University Date: 1. Gallup Poll A Gallup poll is one of our national polls and being this is an election year, can be seen regularly in regard to our presidential candidates. To clarify, Johnson and Bhattacharyya (2010), authors of our text Statistics: Principles & Methods, state that a Gallup poll “produces estimates of the percentage of popular vote for each candidate based on interviews with a minimum of 1500 adults” (p. 4). The latest Gallup poll I found was from gallup.com which is currently tracking our candidates. Here are the results from today’s poll.
I’ll be using the same article in the next section, because he then informs his readers how to identify when a news corporation is considered bias. First, Entman states that “most of the studies that do explicitly explore bias focus on presidential campaigns and administrations and find little evidence of decisive or consistent, liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican bias, but yet this still sits uneasily alongside other findings that reveal news consistently favoring one side and seem to not be considered “bias”, but slanted.” ( Entman 2003) The best definition of power is the ability to get others to do what one wants, in order for a news corporation to disperse the power they wish to different issues, or in this case, political views, they use what is called
a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.” Unfortunately like many others, this promise is bound to broken. It has been introduced to Congress often since the early 1990’s. Recently, two bills have been designed to be passed for this issue, one by Representative Barney Frank and another by Senator Jeff Merkley. Both bills are still in the committee showing no means of progressing any further. Another factor keeping the probability of this bill being passed minimal is the Republican Party’s control over the United States House of Representatives and that this bill is not one of the Republican Party’s priorities at the moment.