When evaluating the arguments raised on both sides it I believe that the Electoral College should be replaced by a national popular vote. An argument that exposes the weakness of the Electoral College and why it should be replaced by a national popular vote is because the ‘winner takes all’ system distorts the results of the elections. There have been various results in which the popular vote did not reflect the results of the Presidential election. A notorious example of how distorted results can be under the Electoral College is that of Bush and Al Gore in 2000. Though Al Gore won the popular vote by 48.4% Bush won the votes of the Electoral College which resulted in him winning the Presidential election.
‘If it isn’t broken don’t fix it.’ Discuss with reference to the electoral systems used for national elections in the UK and USA. The first past the post systems used in both the USA and the UK unquestionably have the potential to produce election results that are not representative of the break down of total votes in an election, providing results that don’t reflect voter wishes. One may argue that the electoral systems used in both the USA and UK marginalize minorities, causes wasted, insignificant votes and promote voter apathy. However despite the numerous criticisms of first past the post it has continued to be the system in place to decide the President in the USA and dictate which party forms government, and thus which party leader becomes Prime Minister in the UK, suggesting the system has its advantages. Proponents of the UK and US voting methods also often cite the lack of a credible alternative as a reason for the retention of the current systems.
Also the disunity within the Republican Party brought about by the government shutdown has caused the Democrats to join together despite divisions to present a more unified party to seem a more attractive option to the Republicans and also to criticise the Republicans hounding them in the press to lower their credibility to boost the Democratic standings in the popularity polls which has also brought about a large drop in support for the Republicans. Also as for the issue of same sex marriage the Democrats are predominantly in favour of it with it endorsed even by Barack Obama himself showing the mood of the majority of most of the Democratic Party despite a small minority who oppose it (mainly the Blue Dog Democrats). Another piece of evidence that the Democrats are not very divided is that the most conservative faction of the Democratic Party, the Blue Dog Democrats has been drastically reduced in recent years their numbers being in the 50’s in past years but in the 113th congress their numbers have been reduced to 14 so their influence has dwindled to give way to the congressional progressive caucus led by Nancy Pelosi who
To what extent are mid-term elections merely a referendum on the performance of the president? Jan 2011 Q7 (45 marks) Mid-term elections are the elections for the whole of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate that occur midway through the president’s 4-year term of office. I will be judging to what extent midterms can be seen merely as a referendum on the President’s performance. Mid-term elections can be seen merely as a referendum on the performance of the President because the President’s party has lost seats in the House of Representatives in all but three mid-term elections in the last 100 years. For example the three mid-terms where this happened were 1934, when Roosevelt won 9 more seats, 1998, when Clinton won 5 more seats and 2002, when George W. Bush won 8 more seats.
Such confusion meant that the die hard Republicans and Moderate Republicans both felt confused on his stance and therefore would have lead to a shrinking in his voter base. Typically Romney would garner a greater portion of the white vote however in 2012 in Ohio 329,000 fewer whites voted, which shows Romney’s failure to get out support and general connection to his voter base in such a key swing
William Howard Taft was nominated by the support of Republicans and the conservative wing. Since Theodore Roosevelt failed to receive the Republican nomination, TR and his supporters formed the Progressive Party, (nicknamed the "Bull Moose Party") so he was chosen as its candidate for President. Eugene V. Debs, knows as a American Union leader and founding member of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World, was a nominee of the Socialist Party. The fourth runner in this election was Woodrow Wilson, supporter of the Democratic Party. He was nominated on the ballot thanks to the support of William Jennings Bryan, a three-time Democratic presidential candidate.
Illinois has a population of 12 million people and 22 electoral votes. This means have one vote per every 550,000 voters. This is a very unbalanced form of voting, not capturing the popular vote at all. Durbin also points out that we use a direct popular election system for Senators, Governors, Congressmen, and mayors, but not for our President. The Founding Fathers knew during their time that people running for congress lived closer to the people voting for them, so at that time, the people voted directly for them but only for them.
After spending the primary season trying to prove they are most in tune with their party, they run for election on the basis of being most in tune with the nation. However, large swaths of the nation are at odds with the social contracts that politician holds with their party (or, otherwise, they would all be members of that party). This sets up the confusing political structure in American culture where politicians must first promise their parties they care strongly about certain issues, then assure the rest of the country that they do not actually care that strongly (Strom 1990). This confusing political structure emerges directly out of the conflicts in the
Democratic Republicans all in all wanted things to remain the same in the U.S government because they felt that giving more power to the national government by way of national bank or tax would slowly get rid of the people’s voice in politics creating a rerun of the previous outcome with Great Britain. Both party’s with opposite beliefs going back and forth has followed the U.S since this time in history it is safe to say that the First Party System left behind a legacy of feuding in government politics. When it comes to decision
But backtrack four years ago during the 2004 election when President George W. Bush received only 35 more electoral votes than Senator John Kerry, at 286. If the apportionment had been based solely on only U.S. citizens, President Bush would have gained five more electoral votes. It is absolutely illogical that illegal foreigners should be permissible in the selection of the President of the United States of America; they didn’t gain citizenship to our country nor did they earn the right to occupy our country and contribute to a victory between two