However, there are inevitably some questions arising about the electoral college and whether it still works best for the US today. Some say it should be completely scrapped, with a more democratic direct election taking it's place; others day that it can be mended by reforming it, and the final argument is to defend it, and leave it as it is. One reason to end the electoral college system is because it is not democratic enough. The winner of the nationwide vote could in fact lose the election because of the way the electoral college works. Popular vote winners have been denied the presidency in 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000.
One arguments showing that public participation advances democracy is that it allows a wider range of candidates to run for presidency that are not part of the Washington establishment. This enhances democracy because the public have a wide variety of candidates to choose from and can pick the candidate that they believe will represent and support their political ideology. The process is therefore opened up to outsiders who do not initially have a national reputation such as Bill Clinton in 1992, Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2008 also. For example Hillary Clinton was considered an outsider because she was a female candidate and only male candidates have yet made it to presidency. The fact that the process is open to unlikely candidates and the public have the right to choose such candidates means that democracy is advanced because the decision lies with the public.
According to the Missouri Election Board in Jackson County, “..We end up with two large, pragmatic political parties which tend to the center of public opinion rather than dozens of smaller political parties catering to divergent and sometimes extremist views.” In the direct popular vote, many presidents representing minor, regional parties will run, causing problems such as the disruption from an electoral majority. They will represent regional, localized ideas and have small, decentralized platforms. Under the direct popular vote, it allows presidential candidates with localized ideas take office and neglect the need for national appeal. Anybody with a large base of support would be able to win. The overwhelming majority could be from the presidential
This theory is not as totally outlandish as it may initially seem. Of course when first hearing it, one could wonder why would the man so close to the president and in a seat of such power have the president killed. Well, although the vice president is supposed to protect the president, LBJ definitely had his reasons for wanting JFK assassinated. Firstly, with Robert Kennedy as the Attorney General, LBJ who had been in politics for a long time did not want some young lawyer who was new to the position and didn’t quite know how to do the job yet. Also, there may have been a great fear of a Kennedy dynasty.
Due to the Electoral College today, it is hard to say for some whether or not the process of voting is fair and actually matters, or if your vote as a citizen of the United States does not count and is simply a waste of time. Today I am going to share my opinion on this controversial topic. The Election Process 3 Is The Election Process Fair? According to UEN.org, an election is the process by which citizens select thousands of men and women they want to run their government- at all levels. Some people believe that the current election process we use in the United States of America is not a fair one.
The third parties are considered to be any other party in the United States besides the Democrats and Republicans. Some people believe that America needs a third political party so that they have more options. For example when people don’t agree with the Democratic or the Republican candidate ideas they could vote for a third party candidate that has the same believes as them. This happened in the 2004 presidential election; the third party candidate had 25% of the popular vote because people started to dislike President George Bush and his opponent, John Kerry. Both candidates were in favor of continuing the war on Iraq.
To what extent is the Westminster electoral system in need of reform? The current system used in the UK general elections is the First Past the Post electoral system. It is a simple plurality system- meaning a candidate only needs one more vote than his/her opponent in order to win a constituency seat in a single member constituency. Although the First Past the Post system has a strong constituency link and nearly always produces a majority government which means a strong government, its negatives include many wasted votes and a lack of clear representation. This is why some argue that the current Westminster electoral system is in desperate need of reform.
Outline Although the founding of the Constitution was a revolutionary, positive turning-point in American history, the US Constitution has a few unconstitutional and democratic shortcomings. Introduction In order to understand the shortcomings of democracy of the US Constitution, is it is important to know the background of its’ founding and how each article serves our country. Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison, asserts the importance of having the image of a democracy without its real substance. There seems to have been a very strong opposition towards democracy at the Constitutional Convention, although the framers were in the midst of creating democratic principles to appeal to the majority of the country.
Over the past 200 years, power in the U.S. has shifted towards the President; President Regan, who wanted to give power back to the states instead of centralizing it, challenged this. Our current President, Barrack Obama, sides with President Roosevelt’s New Deal policy, which attempts to centralize power. President Obama caused great excitement with his ideas of change for America, but his administration is far less popular today due to policies he implemented. President Nixon argued against the notion that the President is becoming to powerful, stating that if we did in fact have an “Imperial” Presidency, then reelection would be much easier, but since President Roosevelt, we have only seen five reelections. The
There are many merits to having the Electoral College System: This requires a distribution of popular support to be elected for President, it enhances minority’s interests and encourages the two-party system. But as there are merits, there are also many disadvantages to having electors elect the president, such as electing a minority president, the electors may depress the voter turnout, or they could just choose whoever they want to without even thinking about the voters rights. Many people have a take strong liking to the Electoral College System but at the same time many people don’t. Throughout its 200 year span many people have taken huge steps to try and eliminate it completely, feeling as if it was unfair and didn’t give the people any say so, but what they don’t realize is that the Electoral College System is based on allowing the people to have a say in who’s running their country. Some of the concerns of the people as stated before are: electing a minority President, electors depressing the voter turnout, and them just choosing who they want without listening to the people.