First Past The Post-Voting System

For as long as American citizens can remember the assigned method of election for the United States presidency would be the use of the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a process not a place or institution, in this essay I will briefly describe the Electoral College process as well as describe some pros and cons of the electoral college and lastly, I will attempt to answer the controversial question, if you could improve the electoral college, would I choose to abolish or reform the system?

Another problem surrounding the Electoral College system is that it allows one-party states, states that almost always go to one party. In this context, a Democrat who casts a vote in a mostly Republican state feels that his vote is wasted because of no way that state will be won by a Democrat. Besides, the system is based on two-party elections, the Democrat and the Republican leaving Americans with two candidates to choose (Belenky, 364). The voters end up picking the candidate with fewer issues rather than the one they support. In my opinion, people feel that Electoral College has single-handedly defeated

The voting process in America appears straightforward, but it is a very complex, complicated system. The Electoral College is America’s current voting system. The Electoral College still serves its intended purpose, but with increasing political activity among Americans it has caused a need to reform this process. Research suggests that the Electoral College system should be amended because it poorly illustrates democracy, is outdated and the majority of Americans are in favor of abolishing the system.

Established in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Electoral College is a system utilized in The United States of America to select the President and Vice President. This process was established by the Founding Fathers in 1787, when the Constitution was written. The original purpose of the electoral system was to ensure that those who select the leaders of this nation were the most knowledgeable and informed people that America had to offer. The electors - the elected officials that make up the Electoral College - are elected to office through a general election wherein the entire national population has the right to vote. The President of the United States, however, is actually elected to office by the Electoral College only, regardless of the popular vote of the citizens in general. Thus, the Presidential election is the only federal election in our nation where the vote of the citizenry does not directly determine the victor. Despite the fact that this electoral system has been in place and operational for over two hundred years, the Electoral College is looked upon by some as an honorable system, whereas others view it as faulty. The Electoral College is not fair and equitable because it is based on population, it is not trusted by the people, and it is unjust to the wishes of the citizens.

Every time there is an election in the United States, the debate of Electoral College always heats up, and suddenly everybody seems to know about or at least they are interested in learning about it. The Electoral College is firmly established under the United States Constitution to elect the president and the vice president of the United States indirectly. A slate of “electors” are chosen from each state, and they are the ones responsible for voting for president in the general elections depending on which party the candidate is vying with. From this statement, what it means is that one does not choose his or her preferred leader directly and this has made many suggestions that the Electoral College is not a true representation of democracy. This paper will look at the strongest arguments for and against the Electoral College, analyze whether the current Electoral College should be re-engineered or scrapped in favor of direct vote and finally determine if the Electoral College is consistent or contrary to democratic principle.

A debate has been brewing in recent years about the way we elect our president. The first system is the Electoral College which is very complicated. Americans are not knowledgeable about it and worry that one candidate can win the popular vote and not the Electoral College. The opponents of the Electoral College propose a new plan called the National Popular Vote (NPV). The pro-Electoral College party think the bill’s risks and costs are not worth the possibility of some gains for certain states.

One alternative voting procedure that will alleviate the lack of voter participation is proportional representation (PR). Through the implementation of a PR system, the voice of more American voters can be heard-and a more representative government created. The exorbitant amount of wasted votes that exist under today's system will be greatly reduced. The lower threshold of votes needed to elect a candidate under PR will allow smaller groups to elect representative officials more in tune with their political philosophy without the having to constitute the majority of the voting body. This also translates into the vote of each person carrying a greater weight, thus giving that person more of an incentive to become involved in the political process. By providing a greater number of people voting incentives, paired with the increased likelihood that third-party candidates can be voted in, PR insures a more representative government that will better serve the American people.

During the course of the past few decades, the United States of America faced hundreds of issues that impact the nation’s view of leadership. Some people of the United States believe that the issues that face America involves those in office, while others believe that the issue is structural. In the case of America today, there is a momentous structural difficulty in our voting system. Furthermore, the most distinct problem that the United States handles today is gerrymandering. Throughout this essay, it will be made clear that gerrymandering is the leading problem facing America today because it harms the equality of citizens.

Another disadvantage of FPTP can occur in marginal constituencies, where voters tend to change their party loyalty from election to election, and among 'floating' or 'swing' voters, who have no firm party loyalty. The outcome of an election can be decided on the voting patterns in these situations, even although the constituents may number only a tiny proportion of the electorate.

Throughout the years, the United States has been choosing its president using the electoral college, voter ID laws to reduce voter turnout, gerrymandering to choose our representatives, and using methods to select candidates in the primaries. Through the electoral college, their presidents have been unfairly chosen using the winner take all system. In this system, if they, the voters, choose the losing party, they might as well go home because of how it works. To make matters even worse, voter ID laws have been making their laws even more difficult to surpass, in able to reduce the number of votes. Gerrymandering is used to give a party a special advantage by using the packing and cracking method, and as for the primaries, they are held by

The electoral system in Canada is also known as a “first past the post” system. “First past the post” means the candidate with the highest number of votes wins the congressional seat, whereas the other candidates with a lower number of votes don’t get any representation. There are many cons to this system that will be highlighted throughout this essay. I will argue that the electoral system requires reform due to the discrepancies between the percentage of popular votes and the number of seats won. Canada’s electoral system has many problems and is not seen as fully democratic since it has provided poor representation for both candidates that win and lose. Candidates can win seats with less than 50% of votes, meaning that even if the majority of the nation, or province did not vote for the candidate they still win the election as they consume the highest number of votes among the parties. FPTP allows two people in different ridings to get the same number of votes with the outcome of one winner since the distribution of votes and seats are unequal. The system can also encourage strategic voting such as not voting for whom you think is the best fit but voting for the candidate that seems most likely to win in order to beat candidate you dislike. FPTP leads to an imbalance of power and has the potential for corruption.

This system needs to be put to an end. The American people are well enough informed to elect their own president without the aide of an Electoral College. The electors in the Electoral College do not actually make decisions anyway. They are just figurative for they should vote along their state’s popular vote, even though most are not legally bound to do so. Even though the electors’ votes reflect that of their state’s popular vote, the views of the people are not always represented. If one candidate receives 50.1 percent of the popular vote, and the other candidate receives 49.9 percent, the candidate with only .2 percent more of the popular vote receives all of that states electoral votes. This system is also very unfair to the third party candidate. He/she has very little chance of receiving any electoral votes. In 1992, Ross Perot won 19 percent of the national

In the “Redrawing the Electoral Map: Reforming The Electoral College With the District-Popular Plan,” Craig J. Herbst discusses the reformation of the Electoral College, using a different method for elections, and the U.S. Constitution. The author argues that District-Popular Plan method is better for the nation because if it is used candidates will have put more effort into developing strategies for the popular vote, and people would be more knowledgeable about politics with those developments. Herbst notes that District-Popular Plan can help groups of people who are disadvantaged and underrepresented. He also states that the only and the best way to do this to have a constitutional amendment which is so hard to pass. Ultimately, he concludes the article with explaining the benefits of having the District-Popular Plan. Craig J. Herbst’s article was published in Hofstra Law Review which is and academic and credible source because it is peer-reviewed by experts on the issue. The purpose of this source is to inform people about the Electoral College and the U.S Constitution, and an alternative way for the Electoral College. I will use this source to get more information

Rhetorical Analysis: The primary audience for this paper includes every citizen aged eighteen and above eligible to vote in the United States. The proposed topic mostly concerns these individuals due to the fact, they are affected by presidential voting institutions. Throughout this paper, I will be arguing in favor of the Electoral College, with an end goal of persuading my audience of the benefits of the system.

Winner-take-all systems tend to be significantly simpler and more stable. However, the representatives in this system tend to be more polarized than the average voter in the districts they represent. Additionally, winner-take-all systems tend to keep a very small number of parties in play, limiting the voters’ perceived reasonable choices. As pointed out earlier, the majority vote does not even need to be a majority of the total. A candidate only needs more votes than any of the other candidates to win, which may not be representative of the electorate. In a system with two major parties, one of the worst-case scenarios could be an election where the winner only has about 45 percent of the total votes. This would mean that around 55 percent of the district’s population is not being properly represented. Minor parties are often looked at as hopeless non-options, since they appear to be lacking the support necessary to win. Voters do not want to waste their votes, so they will try to make what they believe to be the best decision between two highly polarized parties. It is like trying to draw a rainbow in black and white—possible, difficult, yet not likely to produce an accurate depiction. While this makes the system significantly simpler for voters, it also makes the system more easily corruptible, and almost certain to produce a less accurate representation of public interests. Part of the appeal for the argument of keeping this system is that doing so