Global Electoral Norms

In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the

“…that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”

Proportional representation is almost always acknowledged as the fairest electoral system. With this in mind, many still reject a mixed member proportional system. Critics argue that the current method has produced a stable and effective government, while MMP would create an ineffective government. Wiseman feels that since Canada has been consistently stable, our electoral system does not need to be changed. Hiemstra and Jansen disagree with the plurality system that is currently in place for it does not produce fair

One factor that was alarming about the “first past the post” system is shown through this example; given four candidates (A, B, C, and D) the one that has the

Douglas, J. A. (2013). The Foundational Importance of Voting: A Response to Professor Flanders. Retrieved September 06, 2017, from http://uknowledge.uky.edu/law_facpub/297/

The most important issue in relation to the Canadian electoral process is the debate over whether or not the state should implement electoral reform for federal elections. It is my stance that replacing the Single Member Plurality system (SMP) with the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) is undeniably in the best interest of Canadians, and I will attempt to prove this by contrasting The Limits: Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform - Or How I Came to Love SMP by Christopher Kam, who believes in the current SMP system, and Getting What You Vote For by John Hiemstra, who pushes for a change in favour of the MMP system. This paper will conclude with further critical analysis, as well as my justified stance the MMP system is clearly superior.

Over the years, political scientists have expressed their disapproval of American elections. They have openly stated that presidential elections do not matter. The reason being, is that they believe the outcome of elections is a result of forces outside of the campaigner’s influence. For example, the state of the economy, partisan loyalties, and normative, communicative, and symbolic roles are all disconnected from the influence of the campaigner. The latter mentioned aspects (anthropological), according to political scientists, receive little attention from scholars, but their impacts are very substantial. They restore confidence in governing institutions, result in an upsurge in mutual feelings, and give the citizenry hope of a better governing body after elections

Brennan argue that one should obtain from voting if there vote will contribute to harmful activities. The author calls this contribution to harmful activities bad voting; he does make the distinction that someone does not vote badly if they have substantial evidence that the policy was good, but it ended up being harmful. The individual votes do not have a large enough impact to sway the outcome of the vote in a certain direction, the harm from bad voting is a collective effort among a group of voters. This argument does take into account voting

This research relies heavily on theoretical data especially in relation to elections taking place in the nineteenth century. Because of this one might question the validity and reliability of the conclusions. The sources I used to reach those conclusions are qualitative and they aim to understand why the elections have turned out the way they ultimately did. Some numerical data exists for the 2000 election and I will utilize those figures in relation to that election to explore corruption. While the information will be helpful in further understanding one election it will not be when comparing all elections.

Canada’s electoral system has come under scrutiny by citizens who believe it is not a fair representation of a modern democracy. The idea of reformation has been an issue in Canada through out it’s history. Most recently, the idea of an electoral system reformation was a key political goal of the Liberal party in the 2015 election, but was later abandoned by the party, outraging many Liberal voters who saw the reformation as an issue for which they voted for (Liberal Party of Canada 2015). It has become clear that Canadians want change in the way they elect their government. The current Canadian electoral system is in dire need of reform to better represent voters, increase voter turnout, and discourage strategic voting. The Canadian government

Explain at least four potential concerns about the American electoral system. What’s the most democracy-distorting concern, and why?

The issue depends totally on whether the presidential voting framework is improved. That would take an interstate smaller between states with a larger part of constituent votes. That would set aside some time to go sufficiently through states – maybe 3-6 years once things got going – so it's somewhat of a long shot for the following 10 years. The presidential voting framework utilized as a part of the US is majority voting, sifted through the discretionary school. The experimental perception that this framework all around prompts two-gathering predominance is known as Duverger's law. It bodes well; the length of you can vote in favor of only one applicant, you would be advised to vote in favor of one of the two leaders.

As the text book defines it, franchise or suffrage is the right to vote. In the United States, it took many years to gain universal suffrage, or the ability of all citizens to have the right to vote. In the late 1700’s only about 5% of Americans were eligible to vote (wealthy, white, males of certain religious affiliations). By the early 1800’s, the properly ownership and religion requirements were dropped allowing most white males to vote.

Universal suffrage is said to be immoral as it causes imbalance on the power of voters. Hudson (2012) believes a neighbor's money is his personal money. Therefore, only the owner of the money gets to 'vote' where the money ought to be used it. This proves social injustice among those who fund the government. Because the case is no different in government where only those who contribute in public treasury out to have the moral obligation to decide on how the funds is to be used. This policy argues for the natural order where men with property had the right to represent in parliament as to protect and represent their asset. Similarly, the same principle of representation applies to limiting suffrage rights to taxpayers who pay taxes to fund the

The United States of America is one of the oldest contemporary democracies, is currently the second largest democracy, and is ranked the 16th best democracy in the world (Campbell et. Al, 2014). Yet there is a legitimate question over whether or not the United States can still truly be considered a democracy, with some studies even suggesting it has begun to resemble an oligarchy (Chumley, 2014). In this essay, I will use Dahl’s criteria of voting equality and effective participation to determine whether or not the United States are truly a democracy.