Every year, in the beginning of November, Americans go out and exercise their right to vote for the people who they think will best represent their country, state and town. In the end not everyone running for an elected position will win, but the victor is the person who the majority wants to represent them as a population. This idea is what we call democracy and it is what the U.S. government is based on; or so we think. After each election, when all of the votes are counted, there are times where the voting margin between the winner and the loser is just too close for comfort. With the enormous population of our country and the sizable populations of our states, this only consistently happens within local government councils and boards. When this does happen, many people think, did the right person get elected? This discomfort is something we cannot change because the results are what they are. However, what if this wasn’t the case? What if there was a way we could ensure that the victor of a close election was the right person for the majority? Today I present to you a policy that will fix this problem that touches every American across our nation. This policy is called the 5% revote policy and states that all local governments will have a revote for town or city council members if the vote margin percentage between the victor and the runner-up is 5% votes or less. I will now show you that this problem exists and why it exists, a real example of this problem and what you
Rob Richie of the FairVote group, suggests getting rid of winner-take-all elections. When you get 51% of the vote, you represent 100% of the people. If a candidate is obviously going to win a majority of the vote not only do they represent all the people but people don’t engage in the voting process. This change would result in larger areas having more representatives. The system would change from needing a little over half to win the seat to only needing a third of the vote to win. This will ensure more voters’ voices are heard. Richie suggested we change the winner take all votes to having more people elected to balance the representatives. I believe this splitting of vote would help more minorities be heard in a district. I also feel this system may become more cumbersome to getting the
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.
More convincing than the fact that the majority of incumbents retained their seats by overwhelming margins is the shocking statistic that a quarter of the incumbents were uncontested.13 These politicians were so successful at arranging favorable districts that it was futile to even attempt a challenge. The author continued to examine particularly egregious cases of gerrymandering in New York, including that of Senator Guy Vellela, who once selected voters for his district by individual city blocks.14 Senator Guy Vellela, as well as the other state senators of New York, are prime examples of politicians exploiting gerrymandering to manipulate the outcome of elections and improve their outcomes.
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.
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
In the 2016 election there was an increased amount of citizens that have realized that the current voting method we are using is unfair because not everyone’s vote is being counted due to them being minorities within the states that are already spoken for. However in the past, a couple of states have already done this and modified the method in a way that makes every vote count because equality is what our country stands for. By using the Congressional District Method instead of the current electoral college, it increases the chances we have in including everyone's vote. Many people are against changing the electoral college and believe that keeping it as it is is the best method we could use because they are afraid of change; however this
In conclusion we face a broken system in our elections and they need to be fixed. The way we need to go about fixing it is getting rid of the special interest groups as they can buy the elections. The second way we need to go about this is by getting rid of the electoral college as they can override the popular vote as has happened in prior election most notably the 2000
Throughout the past presidential election, and many others, the ideal of electing the president by popular vote has been at an all-time high conversation topic compared to previous years. While many argue that the Electoral College defeats the purpose of voting, and diminishes the majority’s voice, this is certainly not the case. Without the Electoral College, elections would quickly become, and encourage, radical and corrupt ways in their voting systems, that could possibly result in a detrimental nationwide political crisis of voter fraud, and a rise to direct democracy.
Since the beginning of U.S. presidential elections, the Electoral College has held the responsibility of choosing the nation’s next president. With 538 electors in the Electoral College, presidential candidates must win a majority of 270 votes from states across the U.S. to have victory in the general election. Forty-eight out of fifty states hold winner-take-all elections, which means that the candidate that wins the majority in each individual state wins the entirety of that state’s electoral votes. Unfortunately, this system is not precise; there has not been one presidential election when the political minority had a fair impact on determining whom won. In addition, candidates tend to ignore states that are not directly beneficial to their campaign. However, the worst consequence of this system is that U.S. voters do not always receive the president of their choice. In fact, four historical presidential elections, including the election of 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000, have resulted in the popular vote’s choice losing. Contrary to the Electoral College, proportional representation (PR) systems allocate electoral votes proportionately, based off of percentages voters cast, and, therefore, do not include the winner-take-all strategy. Thus, Congress should enact a proportional allocation of the electoral vote system in replacement of the Electoral College to ensure that political minorities have a fair voice in elections, candidate bias for swing states is not present, and
The U.S Constitution gives the states considerable latitude in the way of conducting elections. The American citizens have many opportunities to vote. However, a turnout in American elections has dramatically decreased over the past several decades. In order to address this issue, majority of states have allowed absentee voting reforms. These convenient reforms are thought to increase the voter turnout in the elections, as well as to reduce administrative costs.
At a City Hall meeting in Cleveland, Ohio when asked about the topic of mandatory voting laws (Jackson 2015), President Obama stated, “If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country.” (Stephanopoulos 2015 p5) (Evidence: Testimony) He is right, if everyone voted the political map in the country would be completely different---and not for the better. Compulsory voting can potentially cause the nation 's true political viewpoints to be misrepresented, thus hindering political progression, by making voters feel obligated to choose candidates that may not represent their ideas and forcing the politically disengaged to select random ballots.
For decades, Canadians have been defending their right to have a fair and open electoral system. Since its creation in 1867, Canada has been proud to call itself a true democratic country, but today there would be many people who disagree with this statement. The Canadian electoral system, which uses First Past The Post (FPTP), has come under scrutiny for not being as fair as it claims to be. Over the past couple of decades, many countries have switched their system to Proportional Representation (PR) or some form of it. Based on successful results in other nations, Canada’s current FPTP system should change to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), which is a form of Proportional Representation, as it will allow for more fair elections. The intent of this paper is to outline how an electoral reform from First Past the Post to Proportional Representation or Mixed-Member Proportional, will lead to more confidence in the government, more accurate seat-vote percentage, and better overall representation of the population.
We have all been told since the beginning of time that every vote counts. For example, when those cool celebrities tell you to go out and rock the vote, but when it comes to electing your representatives. You know the people who write and pass laws, there are cases when your vote does not really count and it is no accident. Politicians do it on purpose through Gerrymandering. The process of manipulating district boundaries to give a political party an advantage over the other.
My before strategy is that the students will be able to access and address their prior knowledge regarding the election process. The election process in today’s society tends to get over looked and not a lot of students or young people understanding what truly goes into the election process. Therefore, my rationale for choosing this particular strategy was it allowed students to have a hands-on activity that allowed them to utilize their prior knowledge of the election process as well as learning from their peers. I expect my students to learn two things from this strategy one team-work and the general knowledge of how the election process works. In regard to this strategy helping students read and negotiate difficult text this allow students to understand especially in regard to historical text that events have to go in order when it comes to understanding events in history for instance when it comes to understanding different battles in wars and so on.
Confidence in an electoral system translates into confidence in a democracy. It is generally agreed that elections will hardly be completely free and fair. But a country must be satisfied that election results reflect the will of the people. This means that even where there are malpractices in some constituencies or regions the overall result is what the people, voting as a whole, intend it to be. This was the conclusion of election observers in Jamaica’s last elections even while the electoral process fell short of the standards of fairness.