The Semisovereign People Analysis

So, it is up to the 60,000,000 that do vote, to make decisions and, decide what would be suitable for the lacking 40,000,000. Ultimately what Schattschneider is saying is that “conflict, competition, leadership, and organization are the essence of democratic politics.” He also believes that people are basically weak if the political enterprise is not competitive. Above all else, “conflict, competition, organization, leadership, and responsibility are the ingredients of a working definition of

If the majority of Americans are voting for one president to take the power in the presidential office, than it does not make sense that the other candidate would win the election. However, the Bush versus Gore election was not the only time that a candidate with the minority of the votes to win. A similar election occurred in 1876 between Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes. The Gale Encyclopedia of American Law states that “when the election returns came in on November 7, 1876, Tilden had clearly received the majority of the popular votes. However… with fewer than 48 hours before Tilden’s scheduled inauguration, the commission announced that Hayes had won the necessary electoral votes” (Gale Encyclopedia of American Law). The fact that Hayes won the presidential election with a minority of the popular votes is purely illogical and preposterous, because it does not accurately portray the opinions of the people. Because of the ability of a candidate to obtain the presidential office without the majority of the votes, the Electoral College should be abolished in America.

Presently, there are three theories that have been posed to explain the American political process. They are, elite theory, hyperpluralism, and pluralism. While all of them have sufficient evidence in regard to discussion and debate, pluralism undoubtedly best explains the American political process. Pluralism states that our democracy is best achieved by the existence and cooperation between various groups, and individuals, which participate in government by means of election. In context of American politics, pluralism is the core which our political process revolves around.

Electing government officials is a major part of being an American. The citizens of the United States have the privilege of voting for their officials , representing America’s democracy. Although a big misconception on this is that the people actually do not vote directly for who becomes elected president but rather who gets to elect the next president. The Electoral College has been in place since 1804 and continues to be the system the United States uses to elect the president. The Electoral College is filled with history, a lengthy process , and questionable arguments on its validity.

The Electoral College makes it possible for citizens’ votes in certain states to essentially not matter at all. Since all of the electoral votes go toward the candidate that wins the popular vote in a state, if a state has a majority of people who vote for a certain party and a voter votes for the other party, his vote does not have any effect on the election outcome. The Electoral College system is leaving hundreds of thousands of vote’s discounted and irrelevant. The Electoral College twists each vote’s worth per state, causing the nation’s desires to be misrepresented. The Electoral College does not always show a distribution of support. A candidate could win the electoral votes

Not all systems are perfect, nor is the Electoral College. As we seen in the 2016 presidential election, the popular vote may not necessarily get the majority in the Electoral College resulting in what is criticized not to be as democratic when the popular vote winner, Hillary Clinton in this case, was the loser of the election. The outcome of the election can be dictated by the electors and in some cases not reflect the will of the people. Also, the winner-take-all clause creates a possibility that the popular vote gets nothing even in a situation when is it very close to half the votes. All states except for

The entire point of modeling the Electoral College as it came to be was not to take power away from the people, but to rather ensure that Congress didn't ever have absolute or strong power over election results. As stated so eloquently by Martin Diamond in his 1977 book on the Electoral College, "(The Electoral College was) simply the most practical means by which to secure a free, democratic choice of an independent and effective chief executive," (Solomon).

Citizens might vote for the president however they don’t truly get to choose who wins. The system thinks that people cannot choose the president so they need a group of elite specialist to choose one for them. This clearly proves that we don’t even have to opportunity to be in the process in choosing our own president. Before hearing about this during the discussions in class, I did not know about how the Electoral College worked and it was very disappointing to see how it actually worked. It’s not true democracy without letting your citizens know how the system actually works and it’s astonishing to see the reality of it. For example, Plato’s tale on “The Allegory of the Cave”, the shadow of the cave symbolizes how people can have a sense of what is happening but they can’t truly see what is happening behind the doors. We think that we are looking at reality and when we finally see what is happening, it will

The Constitution of the United States of America created a system called the Electoral College where it outlines the rules in which we elect the President of the United States of America. As stated in Article 2, Section 1 of the U. S. Constitution created the Electoral College. Each state receives as many electoral votes as it has senators and representatives. Therefore, each state, including the District of Columbia, will have at least three electors. This is the vision of the Constitution. Now the problem arises when all the Electoral votes from one state are given to the popular winner for that state. This causes a with people’s right to chose their leader as votes of the people that voted for the losing candidate are tossed in the trash. All this while giving the state the ultimate power to elect the president.

In the article “Electoral College: An Overview” Ballaro and Bourassa state that, “Before the controversial 2000 presidential election focused a spotlight on the electoral college, many people both within the United States and abroad remained unaware of the fact that the U.S. president is not elected directly by the people.” This is what seems to be their thesis statement. The electoral college is a group of electors in each state that have the ability to elect or keep a candidate from winning even though he/she has the majority of the votes across the U.S. The fact that the Electoral College is able to do this is proven throughout this article very thoroughly, and is looked at from both those who support the Electoral College and those who

The purpose of this paper is intended to summarize my views on what has influenced my understanding of politics and government prior to taking this class, and how my understanding is now since completing this course.

With the electoral college, someone can win the popular vote but still lose. This quote from an author describes what they think about the electoral college. “It creates the possibility for the loser of the popular vote to win the electoral vote. This is more than a theoretical possibility. It has happened at least four times out of the 56 presidential elections, or more than 7 percent of the time, which is not such a small percentage, and it created a hideous mess every time.”

The reason I say this is because it makes no sense that a presidential candidate can win the popular vote and end up losing the electoral vote. The House of Reps and senators can clearly see that the people want this candidate but, they end up choosing the opposing side. A recent example of this is the presidential race of bush and

The People’s Choice Analysis Jeff Greenfield's book, The People's Choice, seems possible for two reasons. One reason is because of the problems that are obviously stated with the Electoral College. And second reason because of the media treatment the elections and candidates are given. The People’s Choice is able to do a good job at metaphorically depicting how elections work. The Electoral College is made up of people chosen by the political parties that no one has ever heard of.

But Lewis argue if that was true then why is it that people in Wyoming votes count nearly 3-4 times more than people who live in Texas or California. Eric Black mention “If we could do nothing more than allocate the electoral vote on a population basis, it would make the system substantially more democratic”. However, Kelleigh Nelson from NewswithViews.com wrote an article entitle Why Our Founder Gave Us the Electoral College “we were created as a representative Republic, NOT A DEMOCRACY”. She go on to say “In designing the Electoral College the founders sought to insulate the selection of President from the convulsion of the multitudes” (par.1). Also the Electoral College system was drafted by the states to empower the states, so as to preserve regional identity and protect small states from the domination of the larger ones. “What appears to deprive the populace of its power to decide a president is the very mechanism that preserves its power. It works that way because this isn’t a democracy; not a pure one” (Voss