Winner-All System

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

Proportionality is a key factor in assessing the fairness of a voting system, if a parties number of votes is not equal or close to their number of seats in parliament then the voters’ are being misrepresented. AMS is a PR system, which results in a party’s

In the election of 1824, Andrew Jackson ran against John Quincy Adams and won more of the popular vote and electoral college but failed to get the majority.(Document 3) Since no one won the majority of the electoral college, the House of Representatives was able to choose the next president. The House of Representatives then chose John Quincy Adams. Andrew Jackson was the most popular choice among the citizens so he should have had office instead of John Quincy Adams. When there is no majority, and more than two candidates are running for office, the two most popular candidates should be taken and another election should be held between the two most popular candidates. If there is still a split and no one has still received the majority, the House of Representatives should then decide. This gives the power to the people rather than a select 435 people. This helps to set the stage for why a winner take all system allows for a lack of

Minority parties would become more viable if proportional representation was in place. In our system today, a minority party has no chance of any representation. But, using the proportional system, they would receive a percentage of the seats in the legislature corresponding with the votes. A multi party system would develop, representing a number of minorities. Issue based candidates would also take precedence. Issues directly related to the people of the United States would have representation. This in turn would encourage voter turnout because peoples' views would be represented rather than merely a choice of several candidates. This also offers a greater diversity of candidates willing to address and focus on our problems, as we exist in the 21st century.

As the pillars of the electoral college collapse under the tests of time, the institution itself becomes obsolete. First, the concept of, “Winner Takes All,” means that if an election splits 49%-51%, then the smaller party’s votes are virtually erased. This system represents only the majority party in each state, thus effectively silencing all other parties. Additionally, basing the number of electors on the members in both houses of Congress creates an unequal distribution of votes across the states. Due to their infamously low population, Wyoming should statistically have only one elector, but the addition of their two senators brings them to a total of three electors. This means that each of Wyoming’s votes represents less people than every other state. For instance, each of Texas’s 38 votes represents 733,157 people while each of Wyoming’s votes represents 195,157 people. Therefore, the votes of the people of Wyoming are worth 26.62% more than that of Texans. The inequality of voting power between states combined with the “winner take all” system method of tallying votes projects an inaccurate portrayal of will of 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.

America has been acknowledged as being one of the world’s leading democracies, but to continue implementing the use of the Electoral College creates some distortion to that title. The out of date system does not accurately portray democracy. Theoretically, a democracy is government system that is ruled by the people. In reality, an individual’s vote may not matter depending on the state they reside in. Robert Dahl, a Democratic Theorist stated, “every member must have an equal and effective opportunity to vote, and all votes must be counted as equal.” Political equality is important to the distribution of power. Even if a person is wealthy and of power their vote should be counted the same as someone in poverty.

Furthermore, Additional Member system leads to different outcomes as it’s a proportional system which means the proportion of seats won by the candidates and the votes they received are proportional. For example in Scotland in 2007 the SNP received 31% of the votes and won 47 seats and Labour won 29.2% of the votes and won 46 seats. This means that often political parties are rewarded with a fair share of the seats for the votes they obtained, also in AMS the outcome is made more proportional by its constituency list top up, thus making it easier for third party candidates to make a inroad into politics. Thus AMS produces different outcomes to other electoral systems due its hybrid nature, where it combines F-P-T-P voting system with closed list system.

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

First, the two-party system does not create an equal policy in society because it does not allow people to get far if they are not within either of the two parties. The idea of the winner-take-all electoral system is the hostile terrain for third parties because the odds are in favor of the bigger parties (Conray). The bigger parties over the years seem to have the upper hand within the government, and especially within the elections.

Although this is true, the wide selection of canidates would also allow the American people to have a better selection of canidates. Instead of selecting two canidates which the electoral college promotes, they can choose from a lot more, selecting a canidate which they can identify with, and supports the issues they also support. The popular vote system presents a flawless way of electing a president, with absolutely not threat of electing a minority president. It is the best voting system for the United States and should be instated in place of the outdated electoral college.

Thesis: The Electoral College is unfair and should be abolished because of the “winner takes all rule,” the chance that a president cannot have the support of the majority of the voters, and candidates would campaign equally in every state.

Proportional representation is an electoral system where parties will earn congressional seats in proportion to how many votes people cast for them. This would be an extreme opposite to the result of gerrymandering. People would then feel the need to vote because they know that their vote will actually go towards something. If 25% of the voters supported a certain party, that party would then get about 25% of congressional seats. Proportional representation is a way that could help fix the unfairness of the plurality system. The plurality system allows for larger parties to get an unfair amount of congressional seats whereas smaller parties do not have this advantage and also have a huge difficulty in winning any representation at all, also known as Duverger’s law. This would be a great way to prevent gerrymandering which helps with the redistricting issue majorly. Proportional representation could be brought in without a constitutional amendment in some cases, but the system born from this would not work well unless the powers of the Governor General were made clear. What would require a constitutional amendment would be a change to the powers of the Governor General. If it were simple enough to not require a constitutional amendment, I feel as if this would be an excellent idea and help solve many problems and unhappy people with our current

I agree with our forefathers that majority rule is the fairest way to hold any type of election . Klassen is correct in stating that when a majority gets their way, a minority does not. But again, he offers no alternative to our way of voting. He also used the word “ruled” when referring to the minority in order to make our system of voting seem as though it causes injustice. While we do live in a state that is governed by laws, I would not go so far as to say that we are a country that is “ruled.” In my opinion, the word “ruled” implies unfair, harsh treatment or injustice of some kind. I do not believe that our system of electing leaders leaves a minority to be “ruled.” I believe that

The issue with this concept is that it allows for a small minority, which is unlikely to be representative of the general population, to create policies that may affect huge populations. It gives the control of the government to the most powerful man in the competition but this competition may be rigged. In a nation of millions, ten men could be the entirety of the competition (potential leaders and electors), which makes it outside the accepted view of democracy. The system is not required to have proportional representation and will not if it does not stand to benefit the elites who have created the institutions of government to work in their favor. This does not create equality among the people and does not provide equal opportunity to the general population.