Centerville High
School
Centerville, South
Dakota
Teacher: Terri
Buechler
The Electoral College
By Katie Hansen
I did
not pay much attention to the whole election process until this year. I have learned that it is a pretty confusing
subject with lots of different views a person could take.
The
Electoral College is a big issue, which lots of people argue about. In some ways, I think it should change and in
others I think it is alright. For instance,
South Dakota gets three electoral votes. I
do not think this is too bad because if the majority of the state’s popular votes go
towards a certain Presidential candidate, then he would get all three of our electoral
votes which does not make too big of a difference. On
the other hand, California has 54 electoral votes. I
think it is unfair to give all 54 votes to the one candidate who had most of the popular
votes. Even if 51% of the votes went to one
candidate and 49% went to the other, the candidate with 51% would get every one of the 54
electoral votes. I think they should split
that up. Maybe even give the more popular
candidate 28 votes and the less popular 26 of them. With
our present system, a lot of people feel like their votes do not even count; which is true
if their party does not win the majority of the popular votes in their state. I am sure that a lot of the registered voters do
not even go in to vote because they think their vote will not even matter, especially if
their state is known as leaning strongly toward one party or another.
I think
a direct election would work pretty well for us. With
a direct election, more people would go out and vote because they would feel like their
votes would count. It would be more of a
people’s government, which I think would make the United States more satisfied.
Campaign
reform is another political issue I have often heard about.
Recently, I heard about the case where this man paid millions of dollars to Bill
Clintons campaign. Then later on the man went
to jail and was pardoned by Clinton. I do not
think even the President should have the ability to pardon a guilty man just because he
has more money than some people.
I think
many politicians are spending way too much money on their campaigns. One millionaire congressman spent about
$53,000,000 of his own money for his campaign for a job that only pays $125,000 per year. In Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the U.S.
Senate seat for New York, Hillary raised about $36,000,000, and her opponent raised
approximately $44,000,000. I think this is
crazy! There should be a limit to this
outrageous and unnecessary spending. There
are probably some very good people out there that are not rich or famous and do not have
the ability to raise that kind of money. With
a limit, no one would necessarily have an unfair advantage over anyone else.
The
confusion and repeated recounts of ballots in Florida happened because they used the punch
hole system. I think they should use a different and simpler method everywhere. Through
their process, they had to use a little puncher to punch out the chads in the ballots. In
a lot of them the chads did not come out clean; they were either dimpled chads or hanging
chads that the machine could not detect. I think they could come up with a different and
easier way. One possibility could be to use a computer with a touch screen, so a voter
could just come in and touch a certain candidates name on the screen. The chads just
caused a lot of problems.
I think
more people should vote. There are many people eligible as an American citizen at the age
eighteen and above, who do not take the time to vote. Voting gives the right to the
citizens to choose the officials who they want to govern them through our democratic
government. I do not think anyone has the right to complain about how the government is
being run or who is running it if they do not vote. In
many countries people have little or no choice in their candidates because a democratic
government does not govern them. Voting is a privilege and I think everyone should take
advantage of that.
I think
in a lot of ways, there are changes that probably could be made to our present election
system that could be fairer in how we choose our candidates. In spite of that, our present system of government
and the election process is still the best in the world.
I still think there could be changes to the Electoral College to make it better
represent the wishes of the voters. No matter
what changes are made in our government and election process, there will still be many
critics. So in spite of these minor problems,
I still believe our government is functioning very well.
Required Questions
1.
The United States elected a president and
vice president of different parties in 1787 when the Constitution said that the candidate
with the most votes became President and the runner-up was Vice-President. This happened
in 1796 with the election of John Adams, a Federalist, as President, and Thomas Jefferson,
Republican, as vice President.
2.
Between 1808 and 1846, there were four ways
suggested to elect the President. They were to choose the President by lot, the
direct-vote plan, the choice by four regions on a rotating basis, and the automatic plan
(winner-take-all provision)
3.
Five United States Presidents elected with
less than a popular vote were John Quincy Adams, J. Polk, Z. Taylor, J. Buchanan, and A.
Lincoln.
4.
The winner-take-all system states that
whoever wins the popular vote gets all the electoral votes for that state. All states use
this system except for Maine.
5.
Electors vote on the first Monday after the
second Wednesday in December. The results are
known in January where they are counted before both Houses and officially announced.
6.
Substituting a direct popular vote for the
Electoral College would affect the third party candidates and encourage them. This makes it fair so that each vote counts.
7.
Two arguments for a direct vote system are
that it would always ensure that the candidate with the greatest popular vote would win
the office of president. It would also do
away with the faithless elector problem. Another
argument for the direct vote is that if a candidate were to capture eleven of the largest
states and Washington, D.C., the other 39 states wouldn’t even have a voice in the
process, even if they were against that candidate.
Two arguments against a direct vote system would be that it would weaken the power of the
states. Another argument is that it endangers
the two-party system and encourages third party strategy to win.
8.
The differences between the district plan,
the proportional plan and the winner-take-all plan is that the district plan says that the
popular vote should be aggregated by state subdivision, the proportional plan says it
should be aggregated by party vote by states, and the winner-take-all says it should be
done by the state themselves.
9.
Experts agreed in 1969 that four points
should be included in an ideal plan for electing U.S. Presidents. They were the need for a quick decision and
clear-cut winner. The victor should be the
people’s choice winner of the most popular votes.
The president-elect should have a mandate to govern, a legitimacy which comes from
a good margin of victory. The ideal system
should not undermind the two-party system.
10. When the Democrats claimed that some votes in Florida had never
been counted, they mean that they ran them through the machines and the chad wasn’t
completely punched out so the vote didn’t count.
When the Republicans claimed the votes had been counted two or three times, they mean that
the ones that were determined official were counted but those that were questionable
because of the hanging chads couldn’t be counted as official votes.
I believe the final decision was based on what was considered “official” votes
by Florida standards were the votes that were counted.
Therefore, I believe the Republicans were correct.
11. I think Florida and the U.S. Supreme Courts did what they
thought was correct based on Florida election procedures and the Constitution of the U.S.
and not on their own private political views. No,
I didn’t read the court decisions posted on many sites on the Internet.
12. The election made me proud to be an American because it gave our system a chance to work through a difficult recount process and tested our state laws and Constitution to make the best decision possible in a difficult situation.