Centerville High
School
Centerville, South
Dakota
Teacher: Terri
Buechler
The Electoral College
By Rachel Evans
I think the election of 2000 proves that the United States needs
to change the current system. This election
was an eye opener for the whole country because of the highly publicized problems in
Florida. I know for myself that it made me
more knowledgeable about the election process. It
also made me more interested. Before, I just thought the candidate with the most direct
votes would win, but now I know that the Electoral College is what really counts.
I think the election process should get rid of the Electoral
College and just have a direct vote. It
should be the people who decide who is going to be president. If the candidate wins the popular vote, he or she
is obviously the person the majority of the nation wants as president. Just a small
alteration of less than one percent of the electoral vote, could, in some cases, make the
candidate who lost the popular vote win the election. This could have happened in fifteen
elections. For example, in 1960, John F.
Kennedy was elected with only a 49.7 popular vote.
The
candidate who receives the most votes in a state wins all of that state’s electoral
college voter. Then it looks like everybody
voted for the winner and nobody voted for the loser.
For example, in the year 2000, South Dakota’s electoral votes went to George
Bush, and it looked like nobody voted for Al Gore. I
also believe it should be announced who was elected president the day after we vote. Right now we have to wait for the Electoral
College to vote on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, and then we
have to wait for it to be announced in January.
I think
the way we vote should also be considered. If
Florida did not use the punch hole method, there would not have been such a big mess. The punch hole method is one where there is a book
that has the voting card in it, and then the person uses a poker to punch through the
places he wants to vote. It was confusing
because questions came from both sides and the questions were not lined up with the voting
boxes; so people did not know exactly whom they were voting for. Also, some of the punches did not go through, and
the counters could not tell whom the votes were for.
The Democrats claimed that some votes in Florida had never been counted, but
Republicans claimed that some votes were counted two or three times. I guess we will never know who is right. There would not have been a recount if Florida did
not use such a confusing method. Some people
could not even tell whom they were voting for. That
is why every state should use the same voting method. This will eliminate confusion and
problems in the future.
In years
past the proposal for a campaign reform has come up, but nothing has been done about it. On January 22, 2001, Senators John McCain and Russ
Feingold brought up another proposal about the campaign reform. The proposal of the campaign reform would
eliminate the unlimited amount of money spent on campaigning. Some people who support the reform say that the
reform will help stop the increasing effect of money in American politics. Some who oppose the reform say it will undermine
freedom of speech.
The bill
has not passed in recent years because of filibustering by Senate Republicans. This year the bill received 60 votes that was
enough to overcome a filibuster. It is
unknown if President Bush will support the bill or not.
Without his vote, two-thirds of the House and Senate will be needed to overpower
the Presidential veto.
I think
the amount of money spent on campaigning is ridiculous.
The amount of hard and soft money spent is absurd. Soft money is money spent to
advocate political issues in elections by individuals or groups. This is the money for
reform that challenges the First Amendment. Hard
money is spent to advocate the candidate's election to get people to vote for him or her
or to get people not to vote for the other candidates. For example, a tobacco company will
give a presidential candidate millions of dollars for their campaign just so the candidate
will not say anything against tobacco in their campaign.
I think that is preposterous!
Certainly
we need to do something about the way we elect our politicians. I feel that in this day and age, the United States
should be able to come up with an election process without the Electoral College. I also feel there needs to be some control on
campaign spending.
Required Questions
1.
The United States elected a president and
vice president of different parties started in 1787.
The candidate with the most votes became president and the runner-up candidate
became vice president. In 1796, John Adams, a Federalist, became president and Thomas
Jefferson, a Republican, became vice president.
2.
The four ways that were suggested to elect
the President between 1808 and 1846 were by lot, the first direct-vote plan, chosen by
four regions on a rotating basis, and the winner-take-all provision.
3.
Five U.S. Presidents who were 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 is all of a
state’s votes would be given to the candidate that carried that state’s popular
vote. The states that use this system are all
states except Maine.
5.
The electors vote on the first Monday after
the second Wednesday in December. The results
are known in January.
6.
By substituting a direct popular vote for
the Electoral College, the third party candidates are encouraged and it makes it fair so
every vote counts.
7.
Four arguments for and against a direct vote
system are the following: (for) it would ensure that the candidate with the greatest
popular vote would win the office of president, that it would give equal weight to every
vote, it would do away with the faithless elector problem, would reduce the chance of
fraud, would encourage greater participation and place the election more fully into the
hands of the people where it belongs; (against) the direct vote would encourage minority
parties because there would be a greater probability that two major parties would not
receive a majority; the direct vote would weaken the power of the states and strengthen
the national government.
8.
The differences between the district plan,
the proportional plan and the winner-take-all plan are the district plan says the popular
vote should be aggregated by state subdivision, the proportional plan says the popular
vote should by aggregated by party vote by states, and the winner-take-all plan says the
popular vote should be aggregated by the states themselves.
9.
Four points experts in 1969 agreed should be
included in an ideal plan for electing U.S. Presidents are the following: (1) the need for a quick decision and clear-cut
winner; (2) the victor should be the people’s choice winner of the most popular
votes; (3) the president-elect should have a mandate to govern, a legitimacy which comes
from a good margin of victory; and (4) the ideal system should not undermine the two-party
system.
10. When the Democrats
claimed some votes in Florida had never been counted, they meant when the votes were put
through the machine, some weren’t counted because some of the chads didn’t go
all the way through. When the Republicans
claimed these votes in Florida had been counted two or three times they meant that some of
the votes might have been repeatedly counted. I
think they might have not been counted because if it is unclear of whom the vote is for,
and then they probably didn’t count it.
11. Yes, I think Florida and the U.S. Supreme Courts politicized
their decisions because they wanted their parties to win.
12. Yes, I did read the court decisions posted on many sites on the
Internet.The 2000 election made me proud to be an American because it showed that they
wanted to make sure the best candidate was chosen because they tried to make the voting
count most accurate.