Centerville High
School
Centerville, South
Dakota
Teacher: Terri
Buechler
The Electoral College
By Sarah Thomson
I think that the Electoral College has its advantages and its
disadvantages. I feel that it is a good thing
to have each state give its vote or votes, so that each state can provide its input and
still be important. I do not think that the
electors should be able to vote for whomever they please, but rather that they should be
locked to vote by how their state votes. Another problem I see with the Electoral College
is that if I did not to vote with the majority of my state votes, then my vote would not
count because my vote would not be given to anyone. In
a democratic society, every vote should count!
The Electoral
College has helped us to select a president for many years.
This system set up by our founding fathers, however, this past election proved that
it was time for modification. Just because it has failed and lead us a little off the old
beaten path once, I do not feel we should completely get rid of it. Many things work lots
of times and every once in a while everything does have trouble. It happens with everything, and so with changing
times comes the revolution of the Electoral College.
Even though the
Electoral College makes the presidential candidates campaign in a majority of states, but
I feel that they should have to worry about how all the states vote, not just the large
states. The states with the most people have the most votes. I disagree with the fact that the span of votes is
so significant. For example, the people running would only have to win the largest
thirteen states, and it wouldn’t matter how the other thirty-seven states voted. My
resolution is that the candidates should not be able to win without getting the votes of
at least half of the states in the United States.
A major problem
that I see with the Electoral College is that our electors are not bound by any way to
vote the way that the state that they are representing voted. So basically, the electors can vote however they
please and not truly represent their state. It did happen! It has happened! One incident when it did happen was when Harry
Truman was running against Thomas Dewey in 1948. So
what did happen, could happen again! Is that
electors could theoretically go and vote all against the way that the state voted and end
up with a completely different president than the one that the people really chose. Not that this likely happens but hey, anything is
possible. There should be law that binds our electors to vote the way that their state
voted.
Campaign reform is
another issue. Tobacco companies are giving presidential candidates money to help their
campaign with the compromise that, in return, the elected officials promise not to change
any of the tobacco laws. Basically, they are buying a way not to change the law that
supports all sorts of tobacco issues. Another
matter along that line is the presidential pardon. Someone gives a president major money
to pardon people that the contributor loves or is close to gets a pardon. I think that
donations by the big companies, not only in the tobacco industry, and individual donations
should be limited to a certain amount. There
should not be able to give how much ever they please.
As for our past
election, well I was a little disappointed with all of the recounts and the way that our
system worked. It almost made me ashamed that the United States of America could not solve
this problem quickly. There was all of the election process in Florida on the news and on
the radio and in the paper. Everywhere you turned you heard about the Florida recount.
Then, with the Florida recount happening, it made our government look unprepared to handle
problems in the election process. I was glad when the big mess was finally solved.
After analyzing
this complex issue, I feel that our Electoral College could use some adjustments. Many of
these adjustments are very minor and some are more serious. On the subject of campaign
reform, I think that our government should create a law that limits the amount of money a
certain company or individual can give a presidential candidate. But has it has been
proven that our government has been able to get through many political problems. As they say it is not the first, and it will not
be the last.
Required Questions
1. The United States elected a president and vice
president of different parties in 1796. The
president was John Adams and he was a Federalist. The vice president was Thomas Jefferson
and he was a Republican. The reason why there
was a president and a vice president of different parties because when the people voted,
the person with the top number of votes got president and the person with the second
highest votes got to be vice president.
2. The four ways that were suggested to elect
the President between 1808 and 1846 were: by lot, direct-vote plan, automatic plan, and by
regions on a rotating basis.
3. Five United States 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 in every state but
Maine. The winner-take-all system is when all
of the state’s votes in the Electoral College are given to the person in that
particular state who wins the most votes.
5. The electors vote the first Monday after the
second Wednesday in December. The results are
known in January after they have been counted before both Houses and then the results are
officially announced.
6. The affect the Electoral College would have on
the third party if a direct popular vote were substituted would be that the third party
would be encouraged. It would happen that way
because it makes things fair so that the third party could win some votes at least.
7. Four arguments for and against a direct vote
system are as follows! Advocates of direct
elections claim such a system would always ensure that the candidate with the greatest
popular vote would win for presidency. Another
for the direct vote system is that it would give equal weight to every vote. One against the direct vote system is it would
weaken the power of the states and strengthens the national government. One more against the direct vote system is that it
would encourage minority parties because there would be a greater probability that two
major parties would not receive a majority.
8. The differences
between the district plan, the proportional plan, and the winner-take-all plan are great.
The winner-take-all system is when all state’s votes in the Electoral College is
given to the person in the particular state who wins the most votes. The proportional plan is where the person up for
office will get a proportion of the Electoral College votes that they have won during the
voting of each state. The district plan is where the electors are chosen on a statewide
popular level, and each of determines the number of electors that states congressional
districts plus one.
9. The four points
experts in 1969 agreed should be included in an ideal plan for electing United States
presidents are. One was the need for a quick decision and clear-cut winner. Two was the victor should be the people’s
choice winner of the most popular votes. Three was the president-elect should have a
mandate to govern, a legitimacy which comes from a good margin of victory. The fourth one
was the ideal system should not undermine the two-party system.
10. I think that Democrats in Florida feel that some
of their votes were not counted because of the whole jazz with chads and dimpled chads and
hanging chads. I feel that they think that
some of the votes were not even counted once because the machine would not count all of
the dimpled chads and the hanging chads. The
machine would only take ones with the chad completely off.
Some of the Republicans in Florida feel that their votes were counted two or three
times because they were machine counted, then they were hand counted, then some of them
were rehand counted. I do not completely
agree or disagree with either party. I feel
that both have good points and bad points.
11. Yes, I think that the Florida and the United
States Supreme Courts politicized their decisions. I think that they way over did things.
After every court decision there was some big deal on the news every time. Yes, I read
some of the court decisions posted on some of the Internet sites.
12. The election in 2000 made me very ashamed to be
an American. I feel that in this day in age
we should be able to elect a President and Vice President without all of the stuff that
went on with counting and recounting the votes. I
think that it was ridiculous.