Kadoka
High School
Kadoka, South Dakota
Teacher: Teresa Shuck
The Election Process
By Nick Patterson
Grade 11
The way the election today is run. We should have smarter presidents. If we had smarter presidents, like our last, William Clinton, the economy would be good all the time. And if we had presidents like that, then we wouldn’t have all these scandals. If the republicans didn’t start them we could elect a president in peace. But I do think that there could be some changes in the government and the election process. Congress should change the election process.
The election is what the people think. And most of the time that is true. Only fifteen times in the past two hundred years has there been Presidents elected with less than a majority of popular votes. If that is so, then I think that there should be some changes in the way Presidents are elected. If we changed and elected only Presidents who were smart, I think the country would be so much better than it is now. Now the republicans are only interested in making the rich richer and that is how they get in. The rich people pay them to lower taxes and that is how they get the peoples vote. That is not the American way.
We should have Presidents who are good with people relations. Our new President-elect George W. Bush isn’t good with people. He needs cue cards to remember names and I don’t think he is for the people. If they would check their backgrounds before the elections I think that would help to decide which candidates are good Presidents. And with good relations we can keep peace around the world. When foreign leaders come to meet with the President, we don’t want to look like an idiotic country. We want to look smart. When we don’t get the President that we want, it often results in friction in the country. If the people vote for a President we expect to get that President.
When the government gets to choose who is President, it often results in fighting between nations. Like when Abe Lincoln was President there was a war and he was assassinated. When John F. Kennedy was elected with less popular vote he was assassinated too. Richard Nixon won with less than popular vote and he was forced to resign for office to avoid impeachment. They also kept the U.S. in Vietnam, which resulted in lots of protests. If we get to choose who we want as President, then such things won’t happen. Bill Clinton won with more popular vote and this was one of the best decades America has ever seen.
The Electoral College is also kind of a set up. This would mean that whoever got the highest votes would be president, if the votes were electoral votes. The people of the U.S. don’t want that. They want Presidents who will help out in everything. There is also the automatic plan where the majority of popular votes in the state would determine the candidate the state was for and there is also the winner take all, where the winner gets most of the popular votes. The people want to choose who the President will be not the majority.
If the President is one we like, the house usually finds a scandal. They make the President’s image look bad. Like the Monica Lewinski scandal. It made one of the best Presidents this country ever had look bad. But we all know that a lot of politicians have also had affairs. But they just want to bring somebody who is doing a good job down. So as you can see that the electoral process is not an easy process. It can be a very short process, an easy process, or it can be a long and frustration process. So remember to vote for whom you know is best, and who will serve your country right.
- In 1796 the U.S. elected John Adams president and Thomas Jefferson ad vice-president. This happened because the ballot did not classify which candidate was for president and which was for vice-president. Adams was a federalist and Jefferson was a republican.
- Some people suggested that: lot should choose the president. Originally only senators could run for president. This was in later proposal the states could elect a native-son candidate for casting lots. Later a direct-vote was proposed and defeated 21 to 12 in the senate. Electors were not required to vote for their state presidential selection. By 1826 an automatically be cast for the candidate who received the most popular vote in that state. In 1848 a plan was proposed to portion the electoral votes according to the announcement of votes per state.
- James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and John Kennedy
4. The winner-take-all system gives all of the electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in that state. Every state but Maine used this system.
- They meet to elect on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. In January after the votes were counted in both houses.
- The house would decide who would win. It wouldn’t consider a third party.
- In direct voting the people choose candidates. The parties do not got to choose the candidates. But the Electoral College doesn’t have a say, which could be crucial to the election, and sometimes popularity votes include numbers of candidates.
- The district plan whereby two electors are chosen on a state wide population level and one is chosen from each of the states congressional district.
- The need for quick decision and clear-cut winner; the victors should be the people’s choice winner of popular votes; the president-elect should have a mandate to govern, a legitimacy, which comes from a good margin of victory and; the ideal system should not undermine the two-party system.
- Shrinkage Phenomenon: The Phenomenon that I think is shrinking is the right to be free citizens. It is shrinking because laws are made upon laws. We can hardly make a free choice. We are told to do this and that and not this and that. It is very close to communism. If we cannot be free in our own country we cannot live.