The elections
are finally over, and President Obama was reelected as the President
of the United States of America. For this to happen there are two
factors that are taken into account. The first is the popular vote,
which is vote that the average citizen is able to cast to vote for
the candidate that they prefer. This is what allows for the people to
have a say in the government, allows them to be involved in the
process of the government. Anyone who is a citizen of the United
States is allowed to vote this way. But there is also another type of
vote that is counted when choosing the president of the United
States. This vote is the electoral college vote, which exists as a
compromise between a purely popular vote system, and choice by
congress system. Every state is granted a certain number of votes
based on the number of congressmen have in Congress. Most states,
when dealing with the electoral college, have so that the candidate
the wins the state wins all of the electoral college votes in that
state.
Question
becomes is this fair? Because if the margin for winning was close,
the winner's advantage in most states would be greatly amplified.
This means that there are possibilities of a candidate winning the
electoral college vote and not winning the popular vote, and still
becoming the president of the United States. The most recent example
of this Al Gore and President Bush.
There is
argument that says that this however is not how the electoral college
was suppose to be set up. The argument says that the electoral
college was suppose to be a conduit for informed votes. The idea is
that people do not allows choose a candidate because of his or her
merit but because of more personal criteria. And that the United
States needed a system to compliment the popular vote to insure that
public is not tricked or choose a candidate that is not qualified.
What do you
guys think about this? Do you think that electoral college should be
used a correction system for the popular vote, or should the popular
vote be the only way the president is elected? Or do you guys think
that the candidates should go through tests to determine competence
and then let popular vote decide all? I look forward to hearing what
you think. I personally feel as though a way to determine competence
is needed, but I think of any viable way to do it.
There are de facto competency checks throughout the process of becoming politically prominent, in my opinion. Though this most recent race was primarily characterized by slander and defamation, I feel that each candidate was at their foundation a competent leader (though clearly I have vastly different opinions from both of them on different issues). To the question of the electoral college, your post makes it sounds as though these two voting processes are entirely independent; the electoral college was intended to and indeed does function as a representative system for the popular vote. The problem, which you touch on before losing sight of this point, is the winner take all system that all but two states currently use. The electoral college was meant to protect the voting power of smaller states or states with lower populations. In an age where more states than ever are a 49-51 split, moving to a proportional system would solve the problem without endangering the voting influence of small states.
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