Election Process Essays - Voting Systems, , Term Papers

Election Process The presidential election process is a long and complicated procedure. Currently, we elect our president and vice-president by an indirect device known as the Electoral College. Under this system, each state has as many electors as it has representatives and senators. Candidates who win a plurality of the popular vote in a state secure all the states electoral votes. In order to win a presidential election, a candidate must appeal successfully to the big states, such as California and Texas. Many people are dissatisfied with are country's current election process. A candidate could win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote, and thus lose the presidency. This method has led to a lot of controversy and may eventually lead to election reforms. One proposal concerning the presidential election process is to have a single national primary four months before the final election. Currently, there is a very tight presidential primary schedule. This process generally favors the candidate with the most financial backing. In this years primary season, there is a massive amount of primaries held on March 7. Shortly following these primaries is an even bigger barrage of caucuses and primaries. This greatly favors the candidate with the most money, for he will be able to spread his ideas to many states in a short amount of time. A candidate with vast resources will not even have to campaign in every state because his state party establishments do the necessary things to make sure the voters hear their platform. The present alignment of state primaries is rather ineffective due to the tight schedule. Having a single national primary four months before the election seems like an appropriate alternative to the current system. This would give all of the candidates enough time to effectively campaign. Additionally, it would abolish the problem of states holding useless primaries. Primaries that occur after the nominee is determined are pointless. One national primary would eliminate this problem. However, a downfall of this proposal, is that a majority of the people would not be interested in the election, being that it is four months away. Many voters might end up voting for the candidate in their party due to the lack of interest in the long primary. A second reform to the election process is to have a general election in November with the winner being determined by the national popular vote. Under our current system, a candidate could win the state of California by only one vote, and would still be awarded all 54 electoral votes for that state. This method makes no sense at all and must be reformed. An additional downfall to this method, is that candidate's end up concentrating on states where there is no definite winner. States that are seen as definite wins for either side are ignored, while states that are up in the air are severely concentrated on. If the popular vote were to determine the president, then the candidates would spend a great deal of time campaigning in every state. They would try to gain votes in every state because the votes for each state would be a significant factor in the outcome of the election. A popular vote would force the candidates to address every regions issues. The final reform method is to have a general election in November with the winner in each congressional district receiving one electoral vote and the state-wide winner getting two more electoral votes for carrying the state. This method is very similar to the current Electoral College. Since many districts are mainly occupied by a respective party, it would cause the same problems as our current system. Once again, some districts would be heavily campaigned and others would be disregarded. This setup would force candidates to focus on each individual district, and would also make the candidates ignore the issues of the entire state. This process also doesn't solve our current problem; the popular vote does not determine the winner of the election. I think this format would only bring about more problems to our current system. Questions like who would win if each candidate tied for the number of districts won, would bring about much controversy. It is quite obvious