The problem I have with the electoral system is that it is outdated. Plain and simple: it was put into place in order to protect us from voting the wrong president due to incompetence. In today's technologically advanced society, there are multiple mediums through which to learn about each candidate. This is entirely different from when the constitution was written because the only ways to learn about the candidates was through people's word and the newspaper, which was brand new at the time. At the time, it was hard to know what was truth and what was fibs, so people could just attain the political viewpoints that someone tells them they should have. Also, the population was much smaller so one vote made a significantly larger impact (even though still not massive). Although this wasn't always the case, it brought concern to the framers of the constitution so they decided to put a provision in place to protect it..
Nowadays, there are so many sources to receive information from that the lack of personalized opinions should not be of concern. These options available allow everyone to formulate their own views and thoughts about what the government needs so that they can pick the candidate that fits the profile together. The plethora of information negates the need for the Electoral College due to incompetence, but others think that is not enough to prevent inaccurate results.
Another way that we could change the system to accompany the concern of insccuracy would be to increase the difficulty to register as a voter. Even though voter turnout is already low due to this, increased rigor to register would assure that only politically knowledgeable people could voice their opinions. Perhaps a basic test on governmental process would suffice to regulate the voters, or maybe even a recitation if the Bill of Rights.
In my opinion, the implementation of stricter voter registration would hinder our democracy more than it already is because it only takes in the views of the elites. Democracy is a system of government where the people rule, and we are not currently in that. The opinions of everyone need to be considered; the popular vote should be the deciding factor in our elections. Take this past week's election results: Obama won overall, but he had already won through the Electoral College before all of the votes were counted. At the same time that Obama won, Romney was up in the popular vote by 1 million votes. It is mind blowing how the Electoral College's vote can technically end the election even though the "losing" candidate may be up in the popular vote. As a country, I believe we should look towards changing the existing system to accommodate the change in society.
Nowadays, there are so many sources to receive information from that the lack of personalized opinions should not be of concern. These options available allow everyone to formulate their own views and thoughts about what the government needs so that they can pick the candidate that fits the profile together. The plethora of information negates the need for the Electoral College due to incompetence, but others think that is not enough to prevent inaccurate results.
Another way that we could change the system to accompany the concern of insccuracy would be to increase the difficulty to register as a voter. Even though voter turnout is already low due to this, increased rigor to register would assure that only politically knowledgeable people could voice their opinions. Perhaps a basic test on governmental process would suffice to regulate the voters, or maybe even a recitation if the Bill of Rights.
In my opinion, the implementation of stricter voter registration would hinder our democracy more than it already is because it only takes in the views of the elites. Democracy is a system of government where the people rule, and we are not currently in that. The opinions of everyone need to be considered; the popular vote should be the deciding factor in our elections. Take this past week's election results: Obama won overall, but he had already won through the Electoral College before all of the votes were counted. At the same time that Obama won, Romney was up in the popular vote by 1 million votes. It is mind blowing how the Electoral College's vote can technically end the election even though the "losing" candidate may be up in the popular vote. As a country, I believe we should look towards changing the existing system to accommodate the change in society.
In response, I would like to revisit the issue of voter suppression in the last election. There were an alarming number of reports of initiatives and underhanded attempts aimed at disenfranchising minorities, the elderly, and democrats in general. Nearly all of these efforts were employed by the GOP.
ReplyDeleteIn light of this trend, I think it is important to point out that in terms of a popular vote, this was a close election. If we had not had the electoral system in place and the GOP was a bit more successful in their attempts, they could easily have stolen the election from the American voters. It is also worth mentioning that the electoral college was originally created to give fair representation to the smaller states, and not strictly due to "incompetence."
In your conclusion you state that "implementation of stricter voter registration would hinder our democracy more than it already is because it only takes in the views of the elites" but right before this you stated "increased rigor to register would assure that only politically knowledgeable people could voice their opinions." The idea of a democracy isn't that only politically knowledgeable get to participate, the idea is that the citizens and taxpayers decide how the country should be run.
You also suggested that "Perhaps a basic test on governmental process would suffice to regulate the voters, or maybe even a recitation if the Bill of Rights." In a democracy you're not really supposed to regulate who gets to vote, other than citizens and non-citizens. Stricter voter regulations and unnecessary requirements carry with them the very real threat to voter rights of the elderly, the poor, and minorities. Would you want your grandma to be turned away from the polls because she couldn't remember the Bill of Rights?
Candace, the GOP cannot be the only one trying to suppress the oppositions support; it goes both ways. Our political system is not ideal in ways, but it functions nonetheless. The electoral college was established to give fair representation as well, but its method needs to be revised.
DeleteIn the system today, if one party wins the majority, all of the electoral votes go towards them. Even if the margin was by, for say, one vote: all of the electoral votes would go to them in all but two states. Why isn't it representative of the popular vote? In the 2000 election (Bush v. Gore), gore won the popular vote and Bush won through the electoral college because of the way it's set up.
I do believe that stricter voter regulation would hurt our democracy; I only offered the suggestions to provide different methods that are suggested to fix the system. If we did employ restrictions, it would be similar to the Jim Crow Laws that previously hindered our democracy, and I do not want that to happen. The problem is not aimed at the poor, the elderly, and the minorities; it is aimed at the uneducated. Not the lack of scholarly knowledge, but the lack of information on all of the candidates. When voting, does every single person know the views of each candidate, even at the state and county level? Not always, and if people vote based off of name recognition, how is that a well-functioning democracy?
I don't want to turn everyone away, I just believe that if you are going to vote for something, you have to know both sides.