Democracy is the most sought-after kind of government; most people think this is the best type of government. The other side who don’t think a democracy isn’t the best form of government are the people that already live in a democratic nation. But what is a democracy and why do people desire/ dislike this form of government? Today we’re going to dive deep into the core of democracy and how this form of government is being used in the United States. Democracy is government of, by, and for the people. People in a democracy should be able to participate in decisions that directly affect them. People in a democracy should also be able to get equal access to information which they need to make important decisions for the things that personally …show more content…
The electoral college is a system that gives representatives to states to vote in favor of what the people want in that state. Each state is guaranteed one representative out of the 435 there are. The remaining 385 are distributed into the states by population size and how the population of that state increases or decreases. This is seen as unfair because the smaller states have the same power to influence the election outcome as the states with more people. The smaller states have more advantage because their representatives, represent a smaller amount of people, while larger states representatives must represent what a much larger amount of people in that state want. For example, Colorado has 7 House of Representatives and 2 Senators which means each Congress person represents around 883,300 and each of our senators represent approximately 2,650,000 people. Wyoming on the other hand has 1 House of Representative and 2 Senators meaning their congress person represents around 600,000 people and their Senators represent around 300,000 people each. There is a clear difference here when it comes to how representation is distributed into the states. Apart from this uneven distribution the system of “winner takes all” also discourages people from going out to vote. For example, some Republican lives in a Democratic state that always goes Democratic when it comes to elections, they tend to not go out and vote because they know their vote won’t make a difference because of this “winner takes all” system. In the past 4 elections there has been an average voter outcome which is all around the same, but there is still a chunk of people who don’t go out and vote. Another reason people may not go out to vote is the unfairness of elections. For example, in this past election the two candidates were Donald Trump (Republican) and Hillary
This is one of the many reasons why the Electoral College is unfair, past elections have shown that bigger populations have more electoral votes, concluding that smaller states’ votes become insignificant. This leaves people in question, is the Electoral College now based on where you live? Even though the purpose of the electoral college is to ultimately decide who will occupy the position of the president, there was an Electoral Commision of elite representatives, established to determine the 19th President, because of the situation the electoral college caused. The commission included five representatives from the House, another five associates from the Senate and five justices from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Justices in the Electoral Commission were David Dias
If you’re a minority party in any of the 345 seats, you don’t matter to the representative. This means that 89 million Americans are not represented in this system.” Additionally, there is no equal freedom to vote. In the last election, 10 million people had to wait more than half an hour to vote, which is a very high poll tax for the majority of Americans.
The amount of influence a state has on the election depends on how many districts it has, and a district is determined by population. The more people in a state the more powerful that state is on election day. This is because one candidate can win the popular vote by a landslide but if the opposing candidate wins key overall state votes he or she would win. Many people do not agree with the way the United States elects the president. Some believe it should be abolished
Contrary to popular belief, when it comes to voting for president, the United States runs on an indirect democracy. This means that we do not directly choose our president; the electoral college is rather an example of federalism, both the Feds and the States are involved in the process. It is a collection of 538 votes that determine who the President will be: 100 senators, 2 per state, and 438 representatives, distributed by the population. These 538 votes in the Electoral College are divided among the states. Each state, no matter how populous or not, starts off with three votes.
The electoral college also helps the small states have an opinion that actually is heard in the presidential election. In class, it was discussed that Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota together, though their combined population is less than that of Oklahoma, each of those states has three electoral votes, whereas Oklahoma just has seven votes. Going by electoral votes, a candidate would have a better chance at winning the election if they won over Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota versus Oklahoma. With the electoral college, a candidate could win over all thirty-nine small states and win the entire election. Though the candidate could be supported by less than a quarter of the population,
In 1787, years after the founding of the United States, the Constitutional Convention met to decide how the new nation would govern itself. The delegates understood that the need for a leader was necessary but still bitterly remembered how Britain abused of its power. The delegates agreed that the President and Vice President should be chosen informally and not based on the direct popular vote, thus gave birth to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is defined as “a body of people representing the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president.” Since 1787 the Electoral College has been the system for voting in the United States, but with our nation ever more changing and growing it
The term democracy is a contested concept with many classifications. A government made up of the people for the people is the easiest definition to focus on. A democracy needs have these key elements of a political system for choosing the
The United States of America is not truly a democracy. America’s government is all over the place and pretty much a mixture of everything, it never has been just democracy. The characteristics of a democracy are where the majority wins but that never really happens. For example the president election majority does not elect the president. The United States of America is not a democracy for many reasons; Rule by law, we are more a republic than a democracy, and the founders of a nation didn 't want a democracy.
Electoral college has been with us since the birth of the constitution, and to this day we are still using this type of system to this day. The Electoral College is a system that the United States uses to elect our upcoming presidents and vice presidents. Each state has electors equal to their senate member and house of representatives, however who ever gets the highest popular vote in the state gets the electoral vote. The issue is the Electoral College do not give votes to the people, but to the states. Which has some unfair consequences.
It also represents the control of an organization or group by the majority of its members. Democracy did not originate with the founding of the United States. The term "democracy" comes from two Greek words: "demos" meaning the people and "kratia" meaning power or authority. It is defined as being a government by
Democracy is supposed to help empower a nation’s capital by providing a sense of control in the country’s accomplishments by its people. A successful democracy, in all forms, enables a nation’s prosperity, as it allows for compromise based on the input of individuals. The happiness of the people in their society indicates motive to participate and be a member of it. As most democracies are parallel with a capitalist economy, citizens supposedly have the ability to contribute as they like. Everyone is said to have an opportunity to thrive, as all have exposure to resources to help guide them.
Democracy signifies participation of the people in the execution of their regime (Beramendi 2008). A democratic government is run by the people and its aim is public interest. Similarly, Backer and Raveloson (2008) explain democracy as a government which comes into power through general public, is practiced by the public and is there to work for the best interest of the public. Democracy can also be understood in opposition of other government systems; dictatorships, monarchies and aristocracies. In government systems, other than democracy, mostly, people have no or minute control over who will rule their state; contrarily, in democracy, people themself decide who will govern them or how their country will be run (Zimmermann 2012).
Democracy is a form of government offering a workable solution to the fundamental political problem of reaching collective decisions by peaceful means. Democracy can also be about political equality and giving everyone an equal voice in saying how a state should be governed The procedures required to deliver democratic political equality are , free and fair elections, universal suffrage, freedom of expression and information and freedom of association . There are many types of democracies but in my essay I will explain only two types of democracies which are direct democracy and liberal democracy Direct democracy is a form of democracy where citizens are given an extraordinary amount of participation in the legislation process and granting them a maximum political self determination. It can also be called “pure democracy”.
Democracy is a system of government in which every citizen in the country can vote to elect its government officials. Rober Dahl argues that an ideal democracy is consisted of two factors: political participation and political contestation (Dahl, 1991) . Political participation demonstrates that all the citizens who are eligible to vote have to have a right to vote to reflect their political requests to the real politics. The election have to be a transparent and accountable one. Also, after the election, power have to be given to the successful candidates.
A democracy is a system of government that gives the people the power to govern. This can either be done directly, where citizens actively participate in the decision making of the country, or indirectly through elected representatives. The purpose of the democratic process is to protect the interests of all citizens of a country. In order to do so, every citizen in the country needs a medium through which to express his political opinion to defend his interests. This is the role of political parties.