U.S. Presidential Election System
Expensive, outdated, and inefficient
History tells us that the founding fathers had legitimate concerns about the political system they were developing after achieving independence and they explored different options for replacing monarchism with a “government by consent of governed” for the new “Republic.”
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered several methods of electing the President, including selection by Congress, by the governors, state legislatures, special group of members of Congress, and by direct popular election, however as a result of that convention and few amendments later, we have inherited our current Election system with some unique and often obsolete elements.
- Voter Registration: this requirement of the voting process is a perfect example of outdated regulations. In the old days, you needed to register for voting so the state could verify your eligibility with certain criteria which some of them don’t exist anymore. It’s easier to provide U.S. citizens with a national identification card (like many other nations), which could be used for many ID purposes including voting eligibility verification.
- Electoral College: in a historical context and with all the challenges that Founding Fathers had to solve, it was easier to appreciate the Electoral System but in the 21st century it’s less complicated and more democratic to implement a “Direct Vote” and value the popular vote for the highest office of the land.
- Election day: many of citizens don’t know why should we be voting on a business day (on a Tuesday in November), and it seems there isn’t a willing power to change it. Yes, historically we were an agrarian society traveling by horse and needed a day to get to the county seat without interfering... but we are not that society anymore. We are living in a different world.
These are not the only problems our election structure is suffering from. The American presidential election process is very long and therefore expensive. There is no starting point limit for campaigns. Long campaigns don’t necessarily increase the participations, and often have negative effects on public affairs when people get tired of too much political noise. Here is a diagram comparing U.S. elections with some other democracies:
I completely agree with Marjan! There are many issues with the way the U.S. votes for president and the electoral college, voter registration card, and the day we vote are a huge part of the problem. The electoral college is such an outdated system and we recently were reminded that it is a system we should just leave in the past and never use it again. A Huffington post called "Why We Should Abolish the Electoral College" it said, "In 48 states, a presidential candidate can win 50.01% of the popular vote in a state, yet receive 100% of the electoral votes from that state." Hearing this is really upsetting and a real eye opener to me and I am not the only one. I never knew this was the way our government worked and no one in my family knew this either. That means that 49% of votes from people who took the time to actually go vote, get thrown in the trash. We need to just do what other countries do - use direct popular vote.
ReplyDeleteMany people who wanted to vote this election this year couldn't do to the fact they had to work. This is why I agree with Marjan when she said we should move it to the weekend or better yet make it a holiday. Either way, presidential elections are only once every four years! That holiday would most likely (hopefully) increase the voter turn out. Our government is nowhere near perfect but hopefully, we will survive these next four years with a guy who is racist, sexist and has no real political background.