A Smarter Election 2016. Last Night

The authors dissected and explained every portion of the Iowa Caucuses exceptionally well, to the point where Why Iowa? could be used as a textbook for a middle school class learning about the presidential nominating process. Not to undermine the text, it’s just written very simply and is fact based, citing countless studies and including many graphs with

Throughout the past presidential election, and many others, the ideal of electing the president by popular vote has been at an all-time high conversation topic compared to previous years. While many argue that the Electoral College defeats the purpose of voting, and diminishes the majority’s voice, this is certainly not the case. Without the Electoral College, elections would quickly become, and encourage, radical and corrupt ways in their voting systems, that could possibly result in a detrimental nationwide political crisis of voter fraud, and a rise to direct democracy.

Many people hail the Electoral College as democratic, but the 2016 Presidential Election was anything except democratic. The highly scrutinized leader, Donald J. Trump, won a majority of the Electoral College, sealing his place as the Forty-Fifth President of the United States, but did not receive the majority of votes, as the popular vote went to Hillary Clinton. The results of previous elections have not reflected the people’s opinions, and it disenfranchised millions of Americans. Although the Electoral College is outlined in the United States Constitution, it reflects the needs of an eighteenth century society (Amar, 2016). Because the Electoral College does not meet the needs of a twenty-first century society, it should be replaced by a national popular vote where voter registration is based on a test regarding basic knowledge of the United States government.

Undoubtedly, the last 80 years have brought the biggest change to the election process - polling. Beginning with the Gallup poll in 1936, the industry has become a titanic business, growing unregulated by the United States government. Frequently, polls have come under fire for their inaccuracy, or for their role in blocking the Democratic process (the 2000 and 2004 elections come to mind). Nonetheless, the 1992 election was not notable because of alleged bias, but because of what the polls said about

A version of this article appears in print on December 4, 2016, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Maine Adopts New Way Of Counting Ballots. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Many African American voters all across the country were disenfranchised by being turned away or not having their vote counted due to errors. Over 1.9 million# Americans cast ballots which were either rejected or not counted, and roughly 1 million of them belonged to African Americans nationwide. Florida’s Gadsden County, which had the highest percentage of African Americans in the whole state, disregarded and did not count 1 out of every 8 ballots cast. One of the reasons votes were not being counted was due to ‘stray marks’. Stray marks render votes invalid as it is unclear who the voter was choosing, because it appeared as if they chose more than one candidate. Another was when the voter writes in a candidate’s name, as the machine or person cannot understand what the intention was therefore the vote goes to neither candidate and is disregarded. In many cases, African Americans wrote in ‘Al Gore’, however, optical reading machines marked these as rejects because ‘Al’ was interpreted as a stray mark. Of the nearly 180,000 ballots that were cast out by Florida officials, 53% of them belonged to African American voters. In the more caucasian districts such as Tallahassee, everything seemed to run smoothly, it was almost unheard of to hear about an uncounted or discarded ballot. In contrast, in the predominantly African American populated districts, hundreds of African Americans showed up at the polls to have their votes simply disappear, and this was even after if they managed to escape the purge

As the pillars of the electoral college collapse under the tests of time, the institution itself becomes obsolete. First, the concept of, “Winner Takes All,” means that if an election splits 49%-51%, then the smaller party’s votes are virtually erased. This system represents only the majority party in each state, thus effectively silencing all other parties. Additionally, basing the number of electors on the members in both houses of Congress creates an unequal distribution of votes across the states. Due to their infamously low population, Wyoming should statistically have only one elector, but the addition of their two senators brings them to a total of three electors. This means that each of Wyoming’s votes represents less people than every other state. For instance, each of Texas’s 38 votes represents 733,157 people while each of Wyoming’s votes represents 195,157 people. Therefore, the votes of the people of Wyoming are worth 26.62% more than that of Texans. The inequality of voting power between states combined with the “winner take all” system method of tallying votes projects an inaccurate portrayal of will of the American people.

There is a lot of pressure forced on the candidates because of the knowledge that, “for the last ten Iowa Caucuses, Iowa has identified the nation’s two primary picks for the top runner from both the Democratic and Republican Party five times and from just the Democratic Party six times” (Iowa Caucus). Additionally, “in the past, the Iowa Caucuses have become more of a clearing field in determining which candidates will stay in the race and which candidates will throw in the towel” (2016 Iowa Caucus). These statistics illustrate how important the Iowa Caucus is. History has shown that the Iowa Caucus at times seems to predict the future candidates that will succeed in the presidential election by eliminating the candidates and narrowing the parties

As in the past, the media was covering the all important election. They had always relied on exit polls as the polls closed across the nation. In reality, the Florida results were just too close to call. Nevertheless, that did not stop the media from doing so. Not once, but twice, major news media outlets were erroneous in their report. Around 8pm, it was declared that Al Gore was the projected winner of the electoral votes in the state of Florida. However, a couple of hours later, the projection was retracted and restated as Florida as being too close to call. Then, just after 2am on November 8, the mistake was made for a second time. The major networks declared George W. as the winner. This even led to Al Gore calling the Governor to concede. However, as Gore prepared to address his supporters in Nashville, Tennessee, he was alert to the shrinking numbers in Bush¡¦s lead. The final total was now less than one half of a percent lead in favor of Bush. That immediately calls for a recount of votes under state law. Subsequently, Gore called Bush and retracted his concession. It wasn¡¦t over yet! One thing was, Al Gore had prevailed in the popular vote but without Florida¡¦s tally, the electoral vote was up in the air. The election wasn¡¦t over and the recounts began.

In the Albert Gorse versus George Bush election of 2000, Albert Gorse won the popular vote by 547,398 votes. However, George Bush won the election because of the Electoral College process. Normally, the winner of the popular vote wins the office or election. However, during this election it was not the case. Albert Gore did not win by a landslide; nevertheless, he still won the popular vote (Deatrick, 2012). While the typical American citizen may say that this one case is insignificant compared to the other elections, the significance recides in the mind of the person who was running for President and for the American citizens who voted for their

A number of Americans fail to realize that when they vote they are not voting for the president and vice-president directly, but for electors who then cast their ballots in the Electoral College. Until the recent battle between Gov. George W. Bush and Vice-president Al Gore for the presidency, this new generation of American voters has never witnessed a controversial election. Historically, there have been problematic elections allowing voters to question this system. The Electoral College is now a process open to criticism and debate, specifically because many do not understand its origin or purpose today. On November 7, 2000, Election Day, I was excited to become an official voter.

It doesn’t take a political expert to see that the 2000 presidential election between Bush and Gore was extremely illegitimate. This can be observed through the recount incident which took place in the state of Florida. Many people, especially seniors, felt that they had not voted for the right candidate, which was due to a confusing ballot setup. The ballots were called “butterfly ballots”. These ballots, as one could imagine, had candidates on either side which the voter could choose from. Seems simple enough, right? Unfortunately, that was not the case. The font on the ballots were extremely minuscule, as well as condensed. To add to that, the voter had to use a pin to make a puncture next to their selection. Some people, who were either

According to recent surveys, the role of the Electoral College is enveloped in mystery as far as the ordinary American voter is concerned. There have been issues pertaining to the legitimacy of the Electoral College and its effect on the democratic voting process. This work seeks to elicit the challenges brought about by the college as well as their implications on the larger political community. To this effect, this work has analyzed political texts to understand the effects of the college on American politics. In addition, this work has given evidence suggesting that the college causes inadequate distribution of power among states, it also allows for minimal oversight as well as undue influence over electors. Furthermore, it creates room

Lane Manley Mrs. Angie Smith English 1020 13 January 2017 Electoral College: Constitutional or Destructive? In the last decade and a half, American people have been left with feelings of doubt and uncertainty in terms of the true value of their vote. During the election of 2000 and now 2016, a presidential candidate has won the popular vote; yet, this candidate had failed to obtain enough votes from the Electoral College. The debate as to whether each individual’s vote had truly counted has become an issue in both the media and in the general public’s minds.

After every American presidential election, some citizens are upset with the results, but nothing has been seen quite like the 2016 election. On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton via the Electoral College, 306 votes to 232 votes (“2016 Election Results”). However, Clinton had won the National Popular vote by almost three million votes, leaving many Americans outraged. For example, outgoing Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) tried to put forth legislation to scrap the Electoral College as a whole (Linkins). America was so divided during the election that independent candidate Gary Johnson received almost 10 percent of the votes in New Mexico which is unheard of for a third-party candidate (“2016 Election Results”). The 2016 Election proves why America needs the Electoral College. The Federal Election Commission should keep the Electoral College system in place.