The United States Presidential election process requires serious adjustments in order to reflect the true voting desires of the American public. While the process works just fine in most elections, in the case of a close election count, the process simply breaks down. Since the 1900 presidential election, only the 1916 election was even closely contested. Even in the 1916 election, one candidate, Woodrow Wilson, won both the electoral and the popular vote. No other presidential election comes close to the results of the 2000 presidential election contest and while none have since been as close, we, as the voting public, need to resolve potential future issues regarding election decisions.
The fact is that most of the voting public can be accurately measured by the area of the United States in which they live. In the 2000 presidential elections “…Gore carried voters in our largest cities by a three to one margin. In cities with population between 50,000 and 500,000, Gore’s margin was three to two…the suburbs split evenly…and Bush carried smaller towns and rural areas with 60 percent of the vote” (O’Beirne, 2000). Essentially, in this case, the largest populated cities in America voted for the democratic candidate while the rural areas voted republican. “This geographical divide reflects a cultural split over the role of government…government subsidies and mediation are valued in cities, while in areas less densely populated, government is viewed as a remote force…” (O’Beirne, 2000). To further substantiate those claims, Bush carried more “well-to-do” people and Gore carried the younger and the older voters (arts.bev.net, 2000).
Most of the past presidential elections can certainly be drawn to the areas stated above and have been proven over the past century of presidential elections. The exceptions seem to appear in times of economic crisis or when the American voting public feels a change is needed. The closest election in American history occurred after two successful terms by President Clinton; however, I think there was just enough criticism, perhaps of his personal issues while in office, to cause the American public to truly ponder their new presidential choice. Whatever the case was, we had an election that essentially stood the test of party lines throughout the country which brought the election down, in reality, to one central state, the State of Florida.
One state within the United States carried 25 electoral votes and would have put either candidate in office depending on who won that state. Normally that would not be an issue, however the vote count in Florida was less that 1/2 of 1% difference between the two candidates. Look at it this way, if the electoral process would have allowed a split of the delegates between the two candidates, let’s assume 13 for Bush and 12 for Gore, then the total delegate count would have been 273 to 259 in favor of Gore. ” During the November 2000 presidential election in Florida, restrictive statutory provisions, wide-ranging errors and inadequate and unequal resources in the election process denied countless Floridians the right to vote” (Washington Post, 2001). As Gore had won the African-American vote by a wide margin (90% according to ropercenter.com), ” On a statewide basis, while African Americans comprised about 11% of all voters in Florida in the November 2000 presidential election, African Americans cast about 54% of the ballots that were rejected in the election. Before and during the election state and county officials were aware of several key factors that ultimately contributed to the disenfranchisement of qualified voters” (Washington Post, 2001).
As it turned out multiple suits were filed, some representing the Democratic Party while others representing the Republican Party. The suits filed were first filed to force a re-count and re-vote in the state of Florida and then the Republican Party filed for an injunction to prevent such action. While the Florida Supreme Court voted to force a manual re-count, the Unite States Supreme Court over-ruled that decision and eventually the Democratic Party simply gave in as it seemed to be out of options and Gore was convinced to step aside and accept the loss. What transpired in the state of Florida was simply unacceptable and forced the American public to accept President Elect Bush as our next President. I am quite certain that Gore gave in simply to prevent any long drawn out legal process concerning the election and thus potentially causing a total disruption of our current voting system. In this, our democratic society, where the majority of legal age voters are supposed to choose our leader, we have somehow managed to lose sight of the fact that at some point we may need to alter the current voting system, as we have in the past, in order to have fair and democratic elections. The mere appearance of any voter fraud should have been enough to force the American elected leaders to look closely at our current system in order to avoid any future issues.
As the election process goes now, each party has primary and/or Caucasus in each state (and territories) which determines which representative will represent each party. Each party has the obligation to choose who they feel is the best suited to represent their respective party in the general election. In most general elections, it is fairly evident which candidate will win the general election, both by reviewing the above listed statistical analysis of voting trends and pre-voting polls taken. Each party is supposed to have a candidate that gives the party a good chance to win the election, unfortunately, there are many times when one of the parties is unable to produce a viable candidate which leads to a one sided general election. What we end up with is something very similar to a dictatorship where we, as the American public, really have no choice who we elect as President.
To further analyze this situation we have to look at what it takes to be a potential candidate for President of the United States. First, the candidate must have access to a large amount of money through supporters and from their own sources. Second, the candidate must be able to raise capital to support a large scale campaign. Finally, the candidate must be able to garner support from enough of their constituents. Once they have met those initial three requirements then it is somewhat of a popularity contest and ultimately comes down to the candidate that either takes a stand on an issue or elects not to take any aggressive stances on any particular issues. It is not often that candidates come forward with a direct stance on any major issues unless they are viewed as the underdog and need to do something to set themselves apart from the rest of the candidates. This process typically takes just a few short months in order for the party to be fairly certain which candidate is going to represent them in the general election. In some cases, like the recent 2008 primaries, the process will come down to a point very close to the party convention where each party officially nominates their candidate.
An interesting consideration is that during the Democratic Party primaries, the delegates for each state are split based on the popular vote of each state, in the Republican Party, as in the general election, all of the delegates for each state are awarded to the popular vote winner in the state. Ultimately, the Republican Party’s way of awarding delegates often leads to an early winner for their party’s nomination. With our current voting system our media is accurately declare a “winner” with as little as 1% of the voting in a particular state actually counted. They are able to do this by using past performance, statistics, and exit polling. To me, that has to signal a problem with the way we elect our government officials.
When it comes to the Presidential election we need to take a serious look at how we chose are candidates in the primaries and then look at the general election and make major adjustments so that we can elect the person that the American voting public wants in the highest office in America. Our current system provides for two major political parties, this was not always the case. A look back at our history shows that there were times when we really had no major parties, just candidates for the office of President. Now, with the two party system, we have Republicans, which are typically for smaller government and generally conservative and the Democratic Party which are typically a bit more liberal, open to new ideas, and are generally for more government oversight and responsibility. Of course the values and general views of each party change over time and so should our voting system. We just had a case in which a United States Senator just changed parry affiliation from Republican to Democrat. This is not the first time that this has happened, however, it makes one wonder as to the reasons why the sudden change. Perhaps he felt that the party was a bit closed minded and unwilling to break party lines in order to move forward with changes within our government.
Moral values and party base beliefs change over a period of time it should therefore make sense that our voting system change to allow for those changes. There are states that will always vote for one party or the other, based on their voting history, without regard for who the candidate really is but rather which party the candidate belongs to. What we end up with is people blindly voting by party lines simply based on the primary party beliefs. While this may have been satisfactory at some time in the past, it certainly no longer applies. Changes to each of the party’s general beliefs over a period of time really change the dynamics of each party and what they actually stand for.
I am really not advocating a complete overhaul of our voting system, just some changes to the general election process. If we simply allow states to break up their electoral votes to go more along the lines of the popular vote, we would have a certain improvement over our currently broken system. Had that been the case in the 2000 election, Gore would have been elected President and, perhaps, changed the course of our history for the following 4-8 years.
With a closer examination of the potential ramifications of the 2000 Presidential election one can certainly see what has occurred in our country and where we are at right now. The Electoral votes, mistakenly, put Bush in the office of President of the United States, the democrats were unable to put forth a viable candidate (John Kerry) in the 2004 election so Busch was again elected President and by the end of his two terms in office America was involved in two wars, had a substantial increase in our debt, and were in a terrible recession. During that period of time, Democrats were able to replace enough Republicans in both the House and Senate so that now they have a majority in both Houses of Congress. When it came time for the 2008 Presidential Elections, the American people had enough of the Republican leadership in the White House and overwhelmingly elected the Democratic Nominee, now President Obama. Now, as much as I support President Obama, and the democrats as a whole, we might as well place a crown on the head of President Obama as he can literally get just about any legislation he so chooses with control of both the House and the Senate. He really does not need to be bi-partisan to accomplish what he wants to accomplish, he may want to be bi-partisan, but the reality is he does not need to be in order to be effective. We, as the American public are essentially at the mercy of the Democrats for at least the next two years and probably four. We have essentially placed a dictator in the highest office in America and we can do nothing about it.
This, again, begs the question, was it really worth having an inadequate voting system in place just to place President Bush in office? Would it have been better, and would we, as Americans, been better served if we had the person the public actually voted for in office at that time? I propose that we, at a minimum, break apart the electoral voting system or at least allow for the electoral votes to be split based on the popular vote of each state. How many people of voting age do not actually even cast a vote for fear that their vote will not even matter? I would say that in those states in which the electoral votes have gone for one particular party with overwhelming consistency those numbers are quite high. For example, I reside in a state that has voted Republican since before I was even born. Although I was not born here, I have lived here the last ten years and have mainly voted for the Democratic candidate even though I realize that my vote really has no bearing on the general election as all the electoral votes ultimately go to the Republican candidate. There is certainly a problem with any system that essentially discounts the individual voter. If the electoral votes were able to be split between based on the popular vote I would suggest that we would have an even greater voter turn-out and, perhaps, even get a candidate in office that the American people have voted for by a majority.
We, as the American voting public must take action to correct the obvious deficiencies in our current voting system before we have another fiasco like the 2000 Presidential elections. The United States Presidential election process requires serious adjustments in order to reflect the true voting desires of the American public. While the process works just fine in most elections, in the case of a close election count, the process simply breaks down. We cannot afford to have another repeat of the 2000 election and all the future ramifications that go along with those kinds of mistakes.
References
- Kaplan University, Choices, About Freedom and Justice Concepts, Copyright 2008, pp 176-179 (retrieval date 04/14/09).
- http://research.uvu.edu/DeSart/forecasting/october.html
- http://www.govspot.com/election/electionprocess.htm
- http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/index.html
- http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~eagleton/e-gov/e-politicalarchive-2000.htm
- http://www.presidentelect.org/e2000.html
- http://election2000.stanford.edu/
- http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781450.html
- http://arts.bev.net/roperldavid/politics/exitpolls.htm
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/ccrdraft060401.htm