American Gov't Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

American Govt - Essay ExampleThe federal elections envision an electoral or indirect approach to elections but the states are free to decide the precise formula by which its own electoral votes are counted.The Electoral College has been the qualified of much debate and criticism such criticism tends to derive from the fact that a presidential candidate can win the popular vote and remedy fail to win because of the nuances of the Electoral College. Such criticism is hardly abstract as George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in just this way. non only can the Electoral College operate to deny the popular vote, but it can also render certain states increasingly important and other states increasingly trivial or irrelevant as far as presidential elections are concerned. Large swing states with winner-take-all electoral laws, for instance, receive much attention and more personal time than other states. Under this electoral system, Florida becomes more important than California, Ohio more imp ortant than New York, and Pennsylvania more important than Texas.What ought to be a national election, reflecting a broad spectrum of national interests and concerns, instead becomes a carefully calculated race to secure electoral votes at the expense of popular votes and wide-ranging swing states at the expense of smaller states. It might be cynical to suggest that such a system thwarts notions of popular democracy, and yet it seems difficult to go under the consequences of an Electoral College with notions of one-person-one vote. To be sure, one person does not really equate to one vote under this system and the particular value to be charge to a vote depends on the states underlying approach to the allocation of electoral votes as well as to whether the voter resides in a large swing state, a large non-swing state, or a smaller state. The ideals of popular democracy, and