Chapter 7 Disccusion Post

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Apr 3, 2024

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1) What were your initial thoughts after reading about the origins of the electoral college? Combined with gerrymandering, what does this tell you about the current state of our current "democratic" process? As a result of reading about the Constitution's origins, my initial impression was that it was aimed at working around slavery and allowing slaves to participate in the population count, but preventing them from voting. At first glance, the electoral college seems to have been used by slave states to manipulate how many votes they were going to receive by including large populations of people that were unable to vote, thus allowing them to control how many votes they would receive. The Electoral College system, along with Gerrymandering, I believe is a sign of corruption in government. By redrawing district lines, politicians abuse the Electoral College so that one party has a higher chance of winning. The two systems that I have mentioned above tell me that our current voting system is corrupt and biased in favor of one party over the other. However, I would like to point out a few observations I would like to make regarding this article. Despite the fact that gerrymandering existed in states like New York, California, Florida, and Texas, I think that these states would not vote for another party regardless of the existence of gerrymandering. As a result, these states have a large number of voters who vote for one party and are dedicated to voting for that party every time. Gerrymandering has the greatest impact on swing states, which account for a small portion of all the states in the country. In addition, the electoral college consists of a small number of these states. In no way am I trying to minimize the corruption that is present in our current system, however, it is a problem that prevents millions of Americans from exercising their right to vote. Elections in our current system are fairly balanced despite corruption. The corruption would still exist if we switched to a different system, but it would look different. It is better to improve the system we have used for a long time than it is to start over from scratch. I think we should stay with the current system even though it has flaws, it is better to improve what we have instead of starting over.
2) Do you think the electoral college is a good system to use even after its legacy? Can it still help balance our government's system of our in-direct democracy? Because the areas of corruption within the electoral college can be fixed within the government, I believe that it can be a good election system. There is one major problem with the electoral college, and that is the issue of gerrymandering, which occurs only due to the ability of politicians to redraw the districts in their favor. There is no doubt that if a third party were to redraw the districts or perhaps the judicial branch were to do so, then the political bias in the districts would be eliminated. In order for the electoral college to be ideal, the idea and policy of eliminating gerrymandering would not be too far- fetched or impossible to implement. There are several ways in which votes could be undocumented or sent twice, so if a popular vote were to be conducted, it could lead to the results of the election being altered in some way. There is a much larger problem that needs to be addressed than just changing who draws district lines in order to track votes and who is voting accurately. A new system would have to be developed by the government in order to keep track of every vote accurately and to provide access to everyone regardless of their status. My observation during the 2020 election was that Arizona was a state that got shed light on because they were sending votes to non-residents and dead people, so the votes had to be recounted as they were sent to non-residents and dead people. It seems to me that this is one problem that has a direct impact on the results, because if a mistake is made with votes in a state that has a strong preference for one party over another, it will not directly affect the results, but it will have an effect on the district in question. I personally think that the current electoral college is doing a good job of balancing our government with the current state of the electoral college. It is an imperfect form of government, but no form of government is, but in the context of our government, I believe it to be the best option.
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