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The United States election process
How does gerrymandering affect elections
Electoral process us politics
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The article is written by Richard Fenno in 1978, summarizing the dilemma of congressmen in the contemporary time. The author was specifically discussing about members of the House, who always seek for reelection during his legislative career, as stated in the initial part of the paper. Fenno went on to propose the conflict in incumbent congressmen 's career: more attention for the Washington career leads to less attention for the congressmen 's home state. The Washington career required commitment to build up support within the House. However, focusing on Washington rendered the congressman homeless, or losing his home 's supportive forces.
However, reelection being the motivator of members of Congress isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The motivation to be reelected incentivizes members of Congress to enact legislation and constantly work to improve the lives of citizens. Regardless of motive, as long as legislation is being passed through the House and members of Congress like Representative Long are improving the conditions of their district, the purpose of government is being
Gerrymandering Position Paper Gerrymandering is the irregular redrawing of district lines to give one political party an advantage. Gerrymandering usually starts with a census. Every ten years, it is necessary to recount the people to redistribute the seats for the members of the House of Representatives. If a state gains or loses states it is necessary to reapportion the state.
In any election, many factors influence the outcome. The Philadelphia Congressional Election of 1794 was between Federalist Thomas Fitzsimmons and Democratic-Republican John Swanwick. The support from different socio-economic groups was split between the candidates, and multiple variables affected the voters’ opinions. The candidates’ backgrounds, views and opinions on different political issues, and the voters themselves all proved important factors in the election.
and i totally agree with that. In the end partisan and racial gerrymandering is equally as bad and is very unfair toward any group.
But recently gerrymandering has become more controversial because people feel that it has taken away their rights as a voter and it swings the votes to one side by a big percentage. Current cases are before the courts to decide if gerrymandering is legal. Some states have been discussing whether it should still be allowed during elections. “Many efforts are underway to remedy this political
Republicans won again in a tight race against the Democrats, taking away 56% of the overall votes in the polls. However, Democrats ended up with only 5 out of the 18 seats in the House of Representatives (Gerrymandering Rigged). By winning 44% of the overall votes, the Democrats were only able to represent 27% in the House of Representatives due to the congressional districts drawn up by Republicans. This shows how large of an effect gerrymandering can have when used to its fullest extent. There is an uneven proportion of representation in the House of Representatives due to the congressional districts drawn up by whichever political party is in office.
What is a constituency, and why do constituencies differ for representatives and senators? A constituency is a group of individual voters in a specific area who elect a representative to a legislative body. Constituencies differ for representatives and senators: • Representatives – represent a district or area of a state and sometimes a whole state • Senators – represent the whole state Explain briefly how reapportionment and redistricting work? Why is gerrymandering frowned upon?
Although this seems a reasonable approach this causes more of an issue of fragmentation than congressional district ting. Lastly, there is the Electoral College with super electors. This idea was introduced by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in 2000. he proposed that “... candidates would continue to compete for electors on a state-by-state, winner-take-all basis, but the winner of the national popular vote would be awarded a set of bonus
The popularity of the members of Congress and Congress overall has been declining as the years pass and time changes. The dissatisfaction and disapproval of the public is so high because according to David Mayhew who wrote Congress the Electoral Connection members of Congress are single-minded people who are only focused on reelection, involve in “smart” behavior such as position taking, credit-claiming and advertisement. Also, according to Mayhew parties are weak, however, that is all not true people tend to vote more so for their party than the person in general. Arnold the writer of Logic of Congressional Outcome, states that Congress has many things to take into account such as citizen preference, robe-challenger, has to take into account
For example, in a safe state, which is a state that is known to vote for a certain political party in each election, the minority party will not get representation because the state will be voting in a certain way. This is true for both the Democrats and Republicans because there are safe states for each, where the minority party in a state can vote but all of the electoral votes will still go towards the majority. For these reasons, the winner-take-all system is a problem with the Electoral
When politicians gerrymander, it takes away the people's power in an election says professor of political science Erik J. Engstrom (Engstrom 192). When the people lose their role in government, it causes an efficiency gap (Stephanopoulos and McGhee 850). An efficiency gap "…represents the difference between the parties' respective wasted votes in an election - where a vote is wasted if it is cast (1) for a losing candidate, or (2) for a winning candidate but in excess of what she needed to prevail (Stephanopoulos and McGhee 834). " The state of California's House members has caught on to the injustices to the people, and they have almost completely eradicated gerrymandering in their state (Blake). The injustices of gerrymandering become more apparent when it comes to minorities (Engstrom 198).
However, this is also one of his major flaws while he did care for the people of his country he did not give the government enough of his attention. Due to the previous history of conflicts, many began losing faith in The United States, no longer believe it to be the great country as advertised by the American dream (Costello et al). Reagan brought it on himself to go back to the old ways of thinking from the glory days of prosperity and growth. Reagan’s influence has spread throughout the 1980’s prompting many like Miller to yearn for the rugged individualism that was the 1940s. Within Frank Miller’s Batman, it can be argued that he himself was influenced by Reagan's views so much so that he injected this view in creating Batman.
On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December of a leap year, five hundred and thirty eight electors travel to their state capitol buildings to decide who is the next president of the United States of America. They take an oath, and cast the official ballots for the presidential election. The problem is that this system is not fair. So, which way of electoral college reform is the best? In this essay, some options for electoral college reform are introduced, and the best one is chosen.
On November 6, 2012, Donald Tump tweeted from his personal twitter account that “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy”. Four years later, he went on to win the electoral vote for presidency. His opponent had nearly three million more popular votes. The electoral college is a population based system that has decided general elections ever since the Constitution was written, often falling with the popular vote. It is strange for the electoral not to vote the way of the people, especially since there is nothing thing in the Constitution that pledges electoral votes to a candidate.