The United States has become the center of attention with the upcoming presidential election between hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This election is still a few months away but the candidates have been verbally firing shots at one another for years on end. With president Obama leaving office after serving eight years, a new candidate will have the opportunity to implement a new plan and direction for this country. Thus, this election is extremely important and could have beneficial or detrimental impacts. While people are excited to vote in the upcoming months, they fail to realize that the system for voting within the United States is flawed. A shift should be made in the ‘democratic’ process and prestigious view held around voting.
"Amerika! Amerika The Great!" Many American’s seem to view themselves as the best people on the planet and belonging to the best nation in the world. While this is far from true, this view has hindered the United States from improving flawed systems. For example, views like this prevented women equal rights as men or allowing gays the ability to marry one another. The election system within this country has never been questioned, it’s simply been accepted and viewed as tradition, but times have changed and thus the system for voting should.
The Electoral College is a system used to indirectly elect the president of the United States. You would think that a direct election would be more beneficial but apparently this would ruin tradition. One of the main problems is this means that a candidate could be the loser of the popular vote and still win the election. This means although a majority of the country wants candidate A to win, Candidate B could still be the president. This has occurred in four out of 56 elections, which although rare, still happens. Another problem is the Electoral College distorts the process of campaigning as it priorities the big states and ignores the smaller ones as they are not worth winning. This means more than 40 states often don’t receive campaign visits, according to Eric Black’s article “10 Reasons Why The Electoral College Is A Problem." If you live in California or New York, you can expect advertisements from the leading parties, but if you reside in North Dakota, very little attention will be paid to you.
The election process is flawed in the actual voting polls as well. Since there are no national standards set on whom can vote, states are given the power. Some states thus allow convicted criminals to vote, while others do not. Also, some people may not be able to make it to the polls on Election Day. People with very labor intensive jobs, disabled people or people with multiple jobs are either forced to take off a day or decline their right to vote. But once you make it out to the polls you still aren't guaranteed your vote will even count. Every state is in charge of their own ballot—there is a large variety on which type of ballot is selected. For example, in 2000 there was an election ballot that was poorly designed, but this is a common issue in every election.
Lastly, one of the problems within the election process is the candidates. Candidates try to argue that they understand the common man when in reality most, if not all, are wealthy prior to running. It is nearly impossible for the average person to run for office. For example, in 2012 Obama spent over $930 million on his campaign, which most citizens would never be able to afford. This narrows down the people who can participate in elections, and thus the elected individuals never truly understand the common person.
Getting more people to come out to the polls is an important aspect that is shoved down people’s throats. I know whenever I walk from one class to another, across campus people ask me if I’m registered to vote. While I am, I don’t think I’ll be voting anytime soon. Voting among people 18-24 has the lowest turnout, which is sad as we are the future of the nations. Yet since the process of voting is flawed, maybe you should think twice about voting. Not to mention many people are uninformed on the issues and are simply following their parents footsteps, but I’ll touch on that more next week. Voting is a choice at the end of the day and making a conscious choice to decline is a better option then voting just to vote.
