Since the start of this election process I have been angry. Mostly from the moment the party nominations were announced I have felt sad and disappointed. Our country is a democracy, yet very few liked the individuals who were nominated. Anyone can legally be America’s president, but we chose two candidates who are hated by a majority. This is the opposite of what should occur in a democratically run country. My original ideas about the way we should elect our country’s officials were anger-filled and desperate. After hours of researching, my mind has been educated and realized how interconnected problems are. Any problems we solve will be traded out for new ones.
Going about my topical research I began with googling large questions, such as, “What should change about the United States’ presidential election process?”. These did not lead to fruitful articles of information, mostly just extremist, everyday citizens ranting. This is when I figured out that specifics are a researcher’s best friend. I then decided to start with the main problem of this most recent election–the Electoral College. Going into this I was totally anti-Electors. I hated the idea of how undemocratic they were. Our country may vote overwhelming for one candidate, and they may win the popular vote, but they won’t necessarily be the one inaugurated in January. Research showed me all the difficulties with changing our legislation, as well as possible uproar from citizens. Also it introduced me to a group called National Popular Vote which is a group who is already in the process–quite far into it too– of attempting to get around the Constitution with nationalizing popular vote. The laws this group is advocating for are passed into individual State’s government. These laws would cast their electoral votes towards the candidate who won the popular vote, thus guaranteeing the popular vote winner would win the presidency. I still believe that the Electoral College should go, but I realize the complexities of the issue.
One of the issues that would arise without the Electoral College would be the issue of campaign spending. Politicians spend outrageous amounts of money appealing to the few swing states that exist now, if they had to appeal to the entire U.S. the spending would be even larger. Next up I had to research the issue of campaign spending, which is a gigantic issue in itself. I read countless articles about simply the issue of individual donations to campaigns. In these articles I heard the names of PACs and superPACs thrown around, which forced me to look into articles on first, what they are, and second, if they should exist.
Every article read produces four or more new questions to ask. I feel like this researching could be my full-time job and I would never run out of articles to read. Although it is a long and arduous process, it is quite rewarding and fun.
Nice post, Haley! I was wondering if you think that a change like the ones you mentioned are really possible? What I mean is, if the constitution was amended to change the election process, do you think that the two major parties (and the minor parties as well) would accept the new change or would they bicker and fight amongst themselves? In my opinion, you have a good base of information for your research paper. Keep it up!